When Vermont Family Forests offers a workshop, course, or public event, an online ticketing platform is immensely helpful in managing registrations and—if the event involves a fee—processing payments. We recently switched to a ticketing company that is both socially responsible and lower cost than what we’ve been using for the past several years, and we’re excited to tell you about it.
Back in the olden days—until about 10 years about, that is—we handled payments for our workshops, courses, and events by mailed-in check. This was a cumbersome process involving several steps and people—opening the envelope, noting the payment on the registration list, handing it off to our bookkeeper to enter into QuickBooks, depositing the check at the bank, and mailing or emailing the registrant a copy of their receipt. If someone later cancelled their registration—as happens in every class, often a number of times—our bookkeeper needed to create a refund check that was then signed by our executive director, put in an envelope, stamped, and placed in the mailbox at the post office across the Bristol green from our office.
Because we try to set registration fees for our courses as low as possible, the margin between breaking even and dipping into the red is slim, and every hands-on interaction around the registration process narrows that gap.
In 2016, we learned about an online ticketing platform called Eventbrite, and we jumped on board. The per-ticket processing fee was significant (it’s currently 3.7% of the ticket price + $1.79 per sold ticket, so for a $100 ticket, Eventbrite charges $5.49), but the time- and hassle-savings for us was immense. Eventbrite worked well for us for the most part, and we were reluctant to contemplate a change. Especially in the non-profit world, if it ain’t broke, it often makes sense to stay the course, since a change can take many hours to configure and learn.
But we recently learned about Humanitix, and were quickly sold enough to make the change. Their ticket processing fee is much less (1% + $0.99 per sold ticket, so for a $100 ticket, Humanitix charges $1.99) For most of our events, we pass the ticket fees on to the buyer, so those Humanitix savings will be a direct savings to our attendees. In our Game of Logging courses alone, the combined savings to our students is around $600 a year.
Best of all, Humanitix donates 100% of their profits to public service initiatives around the world in education, accessibility for people with disabilities, health care, and the environment. They’ve donated over $10 million to date. That’s our kind of ticketing platform!
The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding. We’ll be offering our first events through Humanitix this summer and have high hopes for smooth and beneficial results. As always, we welcome your feedback on how it works for you.
