The Pro License – Pass the Fee
The Pro License passes a small fee per application to the fan participant, at application submittal. This fee pays for the festiVOL™ program license – there is no limit or minimum threshold on applications submitted, and the first 5 applications per event are always free, to allow for testing or other purposes.
Events may choose to add their own processing fee as well, on top of the festiVOL™ fee, to retain for program revenues. Events may also turn on Reimbursable Ticket sales (festiVOL™ assesses a 3% + $1.99 per ticket fee), to protect ticket entry and increase program revenues.
The Fun Run
The Organizers of the Fun Run wanted to empower their community members to get involved in their event. They knew they had an avid community of health-conscious and roll-up-the-sleeves fans – they wanted to both honor and empower these event ambassadors with their fan labor program. They felt that providing their fans an opportunity to get involved was a true win-win for all involved.
Organizers considered providing free passes to their fan participants, as a way to give back and incentivize their program – a ticket exchange. They decided that this would not be the best incentive as many of the shifts were during the event itself. They decided they would provide event t-shirts to all participants – they felt this would both provide the event with a polished and cohesive look for attendees, and also be a cool souvenir for program volunteer participants.
Organizers decided they needed a software and framework to manage volunteer shift requests, skills, and the scheduling and onsite management processes. They wanted to provide professional management that spoke to the value of their event, and the integrity of the program they were building out – they chose festiVOL™.
When deciding on their license type, they weighed the factors that they felt were most important to their program. They felt that the small festiVOL™ fee would not deter valuable participants, would actually deter committed interested persons. They felt they would rather have a smaller initial recruitment number and a smaller percentage of no-shows to shifts, rather than a large recruitment number of volunteers that they processed and scheduled but would never show to the shifts. As they were footing the expense of the T-shirts, they felt that passing along the small fee was acceptable, and so they chose to move forward with the Pro Licensing program.
The value that the festiVOL™ program brought to their event was tangible! Participants never felt in the dark on information – they knew what their shifts were and were pleased with the process as a whole. It was organized and provided them with preferences in their schedules, which gave them the personalized experience they appreciated. Organizers were able to manage the preferences with the automated tools that festiVOL™ provides, and so they spent less time on individualizing the experience, and more time on ensuing shifts were filled and patron services were well tended. Upon post-survey, participants did not bring up the up-front fee as a contention point. Organizers felt they had made the right decision for their event, and are happy to be a part of the festiVOL™ community for many events to come!