When Higher Logic announced Higher Logic Thrive, the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) immediately saw an opportunity to improve their popular online community, NRPA Connect. They aimed to be one of the first organizations to implement the new product.
NRPA Connect is their number-one member benefit, and usage increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. They wanted to invest in their members, refresh their design, and build out their resource library. Their upgrade reignited staff and member passion.
“[Upgrading to Higher Logic Thrive] has been an awesome opportunity to engage people who hadn’t navigated to our NRPA Connect community in a long time, or who had only been engaging with the daily digest emails.”
Michael Biedenstein
Volunteer and Awards Manager, NRPA
The document library in NRPA Connect houses over 4,000 member resources, which have been collected over 8 years. By upgrading to Higher Logic Thrive, NRPA made their library easier to navigate and more user-friendly so members can always find what they’re looking for.
In addition to cleaning up their document library, NRPA leveraged the new logged-out homepage to better display the value of NRPA Connect and, ultimately, of membership to prospects.
“Having the upgraded Higher Logic Thrive Community has excited us to play around more – to use automation rules and other tools – in a great way. It’s not only built up our members’ enthusiasm but staff enthusiasm as well.”
Hayley Herzing
Senior Manager of Membership, NRPA
NRPA launched their new community alongside their large annual conference – leveraging what they see as their “big crescendo” event to drive awareness of the new community features and to inspire wider adoption of NRPA Connect among members and staff.
Having something new to share also gave their marketing team an opportunity to reconnect with members who hadn’t been using the community much and nonmembers who hadn’t joined yet.
“If I had a quarter for the number of times members said ‘I didn’t realize the community had that’ – when it had it all along! Upgrading to Higher Logic Thrive let us package it in this new, modern way, with improved navigation and UX, and it’s drawn new attention.”
Karen Carter
Librarian & Senior Manager of Information Services, NRPA
NRPA has been blown away by the enthusiasm for the new NRPA Connect community. From the moment they launched the community at their conference, members started sharing positive feedback and excitement. Though they were able to repurpose a lot of what they already had, members told them it feels brand new, modern, and even easier to use.
And it’s not just members who are sharing excitement – they’ve seen a significant impact on staff as well. Processes that were bumpy or time-consuming in the past are being made better by using Higher Logic Thrive.
Staff have been inspired to create new resources for the document library and are eagerly using automation rules to save time on member outreach. They’ve also been brainstorming new ways to use NRPA Connect for small-group facilitation – things like committee, board, and award management – which would help NRPA avoid investing in additional software.
“In terms of saving staff time: the fact that we’re using the Higher Logic Thrive to facilitate the awards committee has been a huge time-saver – especially for me as a newer staff member. I rarely have to go digging through old records or emails from former staff. The process and communication were handled primarily through our online community, NRPA Connect, so I can see the cadence of those past internal committee discussions, processes, and deadlines. Having that archive is really awesome.”
Michael Biedenstein
Volunteer and Awards Manager, NRPA
The National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) is the leading not-for-profit organization dedicated to building strong, vibrant, and resilient communities through the power of parks and recreation. Their network includes more than 60,000 park and recreation professionals and advocates. NRPA champions the work of their members and supports the field through professional development, advocacy, grants and programs, research, publications, and more
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