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The challenge: 10 platforms and no single source of truth
Before ToucanTech, the AIA Philadelphia community ran on a web of tools that didn’t necessarily talk to one another. Event registrations went through TicketLeap or Eventbrite. Newsletters and email lists lived in Constant Contact, and Salesforce was the team’s CRM. An aging website had been patched so many times it could no longer do what the team needed.
"Instead of just using ToucanTech, we had maybe 10 other platforms," Juli recalls. "There was no single source of data, which was incredibly frustrating as someone who's really involved with data."
SSo when the team discovered a platform that combined a website, database, email, and events in one place, everyone agreed it was a great find.
One back end, two organizations, and three websites
AIA Philadelphia and Design Philadelphia share roughly 70% of their audience — architects who also want to know what's happening across the wider design community. Running them on separate systems didn’t make sense to the team.
With ToucanTech's multi-site setup, the team manages three websites — the AIA Philadelphia site, the Center site, and the Design Philadelphia festival site — from one shared back end.
"I can see everything in the AIA login. I don't need a separate login — I can do all the same stuff. It's incredibly valuable," Juli says.
The website itself has also become part of the brand. Working with a graphics consultant, the team redesigned the site around a moving homepage background and simplified the member experience so the front and back end look the same.
"Our space has to be beautiful because of who we represent," Juli says. "It has to look the part, and our website is a big piece of that."
Running a packed events calendar
"Our executive director always says we're like an events management company sometimes, and we really are," says Juli.
Signature chapter events, allied member programs, and a full committee calendar all flow through ToucanTech.
Recent event features that have landed particularly well:
- Ticket caps — "that's been a big game changer"
- Discount codes built directly into registration
- Timed event closing, so registrations switch off automatically instead of someone doing it manually
- Back-end registration changes — swapping attendee details when an assistant books on someone else's behalf
- Record tagging, so event and newsletter activity shows up on each member's profile
Faster emails, stronger engagement
Daphne Gsell, Engagement and Communications Manager, runs newsletters for both organizations, and email duplication has quietly transformed her week.
"Being able to just duplicate our weekly email and make very quick adjustments has been huge. Sometimes it would take hours for one email to go out. Now it's really streamlined; those emails don't take much time at all."
And the results show in the numbers. The chapter's monthly thought leadership newsletter, built on content from volunteer experts, regularly performs above industry benchmarks: "Those monthly emails do really well, sometimes even over 50% open rate," says Daphne. The email dashboard also makes it easy to pull together engagement data and share with the wider team.
Finance and fundraising in one view
Sponsorship and fundraising for both organizations, from annual sponsors to the chapter's golf outing, are also tracked in ToucanTech, with a new closeout process reconciling each line against the accounting system.
Reporting by fund or by company has been a highlight: "It's nice to pull reports by fund, by company. I’ve had really good success with that," says Juli.
Advice for other associations
Other AIA chapters regularly ask the Philadelphia team about their setup, and the answer doesn't change.
“People ask us and we always tell them yes, we’d definitely recommend ToucanTech — and then we have a long conversation about what we love about it."
What’s next
The team is looking forward to bringing company membership management fully into ToucanTech, giving their new membership manager one streamlined system to work from. And later this year, AIA Philadelphia and Design Philadelphia will join forces on a Beaux Arts Ball, a full collaboration between the two teams.
