The challenge: Too much time lost to admin

Running 60 events a year, CleanTech Alliance needed a platform that could keep up — but their previous system, Atlas (Personify MC Trade), was creating more work than it saved.

Up to 20% of new event registrants needed manual help just to complete registration. For a webinar with 100 new attendees, that alone could cost the events coordinator 5–6 hours. Data was fragmented across multiple systems, mailing lists required constant manual upkeep, and shared resources were buried in SharePoint where members rarely found them.

CleanTech Alliance needed a solution that could handle tiered memberships, partner-managed member groups, and large mailing lists — without adding to the team's workload.

The results: Events that work

A zero-friction launch

The Alliance’s first public event on ToucanTech was a webinar — and it set the tone for what was possible. Over 100 people registered, many of whom had never been on the Alliance’s previous platform. The events team did not need to offer assistance to any of them.

This was a stark contrast to the past. New registrants on Atlas regularly struggled, generating a stream of support requests that fell to the events coordinator to handle. On ToucanTech, the platform handled it all.

More than 5 hours saved per event

The events coordinator estimates she saved 5–6 hours of work time on that first webinar alone. Previously, helping 10–20% of new registrants navigate registration was simply part of the job.

Multiplied across 60 events per year and the numbers are significant — potentially hundreds of hours returned to the team annually. Hours that can go into building better events, reaching new members, and doing the work that actually matters.

Reaching new audiences

Of the 100+ attendees at that first webinar, a significant number were people who had never engaged with the Alliance before. They found the platform, registered themselves, and showed up, all with no friction or hand-holding. For a industry association trying to grow its reach in the cleantech sector, that matters enormously.

Four new workflows discovered in a single week

The events story is just the start. In the first week after launch, the CleanTech Alliance team identified five distinct ways ToucanTech was already changing how they work, without any additional training or setup. Here’s what they found:

1. Publishing resources where members can actually find them

Staff previously shared resources by emailing documents around or dropping files in SharePoint. Now, resources go straight onto the platform, tagged to the right committees, visible to the right members, and accessible to everyone on the team.

2. Real-time intelligence on member engagement

When Mel published an RFP as a news article with an attached document, she could see within seconds which contractors had downloaded it and were likely bidding. On the previous platform, that kind of insight simply didn’t exist. The Alliance had sent out RFPs before and never received a single bid, now suspecting many never saw them.

3. Smarter mailing list management

Over 13,000 contacts previously managed through Constant Contact and multiple static user groups have been consolidated into a single, preference-based system. Staff can now run a saved filter to build each mailing list rather than juggling separate groups. When someone’s membership tier changes, their communication preferences update automatically — no manual intervention required.

4. Getting marketing out of inboxes and onto the platform

Mel’s team is actively retraining staff to stop burying content in email threads and start publishing it on the platform. Whether it’s a committee resource, a staff agenda item, or a member-facing update, it now lives somewhere everyone can find it.

Data, memberships, and what’s next

Alongside the events and workflow wins, ToucanTech’s data team worked with CleanTech Alliance to clean up years of accumulated records from their previous platform, by deduplicating profiles, linking individuals to their correct member organisations, and building out a cleaner membership directory across their 300+ member organizations.

Partner-managed memberships — where a third party buys a block membership and manages additions and drops — now have a clear workflow. CleanTech Alliance uploads the partner’s monthly CSV, submits a data request, and the ToucanTech team processes the changes. When the CSV importer launches, they’ll handle it entirely themselves.

Membership renewal workflows and the member directory are next on the roadmap, with the team already planning to explore ToucanTech’s AI automation features as they roll out.