🚀 How One Union Local Built a $2 Million Cash Reserve in 24 Months with EMMA

Executive Summary

🔎 Challenges:

• Stagnant membership growth
• Limited financial cushion
• Outdated, manual processes
• Reluctance to adopt clunky tech

💡 Solution: Implemented EMMA Membership Management

📈 Results: $2 Million Cash Reserve Built in 24 Months

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The Challenge

Ricky Burris had a big problem on his hands.  For almost 10 years he’d served as the president of a union local in Texas with approximately 10,000 members.  He ran a tight ship, but growth had stalled. The local lived hand to mouth, never building the financial reserves needed to weather a serious storm or fund bold new initiatives.

So Ricky took matters into his own hands.

The Solution

For years he had been intrigued by the idea of using technology in the field to sign up new members and provide better service to existing members.  He tried different tools and methods over the years, but the technology was cumbersome, expensive and hard for field reps to adopt.

Frustrated, Ricky began reaching out to software developers to see if someone could design and build a functional, easy-to-use application that could run on a tablet computer in the field. That search led him to a team based in Austin that had extensive experience building Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, a close cousin to what Ricky had in mind.

Design sessions on a whiteboard ensued as Ricky and his team articulated a vision of how he wanted his reps to engage with members and the benefits that would result for his local.

Results

Six months later, the Austin team released the first version of what would become the EMMA Membership Management System.

Ricky put iPads in the hands of all of his union reps and trained them carefully on how to find and engage prospective new members. The positive results came quickly.

After 10 years of trying, Ricky finally found the secret to running his local efficiently and effectively. 

Here’s how he did it:

📈 Increased Membership – Ricky and his team learned that the secret to signing-up new members is talking to them as quickly as possible after their hire.  

Before EMMA:

• The local waited on new seniority lists from employers to identify new hires.
• Route sheets were printed and distributed to field reps – a slow, manual, and cumbersome process.

With EMMA:

• New hires are imported or entered manually into EMMA as soon as they start work, making sign-up quick and easy.
• Reps contact new employees immediately, significantly increasing sign-up success rates.

Using EMMA, Ricky’s local increased membership by 10%, bringing in an additional $780,000 to $800,000 per year.

🏃‍♀️ Faster New Member Onboarding

Before EMMA:

• Union Representatives had new members sign paper membership applications.
• Reps drove back to the office frequently to deliver paper applications for manual processing and data entry.  
• This resulted in lost applications, data entry errors, and delays in collecting dues from new members.

With EMMA:

• Applications are signed electronically in the field, eliminating the need for manual data entry.
• Dues are collected from new members more quickly because reps don’t have to travel back to the office to deliver newly signed paper applications, 
• Union Representatives spend less time in the office and more time in the field signing-up and servicing members.

These changes added $50,000 to $100,000 in increased dues revenue 

🚘 Reduced Travel Expense

Before EMMA:

• Union Representatives came into the office every day to drop off recently signed membership applications and pick up route sheets, limiting their time in the field.
• Mileage and vehicle maintenance expenses were high.
• Reps struggled to find the time to visit all of the work locations they were responsible for.

With EMMA:

• Reps stay in the field, signing-up new members and spending quality time interacting with existing members.
• Communication with Reps in the field is channeled through EMMA so everyone stays in touch.
• Reps travel less and come to the office only when important meetings are required.

Annual travel expenses were reduced by approximately $50,000 with EMMA.

🧑🏽‍💻 More Accurate Member Data

Before EMMA:

• Manual processes made it hard to add new members quickly and to identify terminating employees.
• Errors and delays caused new members to be left off of dues billings.
• Errors in employee terminations caused the local to pay per capita fees on members who were actually no longer employed.

With EMMA:

• Member data is far more accurate because Reps are consistently updating member information and member status in real-time as they interact with members in the field.
• Billings are more accurate and per capita is paid only on those members who are active.
• Accurate member data and flexible reports make auditing membership roles and dues payments easy and quick.

Accurate Data added approximately $50,000 to $100,000 annually to the local’s bottom line.

Since its initial success as a Membership Management Platform, EMMA has expanded to include a world-class Grievance Management System, and a full-featured Membership Accounting System.  

Today, locals ranging in size from 5,000 members to 100,000 members use EMMA to make their organization more successful.

EMMA manages all aspects of your local’s operations in one, easy-to-use application.

Are you facing challenges growing your local and making your operations more efficient?  Reach out for a free consultation and an EMMA demo and let’s see if EMMA is a fit for your needs.

And if you’d like to hear directly from Ricky Burris on his experience implementing EMMA, click the 1-minute testimonial video below or Ricky’s full 16-minute interview.