Background

Every year, 400 of the best young athletes in the Pacific Northwest come out for Seattle’s first-rate PONY baseball & softball league. The league is comprised of up to five divisions with kids ranging in age from 7 to 14 and enlists the help of volunteers, coaches and umpires from all over the region. Seattle PONY needed a baseball scheduling software solution that would save time and automate most manual bookkeeping tasks, as well as a stable technology partner that would be with the organization for the long run.

Keys to Success from Karl Lum, Director of Information, Seattle PONY Baseball & Softball

Seattle PONY Baseball & Softball already had a program they used for online registration, fee payment and auto-scheduling so why make the move to Clubspaces?

When I came on, the league was using a system from a company that encountered financial difficulties. It couldn’t make payments back to its organizations and there were a number of organizations that lost a fair amount of money. Our league was lucky in that our financial exposure was small, but it was clear that we needed to move on to a different system that had a history of success and would be around for a long time.

What was the transition to Clubspaces like?

We actually got up and running pretty quickly considering that it was October or November when we realized we had to switch registration systems. We traditionally open registration in January, so we really only had about a month and a half to get up and going. It went really well. It was a lot of work, but it was a pretty good experience overall to go from zero to live in just a few months.

What elements of Clubspaces do you enjoy the most?

The big thing for us is registrations, team assignments, scheduling, and we also use the umpire tools. The pieces I use the most are the integrated scheduling as well as the reports on the back end for participants. Most of the commissioners aren’t necessarily technical, so on a weekly basis, I’ll pull reports and send them out. That way the commissioners can get an idea of counts, contact information for participants and other pertinent information. The tracking is pretty good about what programs you’re in, how much you paid, and any outstanding balances. Clubspaces baseball scheduling software really saved us time.

Has Clubspaces proven to be a good fundraising tool?

We do get donations at registration time and we sell items such as practice shirts directly through the registration process. In the past, we’ve had things on the website that link to a Paypal account, but we found that it is a lot easier to just create a registration item that they can buy. We get a lot more people who actually purchase the item because it’s right in front of them during the registration process, so they just added it to their cart.

How does Clubspaces help with sorting and assigning volunteers?

We ask for volunteers and coaching, it is part of the registration process. We’ll ask volunteers what positions they want to volunteer for and then I’ll pull those reports and forward them to the commissioners. The commissioners will take it from there and coordinate with people for volunteer opportunities.

Clubspaces allows multiple users to share web responsibilities. How do different people in your league use your system?

We do have a number of people who have access to the site. We have a player agent who oversees the teams, is responsible for awarding scholarships, and encourages people to pay their outstanding balances. We also have a few commissioners that need to access the system, so I have assigned them a password and they can go in and pull reports. Additionally, we have an umpire director who is responsible for scheduling all of the umpires, which requires access to the umpire tool. We have, on average, five people, including myself, that use the site and the shared access works pretty well.

How has Clubspaces helped your league grow?

We actually decided to open general registration earlier this year. The result was that we had more people registering sooner rather than later. Additionally we have already opened it for next season for our Pony division because there are tryouts that need to happen plus winter workouts. All other programs open in January. The flexibility to open portions of the league has been helpful.

How does Clubspaces save you time?

The old system we used was very complicated. It was really hard for somebody who is not very technical and the user interface was very unintuitive. I think one of the nice things about Clubspaces is that you don’t really have to be a software professional to use it.

We have rotating board positions, so on average, a person spends 2-3 years on the board before they transition off. I feel pretty confident that somebody can come in behind me and use it with a little bit of instruction. For an organization like us, that is pretty important.

Schedule a demo with an Active Network representative to see if Clubspaces can help streamline how you manage your PONY league.

Clubspaces is the Official Online League Management System of PONY Baseball & Softball