|Scholar Wine Leverages the Member.buzz Platform for Explosive Growth ⁠

Scholar Wine, a beverage catering service based in the Bay Area, provides scholarships to college students seeking financial assistance. Founded at the University of Santa Clara by a group of students looking for a way to give back to their community, Scholar Wine has grown into a successful nonprofit that supports university-level students across California. The company saw rapid growth prior to Covid-19 and has adapted to the everchanging world of in-person events to maintain their trajectory post pandemic.

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Scholar Wine provides its clients with a fully customized bar and beverage service, always resulting in an exceptional event. While many of the bartenders and event staff are volunteers, Scholar Wine is proud to pay their employees a living wage. They often support college students and recent graduates with a side hustle that can help them afford the rising cost of rent or pay off college loan debts.

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As they began to grow, partnering with Bay Area giants like Salesforce, Equinox, and Capital One as regular clients, Scholar Wine realized that managing their finances and professional profile had become a higher priority. The Scholar Wine Board quickly realized they needed to step up their game to continue this upward trajectory.

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Despite a unique concept and business model, there was still a lack of operational efficiency. The administrative staff was using more than ten platforms a day to run their small nonprofit. Wordpress to build and manage the website, Square to make some payments, Venmo to make others, DocuSign to sign contracts, Eventbrite and Facebook to sell tickets and promote events, and a myriad of other platforms with one specific use in mind. With a different login and password for each platform, it wasn't easy to efficiently work on what they needed to do when they needed to do it. With a dispersed workforce made up of part-timers and volunteers, it was a slow moving process to gain access to each account. Another significant problem for Scholar Wine was processing payments for clients, vendors, and employees. Paper checks and Venmo were regular routes of access, which made accounting on the back end difficult.

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The Board started putting some feelers out to find a platform that encompasses all of the functionality that they were looking for on the back end with the ability to create a beautiful website on the front end. When they came across Member.buzz, it ticked all of their boxes.

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Member.buzz's functionality aligned with precisely what the Scholar Wine Team needed. With increased visibility across all elements and more efficient and centralized payment processing, Scholar Wine's revenue grew over 250% since making the switch. "Bringing everything onto one platform has drastically improved team collaboration." Madison, CEO of Scholar Wine, commented, "Member.buzz is free to use, so it has been instrumental in our company's success."

"Bringing everything onto one platform has drastically improved tream collaboration. Member.buzz is free to use, so it has been instrumental in out company's success."⁠

Madison, Scholar Wine CEO

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The added functionality of the Member.buzz platform helped with business administration processes, but what sets Member.buzz apart is their customer service. "Open communication with the Member.buzz team makes it feel like a community more than just a platform. The fact that I can submit requests for new features and then see them implemented is amazing! I feel heard and it makes me feel like I am helping to build the Member.buzz Community. The team was there for us when we were first getting started, and now they are continually deploying new features that not only benefit our organization, but enable us to continue our unprecedented growth."

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When Scholar Wine joined the platform, the Member.buzz Team was able to move around some features on the product roadmap, fast-tracking certain pieces of functionality to get Scholar Wine up and running. Whatever it was the Scholar Wine needed to do, Member.buzz helped them find a way to do it within the platform. Max, CFO of Scholar Wine, said, "Member.buzz believes in a hands-on, comprehensive customer service philosophy. They make everything easy for you." Helping Scholar Wine achieve their website and business goals has been a considerably proud moment for Member.buzz. Our CEO comments, "Taking the backend stress off of our clients and allowing them to focus purely on their mission and goals is what we are designed to do."

"Member.buzz believes in a hands-on, comprehensive customer service philosophy. They make everything easy for you."

Max, Scholar Wine CFO⁠

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Having extensive knowledge of the nonprofit space, the Member.buzz Migration Team was able to help Scholar Wine bring their space to the next level and now continues to support their endeavors in every way through navigating how to successfully cater Covid-safe in person events.

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Using the Member.buzz platform, Scholar Wine created a unified collaborative space for their organization to send invoices, host events, and have a stellar website – to name a few.

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Scholar Wine is just one of the amazing organizations in the Member.buzz Community. Our mission at Member.buzz is to enable YOU to focus on YOUR mission. We are bringing our Community and your Community together in one Space.

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Interested in using Member.buzz for your organization? Click here to create a Free Space, or reach out to our Migration Team if you are looking for more of a custom approach! 

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