PASA Leverages FormAssembly’s Robust Features and Security to Save Thousands

Case Study Snapshot

We recently sat down with Christina Kostelecky, Systems Analyst at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA), to learn how her organization implements web form systems on a daily basis. Not only does FormAssembly give staff members the ability to collect and utilize cleaner, more relevant data, but it also provides peace of mind through industry-leading data privacy and security. In this case study, learn why FormAssembly is the perfect choice when it comes to a web form platform for nonprofits that need Salesforce integration.

About

• Founded in 1992 to build a more economically just, environmentally regenerative, and community-focused food system through education and research that directly supports farmers.
• Coordinates year-round agricultural workshops and events, including an annual conference that attracts 1,800+ attendees.
• Facilitates vegetable farming and dairy grazing apprenticeships.
• Conducts on-farm community research.

AWS Functionality

As a nonprofit organization, PASA Sustainable Agriculture has taken advantage of several components within Amazon Web Services (AWS) in order to build an apprenticeship management portal separate from the group’s main website. This functionality empowers them to have a secondary external portal that helps the team collect and store data more efficiently.

Prior to getting set up with FormAssembly in 2016, PASA used EventBrite. Unfortunately, there was a per registrant cost that added up quickly. Additionally, information stored in EventBrite wasn’t available in Salesforce, and it simply wasn’t a good use of staff time to constantly clean data and search for errors. Rather than send interested parties to an external website, the team at PASA sought a branded solution that was available within their own domain and resources.

“As I’ve talked to others in the industry, I’ve noticed that the form builder they use doesn’t solve all of their problems. At PASA, we don’t have to think twice. We know that FormAssembly will do what we need it to do,” Christina shared.

Something that the PASA team loved about FormAssembly was the ability to adapt it for a variety of projects. To mitigate a learning curve, Christina joined forces with Implementation Services to get started on their first forms. Since then, she’s been able to grow and create complex form processes from scratch, without the help of a developer.

“Now I build incredibly complex forms on a regular basis. I have no developer or coding background. That alone (being able to build complex forms and not hire an external consultant) has saved my organization at least 10K each year,” Christina said.

Prefilling creates happy customers and donors.

FormAssembly’s Prefill Connector saves countless time for customers and donors. Instead of filling in repeat information, form respondents can cut right to the chase. Christina and her team have an impressive number of prefilled form fields in use.

Notes make complex connectors easier. 

Christina and her team add comments on connectors to help everyone remember why a setup was initially designed a certain way, or what should change. PASA’s events update and add contacts into Salesforce, create Campaign members, and complete appropriate Opportunities. Once the work is completed on one form, it can be copied for all events.

Hidden fields control form notification settings.

By creating simple hidden fields, the staff members charged with creating new forms don’t ever have to edit notifications. Everything can be done quickly and on one screen. When the form is copied, all of the notifications are copied, too.

As an organization on the move, Christina says that PASA is always looking for ways to change. “There’s a million different use cases for us to use FormAssembly,” she said.

After starting out with Google Forms for most projects, the team at PASA has now switched nearly exclusively to FormAssembly and hopes to continue that trend for future projects, ranging from simple data collection, research and analysis, to fundraising.