~Don't~ get SaaS-y with me

November 7, 2024 11:33 AM

Is there one SaaS solution that will fit my small organization's needs-- easy templated/threaded emailing, flexible membership database, maybe even a Discord integration?

I am the treasurer and primary record-keeper for a small nonprofit organization. Our member flow is as follows:

1. email to us ([e-mail], set up via Protonmail) to indicate interest
2. I email back mostly copy-and-pasted instructions (with some customization if they've asked a question) for how to join (a link to our OpenCollective page, or join our parent organization that grants local privileges)
3. They do one of the above, I manually enter their donation details in our roster (a Google Sheet) as a pending member, and then I manually generate and email them a Discord invite link
4. Once they join Discord, I have to figure out how to link the Discord handle to the donation to the email thread, and then enter their Discord account details manually in the Google sheet

In my mind, a lot of the recordkeeping could be done through Airtable, and I got pretty far setting the roster up in Airtable before hitting the free account limit-- table of members, table of discord accounts (not always 1:1), table of donation records.

HOWEVER. Before I pay for Airtable (or deal with getting Airtable integrated with OpenCollective or Discord, or set up web forms for Airtable), I'd love to either figure out how get the email piece integrated -- basically a ticketing system I think? at least easy email templates, and easy to create new member records based on a thread -- or find a service that can do both. Is there one?

I don't want to use Gmail. Something that at least nods towards privacy protection would be nice. Self-hosted would work for us. I'm well-versed in SQL (doing normal relational stuff in Airtable was a piece of cake) but not well versed in developing anything front-end.

Multiple users, roles, different privilege levels not immediately needed but could be useful in the future.

Totally willing and able to pay for thing(s), but if I'm paying more than, say, 150% of the cost of an Airtable seat ($20/mo), I want everything to be super smooth.

posted by supercres to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Response by poster: A sense of volume: We probably add about 5-10 people as members per month, and field about 2x the inquiries via email. Not onerous to do manually, but well worth paying $20-30 a month to smooth out.
posted by supercres at 11:48 AM on November 7

I don't know enough about Discord to understand that part. Why do you have to generate a unique link for each user? If someone already uses it, is there an easy way to add their existing account to your channel? Can you assign them a user code or account before inviting them? Where does the donation part come in?

I would work towards making them do the heavy lifting of filling out a form with their personal info, donation info, and discord info if they already have it. Google Forms makes this easy and the info flows to Google Sheets. If you want to get away from that whole ecosystem, I'd look at the native forms they have in Airtable.
posted by soelo at 12:17 PM on November 7