Setting Up a Community Calendar: Essential Tools and Best Practices for Non-Profits

As a co-founder in a company called Hubvine, our mission is to simplify the process of promoting events and hosting community calendars. In this article, we will discuss the challenges faced by event owners and community owners, and introduce the solutions we have developed to address these issues. We will also explore how to set up a self-administered, mobile-friendly community calendar for your non-profit organization.

Challenges and Solutions in Event Management

Event management can be a tedious and complex process, especially for event owners and community owners. Event owners often face a time-consuming and repetitive task of submitting events to multiple calendars. Community owners, on the other hand, need to deal with the challenge of spam and the process of approving submitted events.

Event Submission Process

To streamline the event submission process, Hubvine introduced a single web form that handles submissions for all calendars in our network. Once event owners fill out this form, they can submit their events to any calendar they have access to with just one submission. This significantly reduces the time and effort required for event submission, making it much more efficient.

Event Approval Process

For community owners, we implemented several safeguards to minimize spam and streamline the approval process. First, community owners have full control over who has permission to submit events, ensuring that only trusted individuals can contribute. Second, we provide a simple moderation process where community owners can approve or deny events based on predefined criteria. This process saves time and enhances the overall user experience.

Educational Non-Profit Organizations and Community Calendar Needs

For non-profit organizations like Transition Sonoma Valley, setting up a community calendar is crucial for promoting events and community engagement. A user-based, self-administered calendar that allows unsupervised inputs from mobile devices is essential. Inputting events from mobile phones, semi-mobile iPads, and fixed home computers ensures that the calendar remains accessible and user-friendly.

Mobile-Friendly Calendar for Non-Profits

Transition Sonoma Valley, for instance, requires a mobile-friendly calendar that can be easily accessed and managed from smartphones. The ability to input events on-the-go during working hours is particularly important. However, managing the calendar from home computers might not be as convenient. Therefore, a self-administered calendar that can be easily managed from both mobile and desktop devices is ideal.

Widget Integration for Enhanced Usability

One of the best practices for setting up a community calendar is to integrate it with widgets. Widgets allow users to embed the calendar on various platforms, making it easily accessible and customizable. This is particularly beneficial for non-profit organizations that want to promote events through multiple channels, such as social media, websites, and messaging platforms.

Google and Android systems offer robust widget integration, but they may not be entirely integrated with music and other functionalities as seamlessly as Apple systems. Despite this drawback, Google's widget integration still offers a lot of customization options, making it a suitable solution for many non-profit organizations.

Conclusion

Setting up a community calendar is a critical task for non-profit organizations. Event owners and community owners face numerous challenges, including tedious event submission and the need for a robust approval process. By leveraging modern tools and practices, such as single-web-form submissions, mobile-friendly designs, and widget integration, non-profits can streamline their event management processes and enhance user engagement.