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Businesses worldwide are embracing innovative collaboration solutions to foster seamless teamwork and achieve exceptional results. Amidst this progressive paradigm, Rallyhood emerges as a prominent player, revolutionizing the way organizations collaborate, communicate, and accomplish shared goals. Recognizing its profound impact on the realm of collaboration, the Enterprise World is proud to introduce it as one of the Top Collaboration Solution Providers 2023.

With a steadfast commitment to empowering teams and communities, the company has quickly risen to the forefront of the collaboration software market. By providing cutting-edge technology and an unwavering focus on user experience, it enables businesses to transcend geographical barriers, streamline workflows, and unlock unprecedented levels of productivity.

Rallyhood is a technology platform purpose-built for the needs of member organizations. It is a full suite of functionality designed to eliminate silos, drive member engagement, and increase leadership visibility. As a company, it exists to empower organizations with the critical tools they need to achieve their missions.

It serves as the missing link in an organization’s technology stack, enabling leaders to unlock their team’s full potential. Established by Patti Rogers, CEO, a seasoned marketing professional and entrepreneur, in 2011, Rallyhood was born out of her personal experience battling breast cancer for two years.

During that time, Rogers witnessed the incredible power of community support. However, she also realized the challenges in organizing such support due to fragmented and inefficient tools like GoFundMe, Facebook, Eventbrite, and Google Sheets.

Rogers adds, “Recognizing that most purpose-driven organizations experienced similar pain points is what inspired me to build a platform that makes group collaboration seamless, so people have an easier, more enjoyable way to make an impact at scale.”

Now, let us turn our attention to the remarkable journey of Rogers who is driving the success of Rallyhood.

In today’s digital era, productivity is not tied to a physical desk anymore, all thanks to advanced collaboration technology. Collaboration tools are true enablers of openness and inclusivity, which correlates to increased engagement that drives innovation and, most significantly, employee happiness and loyalty. When utilized properly, collaboration technology becomes a force multiplier to help organizations and groups amplify their collective efforts, producing a much greater output. This is where Texas-based Rallyhood, Inc is changing the game for member management. In an interview with the editorial team of CIO Applications, Patti Rogers, Founder, and CEO of Rallyhood, discusses at length how her company organizes and engages purpose-driven communities.

Tell us a little bit about how Rallyhood came to be?
The precursor to Rallyhood actually started in the mid-90s when I co-founded a marketing agency in my early career. My partners and I took a lot of pride in establishing internal processes that standardized collaboration and centralized information, making the work we did easier to execute. We eventually sold the business in 2002. After which, I had the opportunity to spend many years helping nonprofit boards, committees and stepping in to volunteer where I could. That was a special stage of my life, as I learned about the significant value of volunteer leadership and how this kind of collaboration influences the communities where we live, in big and small ways. I noticed, however, that these groups didn’t have an easy time getting things done. There was a stark contrast between how things were managed in a more professional setting and the absence of solutions for these work-outside-of-work™ use-cases. I was especially inspired by this when I went through a two-year journey of breast cancer. The support I received from my family and friends undoubtedly made a significant impact on my health and recovery. But it was also a difficult effort to organize because of the mix-mash of fragmented tools that were hard to use. The ‘aha’ genesis behind Rallyhood was to solve this problem—to make it easier for a group of people to come together, stay connected, and be organized in one place, no matter their size or mission. We took the approach of blending the best of social and productivity tools to build an elegant easy-to-use platform to help these groups achieve more, do more, enjoy more, and therefore become a platform for positive change.

Together, we can do great things, but we need a place to get it done!
Could you provide a brief overview of Rallyhood as a social-collaboration platform and how it’s evolved? When we come together around a project, or a common cause, we need tools to stay connected, organized, and engaged online. The fact is, the distracting noise of most social media platforms, like Facebook, coupled with the inefficiency of reply-all email, and the variety of siloed apps scattered across the internet don’t add up to be an efficient, or enjoyable approach to getting things done. We call it digital disorder™ and the messiness can make it difficult to sustain a genuine engagement or connection to a cause. Rallyhood has evolved immensely over the years in its innovations, functionality, and its vision for organizational impact. In the early days, we were great at helping one group at a time. But today, we have an infinitely scalable solution to empower the needs of varying organizations that are made of many sub-groups, sometimes in the thousands. We have become a more robust All-In-One solution giving groups even more tools to interact, collaborate, share calendars and RSVPs, coordinate tasks, gather feedback and vote, share and archive resource (files, photos, videos, links), manage and organize events, process payments, raise funds, and more. In parallel, we have also built tools that give Directors of these organizations the ability to own and customize their member network in a way that maps to their organizational structure. Our partners can create, customize and manage an ecosystem of digital spaces we call rally-sites, without needing any development or IT resources. Furthermore, we have also built a dashboard to visualize the activity and to garner actionable insights from an aggregated view of engagement analytics. These are insights that weren’t possible before in any of their other digital solutions. This is a huge game-changer and resolves a massive hurdle they have with member engagement. Our aim is to make enterprise-quality collaboration and community tools more accessible to all, so the efficiencies that advance for-profit organizations can bring optimal results for groups who are focused on social good.

Rallyhood has been recognized as one of the 20 Best Companies to Watch of 2021 by The Executive Headlines.

The key behind the success of Rallyhood, Patti Rogers, Founder & CEO

 Patti Rogers, CEO of Rallyhood, is a 30-year marketing entrepreneur. She founded Rallyhood, a social-productivity platform for groups, after she experienced the power of community in action during her personal battle with breast cancer. While the assistance from her friends and family was critical to her health and recovery, it was also a very difficult thing to organize because the tools were fragmented and hard to use. Recognizing that most purpose-driven groups suffered similar pain points, she was inspired to build a platform that makes group-organization seamless so people have an easier way to stay active and engaged, no matter what the cause.

Below are the highlights of the interview with Patti Rogers is the CEO of Rallyhood

When was Rallyhood, Inc started? And how did you expand your company and its offerings over the years?

Rallyhood Inc was started in 2011 with the conception to create a platform for purpose-driven communities. When we come together with a common cause or intention, we need effective and adequate tools to stay connected, organized, and engaged online. The fact is, the distracting noise of most social media platforms, like Facebook, coupled with the inefficiency of reply-all email, and the mix-mash of siloed apps scattered across the internet don’t add up to be an efficient, or enjoyable approach to getting things done. We call it “digital disorder ”(™)  and the messiness can make it difficult to sustain a genuine engagement or connection to a cause. And you might say “Aren’t there lots of collaboration tools for business?” While that may be true, these tools address the needs of co-workers at work, they do not bridge internal members like staff and external members like volunteers, partners and alumni. Hence, the idea of Rallyhood was to develop a ad-free platform that combines the best of social tools with the best of collaboration tools to address the needs of work-outside-of-work (™), to create a simpler way for everyone (volunteers, partners, staff, supporters) to come together around the causes, people, and organizations they care about in their everyday lives.  

Rallyhood has evolved immensely over the years in its innovations, functionality, and its vision for organizational impact. In the early days, we were great at helping one group at a time. But today, we have an infinitely scalable solution to empower the needs of varying organizations that are made of many sub-groups, sometimes in the thousands. We have become a more robust All-In-One solution giving groups even more tools to interact, collaborate, share resources, manage and organize events, process payments, raise funds and more. In parallel, we have also built tools that give these organizations the ability to own and customize their member-network in a way that maps to their organizational structure as well as the exciting ability to garner actionable insights from an aggregated view of engagement analytics. Our partners can create, customize and manage an ecosystem of digital spaces we call rally-sites, without needing any development or IT resources.  

What factors influenced or motivated you to start this venture?

I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, which had a huge impact on my professional life. I co-founded a marketing agency in my early career, which we sold in 2002. After I moved on to my next chapter, I had the opportunity to spend many years helping nonprofit boards, committees and stepping in to volunteer where I could. That was a special stage of my life, as I learned about the significant value of volunteer leadership and how this kind of collaboration influences the communities where we live, in big and small ways. I noticed however, that these groups didn’t have an easy time getting things done. There was a stark contrast from how things were project managed in a more professional setting and the absence of solutions for these work-outside-of-work (™) use-cases. 

I was especially inspired by this when I went through a two-year journey of breast cancer. As I mentioned earlier, the support I received from my family and friends was undoubtedly the game changer in my health and recovery. But it was also a difficult effort to organize because of the mix-mash of fragmented tools that were hard to use. The ‘aha' genesis behind Rallyhood was to solve this problem—to make it easier for a group of people to come together, stay connected and organized in one place, no matter their size or mission. The vision from day one was to build an elegant easy-to-use platform to help these groups achieve more, do more, enjoy more and therefore become a platform for positive change. Together, we can do great things... but we need a place to get it done!

What is the most important key to your success? Share the experience.

The truth is, the startup journey is tough. The ups and downs can be both exhilarating and exhausting. I don’t know if there is one secret ingredient of anyone’s success. But I do believe that it comes down to hard work, tenacity, grit, and teamwork. The saying “Hard work pays off” is absolutely true. There is no substitute for it. There is no hack for it. You have to put in the hours. Period. And tomorrow, you need to do it again. Period. And you need to have team members next to you who are willing to embrace the same principles. I believe our “Do Good Today” mission has always kept our team motivated and inspired to do what it takes to build a scalable platform to help amplify the “good” these purpose-driven groups do in their communities every single day.

With a huge client base, what has been your experience serving groups like Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Member Organizations, Nonprofits and Causes, Schools?

We have learned so much working side by side with these amazing organizations who exist to better the lives in their community. One of the biggest takeaways is that these mission-driven organizations rely on their volunteers to deliver programs and services that serve the greater good. But historically, one-directional communication tools, like newsletters, do absolutely nothing to empower day-to-day collaboration. They also don't solve the need to build a connected community. Members and volunteers are critical to the mission, and yet in the past they have had to use 12 different tools to effectively self-organize all outside of the domain of the organization. Obviously, this weakens the experience and drives disengagement. As we have worked with our client-partners to implement Rallyhood into their communication, collaboration and engagement strategy, it’s been thrilling to witness the transformational shift. By empowering members with a solution that helps them be more productive and simplifies their lives means everyone wins—the organization, the volunteer, the mission, the community. That’s exciting! And that’s what gets us jumping out of bed everyday to be a force amplifier for these causes.

What do you feel are the reasons behind your company's reputation?

We love what we do. We care about our customers and their mission to serve their communities and create positive change. We feel a genuine alignment with them and therefore develop genuine relationships. We lean in as partners not vendors and I think that makes all the difference when it comes to implementing a new system into an organization. 

We are not like other SaaS companies who are out the door once the contract is signed. We spend the time listening and learning about their strategic initiatives and help them map out the structure of their ideal ecosystem. We have a methodical approach to onboarding and training that gives our customers comfort and a sense of excitement for building a more connected and organized community, online and in real life. 

(Austin, TX – July 30, 2020): We are excited to announce Rallyhood was named one of the Top Collaboration Solution Providers 2020 by CIO Applications as part of their annual listing of 25 companies that are at the forefront of providing Collaboration solutions and transforming businesses. The companies chosen for this annual award are focused on offering the most innovative and reliable solutions to customers around the world.

Rallyhood is a community collaboration platform for nonprofits, member organizations, and associations, looking to engage and empower members to work together to support the mission. The company’s solution eliminates the inefficiencies of fragmented tools, to streamline communication, increase productivity, and drive meaningful member engagement without expensive IT, Design or Dev resources. Unlike traditional community software, Rallyhood aggregates customers' ecosystem of groups onto a single platform, giving members user-friendly tools to self-organize, share, and manage events, in an ad-free environment, while also delivering unprecedented visibility and insights to member managers.

Rallyhood’s team has been responding quickly to customers’ needs in light of recent societal realities to enhance its best-in-class environment with innovative solutions that are intuitive and turnkey for users. Recently, Rallyhood added video conferencing capabilities via Zoom to give users’ a seamless way to engage their members before, during and after virtual events. In the near future, Rallyhood is planning to expand their enterprise tools, with features like Chat, to further improve workflow and will be expanding integrations with other apps to increase productivity. “Our philosophy has been that when a group is well organized, and information is easy to find, everyone is more likely to stay engaged and active around the mission, which creates a better-shared experience—everyone wins”, stated founder, Patti Rogers.

All-In-One Collaboration Platform: Communicate, organize, share, manage events (virtual and in person), collect payments, and more.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made online collaboration tools a must-have for groups, organizations and businesses of all sizes and types. No matter what brings a group or an organization together, it’s more critical than ever to be able to engage and be productive online.

Rallyhood’s Community Collaboration Platform enables member organizations to build their own connected community by launching an ecosystem of micro-sites for their groups, across a variety of use-cases, without needing any Development or IT resources to manage them.

Every group-site can be set up and customized in seconds and comes with a built-in suite of Social and Collaboration features that help groups: Centralize day-to-day discussions; Share, organize, and archive resources (files, photos, videos, links); Manage Events (in-person and virtual); Collect Payments; Vote and Share tasks; Create Fundraising Pages; And sell merchandise with Online Store (coming soon) – all in one place.

At Rallyhood, we've been working hard to improve your experience and make it easier for you to organize your groups, especially during these unprecedented times. With that in mind, we are excited to announce our integration with Zoom and YouTube, both leaders in the video market, which gives our Rallyhood users’ even more ways to connect, engage and share – all in one place.

Here are some of the benefits:

• Rallyhood + Zoom: Now you have a seamless way to engage members before, during and after your virtual events on Rallyhood. With our new Zoom integration, you simply add your Zoom meeting link into the details when setting up your “Special Event.” Once your members have registered, they will automatically receive the information they need to join your virtual meeting in a confirmation email. Only members who register will receive the meeting link and password, keeping things safe and secure.
• Rallyhood + YouTube: It’s now easier than ever to share important videos with your group without sending them away from your Rally site. Simply add the link to your YouTube videos in the “Links” section and your videos will be beautifully displayed inside your Rally. Whether you are sharing “How to” tips or showcasing a video montage of a recent event, the new capabilities will help keep all your content centralized, so members know where to find it, when and where they need it.

Our goal is always to help our community leaders bring people together with purpose and stay organized around the groups and causes they care about. Please click here to learn more about these and our other new features and updates.

We are better together!
Do good today,
The Rallyhood Team

P.S. If there's anything we can do to help you and your group stay connected, engaged and productive online, please don’t hesitate to contact us at clientsuccess@rallyhood.com. We always love hearing from you.

CIO Application: How does Rallyhood bring people and the tools needed to stay organized, together in one place (without noisy ads)?

Our philosophy has always been that the benefits of streamlining communication and centralizing assets shouldn't be limited to co-workers in a business environment. There are everyday groups, nonprofits, and member-organizations that rely on the effectiveness of members and volunteers to work together to advance their mission. To address this need, we have built the Rallyhood platform to provide these organizations with enterprise-quality collaboration tools that are accessible to their membership and help them build a more connected and effective community. All in an environment that is ad-free.

Rallyhood provides a platform for team communication and collaboration with a large suite of powerful tools all in one place. Some of our most helpful and popular features include the ability to manage a wide range of events (in person and online), process payments, and standardize how members work together and share resources and best practices across the organization’s network. Another feature that our customers love is Rallyhood’s user-friendly customization tools that enables every group to personalize their experience and feature-set, without the need for IT, design or development resources.

For organizations managing a large memberbase, our Premium Solution includes an engagement analytics dashboard and reporting to help Executive Leadership gain visibility and insights never before possible with the use of fragmented tools and separate systems. Our best-in-class solution is scalable to support groups and organizations of all sizes.

Austin Woman: In your Austin Woman cover story, you shared your cancer journey that led to founding Rallyhood. What have been some career highlights since your 2013 cover?

Patti Rogers: Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been seven years! Since then, Rallyhood has made enterprise-quality collaboration and community building more accessible for all, and we now serve hundreds of thousands of users and groups across the U.S. Rallyhood’s all-in-one platform helps purpose-driven communities that need more than email to communicate, collaborate, share documents, coordinate tasks, take surveys, manage events and collect money. Historically, these groups have been forced to use fragmented tools scattered all over the internet to try to get things done. The result is usually very frustrating, and people burn out quickly.

Our philosophy has been that when a group is well organized and information is easy to find, people are more likely to stay engaged around the mission, which creates a better, shared experience—everyone wins. We see it as a ripple effect of helping people help. In the past 12 months, we have expanded our offerings to include event management, payment collection and premium solutions for enterprise clients.

It’s really exciting to see the diversity of group size and mission on the platform, as we have groups with a handful of members scaling up to organizations with tens of thousands of members. Equally exciting is the diversity of causes that bring folks together, including youth sports, cheer and robotics; Girl Scouts councils; associations; faith-based communities; nonprofits; schools and classes; fitness groups; and small to medium-sized businesses. Not to mention, families, friends and neighborhoods.