The joint venture between Silverbear and Gordon Associates has automated the Royal Academy of Dance’s examination and certification divisions and transformed its membership strategy
The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) has revolutionised its membership programme following a successful joint venture between Silverbear and Gordon Associates that saw the two membership software specialists integrate their flagship platforms on an international level.
Prior to engaging Silverbear and Gordon Associates, RAD had used separate systems for managing its examination and certification divisions. Furthermore, each international region, which includes the UK, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia and Europe, were either managing some or all of their data in isolation.
By joining forces with the portal-style awarding organisation management system, which embraces the regulated qualifications framework, Silverbear was able to incorporate two of RAD’s key divisions under Silverbear Membership’s easy-to-use platform.
Ian Pogue, Director of Finance and Operations at the Royal Academy of Dance, comments: “Now that we have undergone a digital transformation programme our membership platform is more automated, changes and updates are reflected in real time and our renewal process is streamlined. The process has certainly opened our eyes to the quality of data we have, giving us more control in relation to our membership strategy and enabling us to compare region by region in a way that was never before possible.”
The successful partnership between Silverbear and Gordon Associates is expected to pave the way for more joint ventures in cases where membership organisations wish to integrate their certification and examination delivery programmes.
Carl Grieves, CEO at Silverbear, adds: “We’re delighted with the outcome and pleased to have delivered a solution that successfully incorporates two specialist aspects of a membership platform under one portal. This integration really has opened up a number of opportunities for membership associations looking to automate and fully integrate complex processes in a cost-effective and proven way.”
RAD’s UK, USA, South Africa, Canada and European divisions went live in stages throughout 2018, with Australia going live in January 2019.
Rod Gordon, CEO at Gordon Associates, concludes: “As we head into 2019, it’s clear that membership organisations are being tasked with achieving more for less. By integrating two established platforms as we have achieved for the Royal Academy of Dance, membership organisations can save the time and cost associated with developing a piece of bespoke software from scratch and eliminate the time and cost attributable to manually processing examination and certification documentation.”
For more information on Silverbear and Gordon Parnassus visit www.silverbear.com and www.parnassusonline.com respectively. For more information on the Royal Academy of Dance visit www.royalacademyofdance.org.