They gather at the United Irish Cultural Center in San Francisco, California, at least seven evenings a year. A speaker, maybe a writer or a scholar or an artist, is often invited to join them. Together, they rediscover Irish culture – from politics to art, history, music, and literature.
Hosting these meetings is the Irish Literary & Historical Society, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A relatively small group of roughly 140 members, ILHS sent regular snail mail campaigns for a time to invite new members. And they had turned to Akubo for a simple feature they needed that many other CRMs didn’t have – print mailing labels.
No longer relying on spreadsheets and online groups, ILHS also tracks their members and non-members on Akubo. It has become easy to identify lapsed memberships, expired, renewed, continuing, or new. They know which email group to contact for every month, because not all their events are open to non-members.
Besides a speaker series, ILHS arranges the annual St Patrick’s Banquet, monthly book discussions, and special events. Most attendees are members, some paying guests. And since every event is different, Akubo helps ILHS send announcements to the respective, expected audience.
Come September, ILHS starts their fall speaker series once again with Irish novelist Emer Martin. Visit ilhssf.org to see their other events.