How did you discover Flare?
My leadership team and I discovered Flare last fall! At the time, our system for tracking member points was incredibly time-consuming and inaccurate, so we were looking for a way to better manage this aspect of our chapter. When the Founder and CEO of Flare, Jack Chen, visited our chapter house in College Station, TX, I had the opportunity to speak with him about the app and all of the incredible features it has to offer. I was so impressed! The points tracking feature of the app was especially intriguing for our group. We decided to begin using the app in January, and Jack and his colleagues were generous in providing us with assistance throughout our transition to using Flare. It has been an incredibly smooth experience.
How does your group use Flare day to day? Week to week?
Members of my chapter use Flare every single day! It is incredible that one app consolidates our chapter communication, calendar, points tracking, event check-in, and more. On the daily, members send messages in our many group chats tailored to specific interests or upload photos to albums and event highlights in the app. For our weekly events, officers use Flare to post details about the programs they’re hosting, take attendance, and input points. The members of my chapter also love that they can retrieve contact information for any member of the organization through the app as well! This makes communication so simple!
In what ways has Flare made your role as the President of (Kappa Alpha Theta at Texas A&M University) easier?
As the president of a chapter with over 300 active members, I am constantly communicating with members of the chapter as well as organizations and individuals outside of the chapter. The Flare app has made it easy for me to contact any members quickly. I no longer have to worry about messages getting lost or juggling multiple platforms for communication. Additionally, I am able to find information that I need to share with others at the click of a button because all of our events, photos, points, and more are stored in the app.
What is your favorite feature to use on Flare?
My chapter utilizes an announcements group chat where executive officers can share important updates. For this chat, we have turned on the “announcements mode” feature. This feature only allows admins in our group to send messages in this chat. In our case, only executive officers are admins. I have found this to be a huge help for my chapter! We are able to prevent unwanted messages and questions from being sent in the chat. However, we want members to be able to ask any questions they may have, so we have this chat set up as a chat wall. With the chat wall style, members are able to comment questions and thoughts on each of the messages, then executive officers are able to reply to the comments easily.
Any words you’d like to offer to anyone considering using Flare for their group?
Go for it! I could not recommend this app enough! I know that the Flare team is passionate about helping your organization communicate and organize information effectively, so you can trust that they will help you explore the app and transition your group to using it.
