Meet Gloria

Meet Gloria
Los Angeles, CA

Girl Scout Troop Leader,
Service Unit Manager, and
PTSA Leader

HOW SHE USES CHEDDAR UP

  • Girl Scout Troop 925
  • Girl Scouts Marina Service Unit
  • Venice High School PTSA
  • Venice High School Cheer and Dance

FAVORITE CHEDDAR UP FEATURES

CHEDDAR UP USER SINCE

2017

NUMBER OF COLLECTIONS

90

TOTAL COLLECTED

$300,000+

As a lifelong Girl Scout herself, it was only natural for Gloria Halfacre to volunteer to be her daughter’s troop leader. After attending a Cheddar Up demo, Gloria was convinced it would make her life easier. Now she sells out events in under an hour!

Please share some background about how you got involved in Girl Scouts and started using Cheddar Up?

For starters, I’m a lifetime Girl Scout. I became involved with Girl Scouts when I signed up to be my daughter’s troop leader about 15 years ago. Since then, I’ve held many hats within the Girl Scout organization—from service unit manager to adult educator. I was also part of the team that wrote the manual on how to run Girl Scout events for the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles. I’ve also always been involved at my daughter’s schools. When she began attending Venice High School, I became heavily involved with the PTSA and still continue even though my daughter is a sophomore in college!

What’s your primary reason for using Cheddar Up?

I use Cheddar Up anytime I need to collect funds from a group of people. From events to summer camps to Hamilton tickets to membership to Grad Nite…and everything in between. I’ve literally created dozens and dozens of collections on Cheddar Up. The list is too long to detail. It makes organization and collecting funds so simple.

What made you choose Cheddar Up?

When Cheddar Up first started working with the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles council, I quickly jumped onboard to try it out. Cheddar Up has made registration for events so simple. Previously, I had to rely on people attending meetings or mailing in registrations and forms. I spent a lot of time tracking people down, and I was always dependent on the post office. It was a pain! With Cheddar Up, everything is done quickly on the website and app…no more hunting people down…no more waiting for the postman to deliver a form and payment.

I started using Cheddar Up for my Girl Scout troop and very quickly realized the power of its feature set and flexibility. Shortly thereafter, I brought it into other groups in my life including our service unit and my daughter’s high school PTSA and cheer club.

How has Cheddar Up’s ability to combine both payments and forms been valuable to you?

Cheddar Up’s form features allow me to capture all the information I need for a particular event. For high school Grad Nite, for example, I needed to collect the student’s name, address, email, cell phone number, t-shirt size, emergency contacts, medical conditions, and the name of who they wanted to sit beside on the bus…in addition to a signed waiver. With Cheddar Up, the parent was able to provide all of this, plus a signature, on the spot along with payment.

Before Cheddar Up, we had to go to campus several times during lunch hours to do onsite registration, then input all the information we collected into a spreadsheet. We even had to carry all the paperwork with us on the trip. Things would get lost and students would say they paid, when they really didn’t. With Cheddar Up, everything is online and we only had to go to campus once to collect from attendees who opted to pay cash.

“Because of Cheddar Up I have had events go live, I put a post on Facebook, and have the event sell out in less than an hour.”

What is something unexpected that you’ve really enjoyed about Cheddar Up?

In the beginning, when I had questions on how to do something, having the online chat box on the platform provided instant help. This has been awesome! When I click on the box, it immediately tells me who I’ll be chatting with. I’ve been able to develop a relationship with many of the Cheddar Up staff. I feel like I know them, and they know me as well. These days that seems rare.

 

 

 

I’ve even made suggestions on ways I think the platform could be better, and many of my suggestions have actually been implemented! It’s great to know that Cheddar Up values my feedback. Cheddar Up is also very intuitive and easy to use.

In addition, recurring payments have been really valuable for us. It allows students who can’t afford to pay $180 in one shot to pay over time. And not having to track down parents for payment installments is even better and saves me time and hassle.

How has Cheddar Up made your life easier?

I host a variety of events for Girl Scouts and our local High School. With Cheddar Up, everything is in one place. I can create the forms that I need and get them filled out, as well as waivers (which I love). Because of Cheddar Up, I’ve had events go viral! I post them to the appropriate Facebook groups, and the event typically sells out in less than an hour.

“I needed to collect the student’s name, address, email, cell phone number, t-shirt size, emergency contacts, medical conditions, and the name of who they wanted to sit beside on the bus…in addition to a signed waiver. With Cheddar Up, the parent was able to provide all of this on the spot along with payment.”

Do you have any “wow” experiences of these viral events?

One of our Girl Scout service unit events was for a showing of Hamilton. It was an exclusive group ticket sale offered only to our service unit. Within minutes of going live, ticket orders were coming in. I started with around 200 tickets, and I quickly had to contact my sales rep to see if we could secure more. I had to do this three times, before finally closing it after selling over 700 tickets. It was crazy! I remember chatting with someone on the Cheddar Up Support team and we were amazed at the response!

What makes you excited about continuing to use Cheddar Up into the future?

Cheddar Up makes me more efficient year after year, because I have a history of events at my fingertips that I can refer to, replicate and reuse. Also, it’s important to me we’re able to reduce the amount of paperwork needed by using Cheddar Up, which is better for our environment.

Collect for FREE

Whether you’re collecting dues and fees, fundraising, managing an event, creating a sign up, or selling something online or in-person, you can do it with a Cheddar Up collection.