Imagine for a second if life’s biggest milestones routinely went unnoticed, uncelebrated, and unrecognized 🙉 The world would be a less bright and exciting place.
It’s for this reason that Susan and Gerrie Douglas have dedicated their lives to operating a business that helps people celebrate life’s biggest moments. Whether it’s an engagement, wedding, birth, adoption, or even a funeral, as celebrants, Susan and Gerrie of Celebrate People make sure that any occasion is commemorated in the best way possible. 🎉
Operating under the Humanist Fellowship of Scotland, they are pros at keeping people, rather than particulars, at the center of their practice. Through their Trello board, they easily manage hundreds of celebratory events each year, and behind every card on Susan and Gerrie’s board, there’s a story.
Why Empathy Is Key To Communication, Collaboration, And Celebration
In order to successfully run a business centered around life itself, empathy needs to be at the heart of the operation.
For example, when Gerrie and Susan decide to marry a couple, they’re beginning a collaborative process that takes time.
“We have a very clear focus,” explains Gerrie. “We’re not coming out to marry you, do our thing, and run away. Over the months, we’re developing a relationship together. That way we can make their ceremony about what’s important to them.”
And the most important value threaded through Susan and Gerrie’s practice as humanist celebrants is empathy:
“If you can empathize, then you can reflect the reality of the situation. Reflect the love of that couple, reflect the life of that person, and that, to me, is what humanism is all about. It’s about loving the human that that person is.”
Is someone chopping onions in here? 😭
This person-first intention allows for both limitless creativity and the elevation of fundamental human connection, and it’s through Trello that this is possible.
Because Gerrie and Susan let their master Trello board handle organizational roadblocks and to-do’s, more of their time and effort can be directed towards what matters — the people they serve.
A Tool For Building Relationships
Susan and Gerrie are self admittedly, as they put it, ‘non-techie people’, but with such a high demand for services, they needed a system to manage the influx of inquiries coming their way.
They find Trello to be easy, fast, and effective in keeping track of their ceremonies from start to finish.
For example, Trello allows Susan and Gerrie to keep track of the hundreds of details involved in planning a wedding (as newlyweds across the world know, planning a wedding is no joke).
When they are helping to plan the monumental days, every detail matters — contact information, schedules, correspondence, financial records, ceremony outlines, checklists — the list goes on.
Luckily, all of this information is stored on a massive Trello board which is linked via the Calendar Power-Up to the couple’s iCalendars, which frees up valuable mental energy which they can instead dedicate to the people they serve, rather than logistics.
Each list on Susan and Gerrie’s board serves as a stepping stone that easily flows each client through their pipeline, and stores valuable information. Starting with new inquiries, they can then easily view which clients have confirmed a booking, completed a visit, paid in full, completed their event, and list those who didn’t book.
On the card back for each client, the granular details are included through labels, the description, and a checklist.
Trello is an essential element in the larger story of humanity that Susan and Gerrie help to convey. Because of Trello’s simple yet detailed organizational ability, Susan and Gerrie are able to be fully present to what matters most in a person's life: the universal desire to be loved, to be known, to collaborate, and to be celebrated.
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Trello Features and Power-Ups Used In This Template
Zapier
By using Zapier, anytime an enquiry is received on their Google form, a new card is automatically created on the Trello board in the "Enquiry Received" column. This new card captures all of the information received in the form and creates a list to be triaged by Susan and Gerrie.
Labels
Trello labels give the Celebrate People team more context to their clients and processes. Susan and Gerrie easily can assign a label to each card, for example using red for clients who still owe a deposit, or green for clients who have completed payment. This is a great way to easily visualize the status of each client.
Checklists
Checklists are another key feature utilized on the "Ceremony" board — helping to standardize everything that needs to happen before the happy couple says "I do!" With a Butler rule, the checklist can be automatically added to a card when it's moved to the "Booking Confirmed" list.
Templates For Any Occasion
Whether you’re a celebrant yourself, or simply planning your own milestone event, you can easily duplicate the Celebrate People template and customize it to fit your own needs!
Once you’ve planned *all the things* and hosted all the parties, you can browse these other user-inspired templates for even more organizational bliss 🎊
Good or bad, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Find us on Twitter (@trello) or write in to support@trello.com.
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