The Suncoast Builders Association is a membership-driven advocacy and networking group focused on the building and construction industry in Florida’s Manatee and Sarasota counties. The association was founded to support builders, local municipalities, developers, consultants, and more, with the mission of ensuring the success of their members while fostering a positive view of the building industry. Today, Suncoast Builders Association represents about 640 members and 1,100 representatives.
Jessica Seper is the Deputy Executive Officer and Director of Membership at Suncoast, overseeing membership growth, councils, and committees. She helps lead and support the organization’s efforts in advocacy, community involvement, and industry engagement.
Prior to starting at Suncoast in 2024, where she worked on the association side of GrowthZone, she used GrowthZone’s software on the member side for about 15 years. Jessica used both GrowthZone AMS and MemberSuite AMS software, which allowed her to have a unique perspective of both sides of the industry and their needs.
The Challenge
Before switching to GrowthZone AMS, Suncoast kept manual records, which led to disorganization. There were also problems with member communications, leading staff to wonder whether communications were reaching the right people, going to spam, or if they were even resonating with members.
Jessica said, “Are the members getting the emails? Who’s read it? Where’s the bounce back? Am I sending too much? Am I not sending enough? Is it getting the information across?”
Event engagement was another concern. “I want our members to make sure that they’re finding the value of being part of an association,” Jessica said. She also wanted to ensure that members have opportunities to connect with other members and promote their businesses. Suncoast has about 200 events each year, so they needed a program that would efficiently help them manage and promote events as well as ensure the information reached members to attend the events.
Operational gaps also made it more difficult to manage growth. When Jessica joined Suncoast, she discovered inconsistencies in renewal and billing data that had gone unnoticed for years.
“I found there were about 130 members that did not have a renewal date, and they didn't have any billing fees associated, so they were essentially being represented on our website, being put into our member directory, for free,” Jessica said. “They weren't paying membership dues because there were no fee items included with them.”
Tracking down discrepancies and correcting them by comparing information for each member was time-consuming for a small team, taking Jessica eight weeks to correct.
How Suncoast Discovered GrowthZone
Suncoast switched to GrowthZone in 2014, when they had 900 members, and all their records were kept manually without any programs to assist the team. This was an approach that couldn’t scale or support future growth.
The team recognized the need for a centralized system that supported billing, communications, and an expanding event calendar. Having hundreds of members meant having different billing dates for each member. Additionally, because Suncoast hosts 200 events a year among office, council, and committee meetings as well as golf tournaments and other events, they needed efficient event management.
“The whole big reason why we needed this type of program and system was to be able to have one platform to be able to manage all of that,” Jessica said. “So that was really the deciding factor for our CEO John Mass to go on the GrowthZone side.”
While other association management software companies have approached Suncoast over the years, the organization has remained loyal. “We’ve been GrowthZone users for a long time. And so it’s going to be hard to (if ever) make the jump [to another software].”
The Implementation Process
Because Suncoast was already using GrowthZone AMS for several years before Jessica joined the staff, her focus was on optimizing the software instead of adoption and implementation. With a small team of five, training centered on role-based usage instead of one-size-fits-all onboarding and training.
Jessica said: “Our director of events is utilizing it for all the major events. Whether it’s event planning, creating the event, the fee items, everything ... I have an administrative assistant, which is helping with the billing.”
GrowthZone AMS' reporting tools and other essential features quickly became essential for staff, with reporting features being one of the most helpful. “We’re utilizing the major components of GrowthZone,” Jessica said. “I do use reports a lot. I find it’s now just become like second nature.”
What Suncoast Loves Most About GrowthZone
Today, GrowthZone has an important role in helping Suncoast operate efficiently, grow sustainably, and demonstrate value to members. Because they host hundreds of events each year, from galas to golf tournaments, committee meetings, networking mixers, and more, having a single platform is essential.
Jessica relies heavily on reporting and engagement tracking to support retention, which she views as the foundation of growth and success. “Retention is our biggest thing and with retention comes growth,” Jessica said. “When members are finding the value of being involved and growing their business, then that’s when the word is spread that you need to join the association and you need to be a part of what I’ve been a part of.”
GrowthZone’s insights allow Suncoast to refine events, boost non-dues revenue, and better understand what members want.
“I run reports on a consistent basis,” Jessica said. “When did a member join? Who's doing what type of an engagement? Who's showing up to what and who's not coming at all and reaching out to them? And so that has become really successful and beneficial for my membership committee, because they want to know how long has this person been a member for, and have they even come to an event? It's definitely helped our lives a lot.”
