How NSBE Amplified Sourcing Efficiency, Expanded Venue Options, and Made Data-Driven Decisions with Hopskip

Background:

The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) is one of the largest student-governed organizations in the country, with a mission to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact their communities. It's a mission that depends on connection, and connection depends on events.

NSBE hosts a robust calendar of regional conferences, workshops, and networking events that bring members together across the country. Managing the sourcing and hotel contracting for those events falls to LaTika Webster, Event Sourcing Manager on NSBE's Operations team. Her role was newly created specifically to modernize and professionalize how the organization approaches hotel sourcing -- a signal of just how much room there was for improvement.

What LaTika inherited was a process built on habit, not strategy. And changing it would require more than just a better tool.

The Challenge: Manual Processes, Limited Options, and a Leadership Team Resistant to Change

Before Hopskip, NSBE's sourcing process was heavily dependent on existing relationships and manual inputs. RFPs were built from Word documents based on previous years' agendas and emailed to a small, familiar pool of contacts. If a new property caught LaTika's attention, the process was entirely self-directed: conduct a site visit, build a case, and present the opportunity to leadership as a future possibility.

The result was a sourcing process that was narrow by design. Critical information lived in scattered emails rather than a centralized system. Sharing updates across teams was difficult. Tracking RFP statuses was manual. Historical data from past events was hard to retrieve, making it nearly impossible to benchmark, identify trends, or make truly informed decisions.

Regional stakeholders were presented with only a handful of venue options for each event, limiting flexibility, constraining cost savings, and capping the potential growth of NSBE's event portfolio.

But beyond the operational challenges, LaTika faced something harder to fix with technology alone: a leadership team that was skeptical of change. Convincing experienced stakeholders to abandon a familiar, if flawed, process required more than a better workflow. It required proof.

"From my very first demo I loved what the product could offer me in terms of value, efficiency and that it would help support making more data-driven decisions. I also believed in the team and their vision right from the start."

- LaTika Webster, Event Sourcing Manager, NSBE

The Solution: A Platform That Made LaTika Look Like a Rockstar

LaTika onboarded Hopskip in January 2023 and saw results immediately. The platform gave her everything her previous process lacked: a centralized home for all sourcing activity, a robust hotel inventory that extended well beyond her existing contact list, and the data and reporting tools to present her work to leadership in a way that was impossible to argue with.

Where sourcing decisions had previously been based on familiarity and intuition, Hopskip introduced structure and transparency. Budget forecasting became clearer. Proposal comparisons became standardized. Executive summaries could be generated to give leadership a high-level view of sourcing activity, trends, and outcomes -- the kind of visibility that builds organizational trust and makes the case for continued investment in a modern process.

The in-platform communication and notes features gave LaTika a living record of every interaction with every hotel contact, accessible instantly and organized without effort. No more digging through email threads to remember what a sales manager said six months ago. No more losing context when picking up a sourcing project after a break.

As LaTika puts it: the platform makes her look like a rockstar to her leaders. In a newly created role where proving value is part of the job, that matters enormously.

“Hopskip empowers us to provide more transparency of costs to my groups, allowing them to make more educated decisions.”

The Results

3.5x Increase in Venue Options Presented to Members

One of the most tangible outcomes of NSBE's move to Hopskip was the dramatic expansion of hotel options available to regional stakeholders. By tapping into Hopskip's broader hotel network rather than relying on a narrow pool of existing contacts, LaTika was able to present 3.5 times more venue options than before. Regional teams gained meaningful flexibility in selecting host hotels, and NSBE gained access to properties and relationships that had previously been entirely out of reach.

“Hopskip is a game-changer for non-profit organizations!”

3x Increase in Sourcing Efficiency

Tasks that previously consumed hours of manual effort were streamlined into a fraction of the time. NSBE saw a threefold improvement in overall sourcing efficiency, with LaTika able to secure meeting spaces and begin contracting with multiple properties in a timeframe that would have been unthinkable under the old process. What once required extensive back-and-forth across email chains could now be managed, tracked, and resolved within the platform.

Nearly 4x Growth in Industry Contacts

Since adopting Hopskip, LaTika has nearly quadrupled the number of hotel and industry contacts in NSBE's network. That growth isn't just a number: it represents new relationships, new options for future events, and a stronger foundation for the kind of long-term partnerships that help a nonprofit organization stretch its sourcing budget further.

100% of Sourcing Centralized in One Place

Every RFP, every proposal, every note, every contact interaction now lives in a single, searchable platform. The days of critical sourcing data scattered across email inboxes and outdated Word documents are over. For an organization managing regional events across the country, that centralization has transformed how teams collaborate, how decisions get made, and how NSBE tracks and learns from its sourcing history over time.

Why NSBE Chose Hopskip

For a nonprofit association with a lean operations team and a newly created sourcing function, the right platform needed to deliver immediate value, require minimal ramp-up time, and be priced fairly for an organization that scrutinizes every budget line.

Hopskip checked every box. The customer service was responsive and genuinely invested in LaTika's success. The price point worked for a nonprofit. And the features, particularly the data and reporting capabilities, gave LaTika exactly what she needed to build internal credibility and demonstrate the value of a modernized sourcing process to a leadership team that had been skeptical of change.

As LaTika notes, each new iteration of the platform brings more value and more opportunity. For an organization still early in its journey toward a fully modern sourcing operation, that commitment to continuous improvement matters.

"This is a wonderful platform for associations and small nonprofits. The team is amazingly supportive, takes implementing your ideas for improvements seriously, and customer service is top-notch. This product and the features are unmatched. Try it out, you will not be sorry!"

Centralize Your Sourcing. Expand Your Options. Start Free Today.

NSBE's story is one that resonates with sourcing managers and operations teams at associations and nonprofits across the country. When your process is built on habit rather than strategy, growth stalls and opportunities get missed.

Hopskip was built to change that. Whether you're modernizing a decades-old process or building a sourcing function from scratch, Hopskip gives you the tools, the data, and the support to do it right from day one.

Ready to Ditch the Chaos?

See what Hopskip can do for your event sourcing process. Start for free today or book a demo and discover why teams like Meeting Encore are never going back to Excel.

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