The Center for Transformative Action: Streamlining Nonprofit Operations with SignWell
CUSTOMER STORY
With Brooke Ashton
Office and Systems Manager,
The Center for Transformative Action
CUSTOMER STORY
With Brooke Ashton
Office and Systems Manager,
The Center for Transformative Action
United States
Nonprofit, Social Justice, Fiscal Sponsorship
The Center for Transformative Action (CTA)
The Center for Transformative Action (CTA) is a nonprofit affiliated with Cornell University that has supported grassroots social change since 1971. As a fiscal sponsor, CTA helps initiatives manage funding, compliance, and administration, allowing them to focus on their missions.
CTA manages contracts and compliance documents for a wide range of social impact initiatives, handling everything from grants to HR forms on their behalf. Their previous systems—first paper-based, then Adobe Sign—slowed down operations with inefficiencies, high costs, and tools that didn't match their team's needs.
CTA chose SignWell for its simplicity, speed, and affordability—allowing staff to send contracts in minutes with no training required. The switch eliminated workflow bottlenecks, improved tracking with automated reminders, and aligned with CTA's nonprofit budget.
Before implementing SignWell, CTA relied on paper-based processes to obtain signatures. However, as the organization grew, this manual approach became impractical. Staff had to print, sign, scan, and email documents, leading to delays and inefficiencies. CTA tried Adobe Sign, which helped eliminate paper, but the platform introduced new inefficiencies, requiring extensive training and slowing down document execution. Additionally, the cost structure did not align with CTA's nonprofit budget, prompting the search for a more intuitive, cost-effective, and scalable solution.
CTA selected SignWell for its user-friendly interface, affordability, and automation features, allowing the team to process contracts faster while reducing administrative burdens. By transitioning to SignWell, CTA achieved:
Reduced contract setup time - 2 minutes per document on average.
Streamlined workflows with minimal training - The intuitive interface enabled immediate adoption by the team.
Automated notifications and reminders – Improved tracking and compliance, ensuring timely document completion.
Professional branding for enhanced credibility – Allowed CTA to customize e-signature requests with organizational branding.
Cost-effective and scalable – A more budget-friendly alternative to Adobe Sign, helping CTA allocate more resources to its mission-driven work.
The Center for Transformative Action (CTA) is a nonprofit organization fostering grassroots social change since 1971. Affiliated with Cornell University, CTA serves as a fiscal sponsor for various initiatives, helping them navigate the complexities of funding, compliance, and administrative processes. With a core team of seven managing operations, CTA enables social justice organizations to focus on their missions by providing the infrastructure needed to support their work.
As a fiscal sponsor, CTA is legally responsible for signing contracts, agreements, and compliance documents for its sponsored projects. These documents range from grant reimbursements to contractor agreements, affiliation contracts, and HR paperwork. Given the scale and geographic spread of the projects, CTA required a seamless and legally compliant method for managing signatures while ensuring efficiency in document handling.
Before adopting SignWell, CTA faced logistical and operational hurdles, making signing documents inefficient and time-consuming. The organization initially relied on paper-based workflows, requiring projects to email contracts for signatures, which delayed approvals and increased administrative workload.
CTA tried Adobe Sign, seeking to modernize, but the platform presented new challenges. While Adobe eliminated paper, it created inefficiencies in other ways. “Adobe Sign was too complex for what we needed,” said Brooke Ashton, Office and Systems Manager at CTA. “It took extra steps to complete simple tasks, and most of our staff found it frustrating and difficult to use.” And the pricing structure was still a significant expense.
CTA needed a solution that was easy to use, cost-effective, and scalable—one that could handle high volumes of contracts without excessive complexity. That’s when they discovered SignWell.
SignWell emerged as the ideal solution due to its simplicity, affordability, and robust feature set tailored for high-volume document handling. Unlike Adobe Sign, which required extensive training, SignWell’s intuitive design made it easy for the team to adopt immediately.
“SignWell is so easy to use—anyone on our team can pick it up immediately,” said Ashton. The drag-and-drop interface and pre-configured templates allowed staff to create and send contracts in under two minutes, significantly improving workflow efficiency.
Additionally, SignWell’s automation features were crucial in ensuring timely execution. “The real-time notifications when someone views or signs a document save us from having to chase people down,” Ashton shared. Automated reminders eliminated the need for follow-up emails, helping CTA keep contracts moving without administrative delays.
Beyond functionality, cost was another deciding factor. Adobe Sign’s pricing did not align with CTA’s budget priorities. By switching to SignWell, CTA found an affordable, scalable alternative that met its growing operational needs while ensuring legally binding compliance.
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