Since Faversham Strike Force swapped cash payments for GoCardless, its coaches and volunteers have more time to give their all to supporting the community.
On paper, and on the pitch, Faversham Strike Force is a grassroots football club based in Kent. But, to the community it serves and its army of 174 volunteers, it’s much more than that.
Lee Suter, Club Development Manager, explains: “We offer football to girls, boys, women and men; early years coaching and even walking football for over 60s, but our role in the community is much more than just kicking a football. It's about helping people be active and it's about making friends.”
One thing the club is definitely not about, however, is payments admin. This was getting out of control until the club showed cash the red card and switched to Direct Debit with GoCardless.
Now, instead of chasing payments or running money to the bank, volunteers have more time to focus on the club and the community.
Coaches want to coach, not collect cash
Relying on cash payments meant coaches were on the frontline of financial admin, which is not what they signed up for.
Our volunteer coaches would have to collect the cash from players or parents, record those payments to reconcile them later in the accounts, or have to have awkward conversations about late payments. That was a real challenge because it was difficult for them to be both good coaches and good administrators.
Even for the club’s actual administrators, cash payments were an admin nightmare.
“The treasurer or myself would have to keep manual records, take money to the bank, maintain our own systems to track what was coming in and going out,” added Lee. “Payments really took up a lot of everyone’s time.”
Just minutes to set up
Faversham Strike Force now uses GoCardless to automatically collect all payments, both one-offs and monthly membership fees. This keeps the cash flowing freely and, ultimately, the club running smoothly.
“Regular payments are vital to the running of the club and 90% of our payments now come through GoCardless,” said Lee.
“We spoke to other grassroots football clubs about our payments issues, and the name GoCardless kept coming up. It took just minutes to set up, and now we hardly have to think about collecting members’ payments.”
If a payment does fail, we don’t even have to chase people because the Success+ feature automatically retries three times — we've really seen an upturn in our income since we started using that. And we can pause payments when a player gets injured or needs to take a break, and just restart them when they return.
More time for coaches, less life admin for parents
Digitising payments means Faversham Strike Force’s coaching team now has more time to focus on their passion: delivering great training sessions in a safe, fun and inclusive environment.
“It’s brilliant not to have to collect money or chase payments,” said Jo Starkey, Coach, Faversham Strike Force. “We can concentrate more on the kids and we've got more time to make their training sessions more fun, engaging and different.”
Parents are happier too, because cash payments were always an extra piece of life admin that they could really do without.
“GoCardless gives me an easier life,” said Lisa Silcox, whose daughter has trained with the club for five years.
It's a rolling payment that comes out on a certain day every month. So I can just go home, get dinner done, and get straight to training without thinking about getting money on the way.
From strength to strength, on and off the pitch
Throughout Lee’s 25-year association with Faversham Strike Force, the club has gone from strength to strength, on and off the pitch, and he’s impressed that GoCardless has evolved alongside it.
“I’m so proud of the evolution of the club,” he said. “We've now got 58 teams, 850 members, and GoCardless has evolved with us, adapting to our needs and those of other grassroots sports organisations. It's a real partnership, and we don't see that changing.”
