Your First 30 Days with Chamberly: A Launch Checklist

You've signed up, or you're about to. The board said yes, the budget is sorted, and now the question is simply: what do we do first?

Most chambers can have Chamberly running in an afternoon. But "running" and "launched well" aren't the same thing. This checklist spreads the work across four weeks so your team can set things up carefully, test before members see anything, and open your storefront with confidence. If you're in a hurry, you can compress it. If event season is already underway, start with one flagship event and bring the rest over later.

Before you start

Gather a few things so setup goes smoothly:

• Your member list as a spreadsheet, with business names, contact names, and emails. CSV and Excel both work.
• Your event calendar for the next six to twelve months.
• Your sponsorship prospectus, meaning the levels, prices, benefits, and quantities for each event.
• Last year's sponsors, especially anyone who has first right of refusal on a sponsorship.
• Your logo and brand colors.
• A decision on payments. Will members pay online by card, reserve and get invoiced, or both? You don't need Stripe to launch.

Week 1: Foundation

Run the onboarding wizard

The first time you sign in, a five-step wizard walks you through the essentials: your chamber details, branding, payment setup, and a first event. The Stripe step is optional. If you skip it, you'll run in reservation mode, where members claim sponsorships online and you handle payment the way you do today. You can connect Stripe later and switch to online payments, or offer both.

Import your members

Upload your member spreadsheet from the Import page. The preview shows problems before anything is saved, so you can fix a bad email or a missing column first. If you have a big roster, imports are processed in chunks, so a list of several hundred businesses is fine.

Tip: clean up duplicates in your spreadsheet before importing. It's much easier than merging afterward.

Invite your team

Add your staff from the Team page. Organization managers have full access; staff roles handle day-to-day work. Then set up your Sold by roster if staff, ambassadors, or board members sell sponsorships, so each sale can be credited to the right person from day one.

Week 2: Events and sponsorships

Build your benefits library first

Before creating sponsorships, add your common benefits to the benefits library: "Logo on event signage," "Recognition from the podium," "Two tickets," and so on. Then each sponsorship picks from the list instead of retyping. It keeps descriptions consistent and makes changes easy. If some sponsorships come with requirements, like submitting a logo by a deadline, add them to the disclaimer library as well. Sponsors must acknowledge disclaimers before they reserve or pay.

Create your first event

Start with your next major event. Add the date, venue, description, and a strong photo, then attach its sponsorships with prices, quantities, and exposure tiers. The event's photo carries over to its linked sponsorships automatically.

Once one event looks right, use Clone event to duplicate it, sponsorships and all, for similar events. Monthly luncheons and recurring mixers go quickly this way.

Add standalone sponsorships

Not everything belongs to an event. Newsletter sponsorships, website placements, and annual program sponsors can be created as standalone sponsorships that sell alongside your events.

Set your sales windows

Use go-live scheduling to decide when each event opens, and set your chamber-wide Stop Sales window so sponsorships close with enough lead time for printing. We wrote a whole post on choosing a sales deadline if you want help picking the number.

Week 3: First rights, packages and email

Assign first rights

If returning sponsors have first right of refusal, assign it now. First rights can be set individually or in bulk from a spreadsheet. During the first-rights window, those sponsorships are held for their holders; when it ends, anything unclaimed opens to the public automatically. This is usually the part of launch that saves the most headaches later, so take the time to get it right. The first-rights page explains the options.

Build packages (optional)

If you sell annual bundles, create packages that combine sponsorships across events, with a bundle discount if you offer one. Each package gets a shareable PDF flyer you can send to prospects.

Review your emails

Walk through the transactional emails members will receive: welcome, order confirmation, first-rights notices, and reminders. Adjust the wording and branding to sound like your chamber. Send yourself test emails; they fill in sample data so you can see what members will actually see. Then save any campaign emails you'll reuse as templates.

Week 4: Test, then launch

Test with View As

This is the step chambers are most glad they didn't skip. View As lets you see the storefront exactly as a specific member would, including their first rights and their cart, without signing in as them. Pick three or four members with different situations, such as a first-rights holder, a new member, and a business with multiple contacts, and walk through a purchase as each. View As keeps a separate cart for each simulated member, so your own cart isn't affected.

Do a soft launch

Before inviting everyone, invite a handful of friendly members, such as board members or long-time sponsors. Ask them to sign in and poke around. Fix anything that confuses them.

Invite your members

When you're ready, use bulk invites from the members table. Select all spans every page of results, so you can invite your whole roster in one pass. Each member gets a branded email with a link to set their password. If someone misses it, use Resend invite from their row.

Announce it

Send a short announcement: what's new, why it's easier for members, and a link to the storefront. Share your flagship event's flyer and QR code in your newsletter and on social media. Put the QR code on printed materials at your next in-person event.

After day 30

Once you're live, a few habits keep things running smoothly:

• Check your reports weekly during event season to see what's selling and what isn't.
• Turn on the sponsor leaderboard in the locations that suit your membership.
• Add photos to each event's gallery after it happens, for next year's sponsors to see.
• Keep an eye on the changelog; new features ship regularly.

And when next year comes around, the annual rollover carries your events and sponsorships forward so you're not rebuilding from scratch.

Not signed up yet? Start a free trial, or explore a fully set-up chamber in the live Playground first.