2021 felt like a year of rebirth for us at Roompact. Internally, we sometimes metaphorically speak about our company as if it were a human. We had our childhood years, we stumbled through those painfully awkward teenage years, and in 2021, it finally felt like we really hit our stride and reached “adulthood” from a company perspective. We have the right people on our team and we’re all headed in the same direction with a common goal. We’re all clicking and we’ve more effective than we’ve ever been.
Looking Back
In early 2021, we welcomed Blake Chambliss to our team, and we are so grateful to work with him. Blake is a member of our software engineering team–all of whom are former Student Affairs practitioners. How cool is that?
We slowly started to emerge from our quarantines and some of us from Roompact attended a handful of gatherings: the Institute on The Curricular Approach, GLACUHO, and the NEACUHO/MACUHO joint conference, amongst others. We also hosted our 3rd Annual RoomCon in Chicago right before the Institute on The Curricular Approach. It was a delight to see so many of you.
One of our fellow ResLife software companies sold to a group of private investors in 2021, which serves as a good reminder that Roompact remains an independent family-owned business. We answer to only two groups: you (our campuses) and each other (as coworkers). We strive to provide the best software and experience possible, and we strive to be an amazing place to work. Private investors often say things like, “Oh, we’re in this for the long term,” but what they truly care about is profit. By definition, there’s only one objective for investors: making more money. That’s not us. We put people first, which is why we’re continuing our road to Becoming a B Corp.
Our journey to becoming a B Corp hasn’t been easy. We’ve been working on it since the summer of 2020. We’ve had to restructure our team to make sure everyone is onboard with our new people-first mission. We’ve worked hard to improve many of our internal processes. We’ve invested in our team by improving our benefits and work-life balance. We’ve gone through an intense certification and documentation process with B Lab, the steward of B Corp Certification. And at long last, we’re in the final stages of certification.
Looking Forward
To continue on the topic of our journey to becoming a Certified B Corp, we hope to officially become a certified B Corporation in early 2022. We’re working hard and keeping our fingers crossed. One initiative that goes hand-in-hand with our B Corp work is a pledge we started: 1% For Student Affairs, or 14SA. This pledge is modeled after 1% For The Planet. It’s a pledge we’ve made to donate at least 1% of our overall revenue (not just profit, but overall revenue) to Student Affairs non-profit organizations. According to the pledge, the donation must be undesignated/unrestricted, and the pledging business can not benefit in any way from the donation. Receiving any sort of visibility, marketing, conference benefits, or other benefit is not permitted. The donation must be purely altruistic. We made our first 14SA donation in 2021 and hope to convince some other Student Affairs software companies to join us in 2022.
Product-wise, we have many initiatives we’ll be working on in 2022. We will make our software more resilient through automated testing and automated infrastructure management. We will improve our software’s accessibility. We’ll also focus on expanding your access to your data within Roompact and helping you understand how you may be able to better utilize our software. We’ve also got a list of feature improvements we’ll be working on throughout the year so that our software better meets your needs. And finally, we’ll also work on expanding our training and overall campus experience offerings. As I mentioned earlier — our team is more effective than ever, so we expect to provide you with an unparalleled experience in 2022.
With that, I’m reminded that we work every day for you, our loyal clients. We couldn’t be here without you. Year and year again, you decide to put your trust with us and continue our partnership. We feel the gravity of your trust and we understand that we bear a great responsibility to make sure you have the best experience possible using our software and working with our team. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We are immensely grateful and we pause and reflect on how lucky we are whenever we can.
In closing, we at Roompact are hitting our stride and the best is yet to come. 2022 is primed to be a spectacular year, and we’re thankful to have you along for the ride. We wish you all a Happy Holidays and hope you have a restful winter break. We’ll be at another handful of conferences in 2022, and we hope to see you in person sooner rather than later!
