Bank of Sun Prairie

Challenge 

The Bank of Sun Prairie’s annual stockholder meeting is its biggest event of the year and, because of social distancing restrictions, could not be held in person. Strict time requirements made it very important that the Madison, Wis. area bank event went off without a hitch. If an unexpected technical issue happened, it would take approximately another 60 days before the meeting could be held again in order to comply with its bylaws. Stockholders needed updates in a timely manner. 

“We needed confidence that our event would just work, because failure was not an option,” said Jimmy Kauffman, President and CEO, Bank of Sun Prairie. 

Solution 

With such high stakes and strict requirements, meeting organizers at the Bank of Sun Prairie knew they would need help from event professionals to make sure there weren’t missing any important pieces required for a successful virtual meeting. That’s why they decided to work with the Mediasite Events team to put on their first virtual event in the bank’s 124-year history. 

Given the viewer’s varying degree of experience with technology and virtual meetings, it was important that the platform and virtual experience was user-friendly and easy to participate in. With the help of Mediasite Events, all stockholders joined the meeting remotely and stayed up-to-date on the latest information.  

“Mediasite Events executed the event flawlessly. Using the Mediasite Events virtual platform we were able to invite stockholders, authenticate them prior to joining the live event, take attendance, stream my company presentation, and allow people to vote on motions in real time — all within a dynamic, customized online experience,” Kauffman said. 

Attendees followed along the presentation from Kauffman while also easily casting their votes on important motions using the voting feature in the Mediasite Events virtual platform. Plus, the board members monitored the votes coming in and received real-time results.   

Results 

The very next day, the bank received a few inquiries from stockholders regarding future virtual events. The bank was also able to expand its reach to stockholders who aren’t normally in attendance because they spend the winter months in warmer weather and aren’t able to attend in person. 

“Our stockholders appreciated the fact that they could simply login and participate from any location via Mediasite this year,” said Deb Krebs, AVP, Community & Strategic Partnerships, Bank of Sun Prairie. “When considering what platform to use for our meeting, it was important to us that we were able to take attendance for our board meeting minutes. We needed to do registration and dive into analytics afterwards to show who attended, and Mediasite Events made that easy. Our Board of Directors thought this was one of our best meetings to date.”  

Like many other organizations, the Bank of Sun Prairie had never considered offering a virtual meeting because they had never had to, but with such a successful meeting, there is an opportunity for the board to discuss hosting more in the future. 

“Holding a virtual event was never even a thought to us prior to the pandemic. But COVID forced us into that world and now businesses like ours are learning that you can actually do it with the right partner and be very successful,” Kauffman said. “We certainly see the benefits of virtual events. Beyond being able to reach a larger audience, our meeting was a lot more succinct in a virtual setting.”  

Learn more about the Mediasite Events virtual and hybrid townhall packages at mediasite.com/events.