“The best thing about Activity Messenger, for me, is streamlining. Instead of having to learn four platforms to do my job, I just had to learn one – and the learning curve was very easy.” – Felicia Borges, Sport Administrative Coordinator at Sport Manitoba
Sport Manitoba is the leading planning, programming, and funding agency for the development of amateur sport in Manitoba. It aims to ensure every Manitoban has access to the resources they need to achieve their full athletic potential.
The organization works with over 100 provincial and community organizations to develop the skill sets of Manitoba’s athletes, coaches, volunteers, and officials. As a provincial body supporting this sport network, the team manages a wide range of communications and administrative responsibilities, including funding applications, contact management, event logistics, newsletters, surveys, data collection and tracking, support to its provincial sport organizations (PSOs), and more.
When Sport Administrative Coordinator Felicia Borges joined the organization, Activity Messenger was already a part of their toolkit. Two years later, she became both a daily user and an internal champion, helping some of Manitoba’s PSOs successfully and efficiently adopt the platform for their programs. She also supports departments across Sport Manitoba as they transition to the platform, as well as PSOs using the organization’s microsite.
Coordinating sport administration is no small feat. Before consolidating on Activity Messenger, Sport Manitoba’s team faced a familiar challenge in the world of sport administration: too many tools, too many logins, and too much friction.
It needed a platform that could serve as a one-stop shop for PSOs, centralizing resources, funding applications, and document tracking. Their existing tools were fragmented and not user-friendly, creating multiple, inefficient channels for exchanging information and documents. They also recognized that many PSOs faced similar operational challenges, relying on inconsistent and disconnected systems.
What the team needed was a single, intuitive platform that could handle the full breadth of their administrative needs, with the option for PSOs to adopt with minimal friction.
The most immediate impact of Activity Messenger at Sport Manitoba was consolidation. Rather than onboarding staff to four or five different tools, everything — forms, registrations, surveys, communications, memberships — lives in one place.
“Instead of me coming into this new position and having to learn four different platforms to be able to do my job, I just had to come in and learn one, which was really nice,” said Borges.
The learning curve was minimal. She quickly picked up the platform through a combination of self-guided exploration and peer support, and soon moved from onboarding herself to training others.
“I’ve used quite a few platforms in different roles and capacities, and I found the learning curve with Activity Messenger was very easy.”
One of Felicia’s major contributions has been helping Sport Manitoba’s member PSOs get up and running with Activity Messenger. From coach registrations to athlete memberships and event sign-ups, she helps PSOs design and launch forms tailored to their specific needs.
This kind of federation-level support is a multiplier: when Sport Manitoba can offer a vetted, easy-to-use platform to its member organizations, everyone benefits.
PSOs get a professional system without having to research or fund completely on their own, and Sport Manitoba can encourage consistency and offer support across the provincial sport ecosystem through streamlined coach, athlete, and membership registrations.
“We do a lot of form creation,” said Borges. “Whether it’s registration for events, surveys, newsletters, all of that, I assist a lot of our PSOs in developing Activity Messenger for their own use.”
For multiple teams managing complex, ever-evolving needs, responsive support is non-negotiable. Felicia rates the Activity Messenger customer service team a perfect five out of five.
“I never worry when I have a problem, because I know somebody is always going to be on the other side ready to answer and answer promptly, which is great.”
Whether it’s a quick email or a virtual Zoom meeting, the Activity Messenger team is consistently there, meaning Felicia can focus on supporting Sport Manitoba’s PSOs rather than getting stuck on technical roadblocks.
That responsiveness has extended beyond troubleshooting. When Sport Manitoba needed to sell tickets for an event while also assigning specific seats, Activity Messenger didn’t just point them to a workaround. Instead, a solution was built from the ground up.
The result was a new seat map tool, developed collaboratively with Sport Manitoba’s input throughout the entire process.
“They took what we wanted and needed and ran with it.”
Here’s a quick video of Olivier demonstrating Activity Messenger’s seat mapping tool:
As Sport Manitoba continues to grow its support for the provincial sport community, Activity Messenger remains at the centre of how the organization communicates and coordinates.
The team is always looking to bring more PSOs and Sport Manitoba departments onto the platform. Their goal is to use Activity Messenger to its fullest in every department. With forms, registrations, events, and communications all under one roof, they can focus more energy on what matters most: supporting coaches, officials, athletes, volunteers, and sport organizations across Manitoba.
