How Idaho Central Credit Union Transformed 2,000+ Annual Sponsorships from Excel Chaos to Organized Success

Executive Summary

Idaho Central Credit Union, a $12 billion financial institution, was drowning in sponsorship chaos. With over 2,000 annual sponsorships managed through Excel spreadsheets and scattered file systems, Clark Rasmussen and his team struggled to track performance, collaborate with partners, and prove ROI to leadership.

After implementing Trak's sponsorship management platform, ICCU gained centralized control over their entire sponsorship portfolio, enabling real-time collaboration and automated performance tracking that will help them demonstrate measurable community impact.

$12b

Financial institution

2,000+ 

Sponsorships every year

6,500+ 

Hours saved each year

The Challenge: Managing a $12 Billion Company's Sponsorships with Spreadsheets

When Clark Rasmussen was hired by Idaho Central Credit Union in 2019, he was tasked with building their sponsorship program from scratch. "They pretty much said, here's a computer, go do," Clark recalls. "So it's just evolved since then."

What started as a manageable portfolio quickly grew into an overwhelming challenge. ICCU now manages over 2,000 sponsorships annually across multiple regions, including southern Idaho, northern Idaho, Washington, and the Tucson area.

As the program scaled and the sponsorship team grew, problems began to appear:

Clark's Excel-based system worked for him personally but wasn't scalable. "The system wasn’t designed for collaboration," he explains. "We couldn’t keep operating a $12 billion company’s sponsorship strategy on an Excel sheet. We had to progress."

"We couldn’t keep operating a $12 billion company’s sponsorship strategy on an Excel sheet. We had to progress."

Clark Rasmussen
Idaho Central Credit Union

The Search: Finding a Solution Built for Collaboration

During demos with various sponsorship software providers, Clark consistently asked one crucial question: "Do you offer anything that allows us to collaborate with our partners?"

The response was always disappointing.

For Clark and his team, collaboration was non-negotiable. The search continued.

When a member of Clark’s team arranged a demo with Trak, everything changed. Cameron Oliver, Trak's CEO, presented exactly what ICCU needed. "The way he spoke made sense to us. We could tell that he understood sponsorships," Clark remembers. “He talked about collaboration and reporting. His sales pitch was exactly perfect for what we needed and exactly what other software couldn’t provide."

The Solution: Centralized Sponsorship Management with Trak

What impressed Clark most about Trak wasn't just the features—it was the personal attention from the Trak team. "I really appreciate their weekly hour-long call with us,” he says. 

Trak addressed ICCU's core requirements:

Clark was particularly impressed by the platform's usability during demos. "The smoothness, the ability to navigate, was very attractive to me. I would ask about reporting, and with a click all of this reporting would just pop up."

Implementation: Full Transition to Organized Success

ICCU made the decision to fully transition to Trak, going live on January 1st, 2025. "We are 100% diving in and I think it's been really successful so far," Clark reports.

The implementation replaced both their Excel spreadsheet system and complicated internal contract management processes for the sponsorship team, Clark confirms, noting that while corporate compliance still requires master contract copies in their enterprise system, Trak has become the operational hub for sponsorship management.

Daily Usage and Adoption:

The Results: From Chaos to Clarity

While ICCU is still in the early stages of implementing Trak, the benefits are already clear. 

Clark explains the transformation: "Trak gives us an asset-by-asset breakdown of our sponsorships. It makes it easier for our partners to report to us, and it makes it easier for us to hold people accountable."

"Trak gives us an asset-by-asset breakdown of our sponsorships. It makes it easier for our partners to report to us, and it makes it easier for us to hold people accountable."

Clark Rasmussen
Idaho Central Credit Union

Key Improvements:

Accountability and Visibility: The platform provides transparency that was impossible with spreadsheets. 

Strategic Leadership Communication: Clark anticipates being able to demonstrate sponsorship value to executive leadership with data-driven insights. "Once we get the proof of performance and once we start getting people uploading data, then all of a sudden I'm going to be able to speak to my chief team at a different level."

Operational Efficiency: The centralized system has eliminated the manual tracking that consumed Clark's time, saving him at least 6,000 hours of work each year. "It has completely replaced  my Excel sheet.”

When asked to summarize the core problem Trak solves, Clark is direct: “Trak solves everything. It solves our reporting. It solves the unknown of what our impact in the community is.”

Looking Ahead: The Future of ICCU's Sponsorship Program

Clark's vision for the future is ambitious but grounded in Trak's capabilities. He sees the platform enabling ICCU to move beyond basic tracking to strategic impact measurement.

"Soon I will be able to say: ‘This is our impact, this is our engagement. This is what we're doing. This is our return. This is how we can evaluate.’ It will allow me to speak about our work with much more confidence and detail.

""Trak solves everything. It solves our reporting. It solves the unknown of what our impact in the community is."

Clark Rasmussen
Idaho Central Credit Union

Key Takeaways

Idaho Central Credit Union's transformation from an Excel-based chaos to an organized sponsorship management system demonstrates the power of purpose-built software for complex partnership portfolios.

Three Critical Success Factors:

  1. Collaboration Requirements: ICCU's insistence on partner collaboration capabilities led them to the right solution.
  2. Leadership Engagement: Trak’s direct involvement and industry experience built immediate trust and credibility.
  3. Full Commitment: ICCU's decision to fully transition rather than pilot ensured team adoption and maximum benefit.

For other large organizations managing hundreds or thousands of sponsorships, ICCU's experience shows that the right platform can transform operational chaos into a strategic advantage.

About Trak

Trak is sponsorship management software that helps brand sponsorship leaders replace spreadsheets and email with a centralized, automated system that keeps everything organized, tracks performance in real time, and proves ROI. Leading brands trust Trak to streamline their sponsorship operations and maximize the impact of every partnership.

Ready to transform your sponsorship management? See how Trak can help you organize, track, and prove the value of your partnerships.

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