HOA Events with One-Tap RSVPs and Real Reminders
Free for 50 Properties. No Credit Card Required.
Block party Saturday. The flyer went out two weeks ago. The board chair sent an email. Someone posted in the resident Facebook group. Someone else printed it and tucked it into mailboxes. Saturday afternoon comes. Twelve people show up to set up tables for what was supposed to be a fifty-person event. The leftover hamburger buns go in the freezer for a year.
This is the difference between an HOA that knows who’s coming and an HOA that hopes. HomeHerald Community Events fixes the gap. One tile in the admin dashboard. Resident gets a banner at the top of their app and a push notification. They tap, pick Yes / Maybe / No, and the board has a real headcount before the buns get bought.
Push and email notifications. Day-before reminders. Calendar export. Free for up to 50 properties.
How Events Flow
Same five-second create flow as Community Voting, with three extra fields that matter: when the event happens, where, and how many can attend.
1. Schedule the event
Click Community Events on the admin dashboard. Pick Schedule a new event. Fill in:
- Event Type - Community Wide (everyone) or Board Only (board members and admins)
- Title - “Summer Block Party”, “Annual Meeting”, “Pool Committee”
- Description - what to bring, parking notes, any prep
- Location - “Clubhouse”, “123 Main St”, or a Zoom link
- Event start and end - the wall-clock time the event happens
- RSVPs close at - usually an hour before the event, but configurable
- Limit attendance (optional) - cap the number of Yes responses if your venue has limited capacity
Click Save & Open Now. Done.
2. Eligible residents get notified instantly
When you open the event, every invited resident gets a push notification AND an email (per their notification preferences) the moment the event opens. Title in the push: “New community event: {title}”. The email has the full motion text, the time, the location, and a CTA back to HomeHerald.
A banner also appears at the top of every eligible resident’s dashboard within a second, via a live Firestore subscription. They don’t have to log in to know about the event. The notification finds them where they are.
3. Residents RSVP in three taps
The resident sees a colored banner on their home screen (amber for community events, rose for board meetings). Tap it. Modal opens with the full motion text, when, where, and three big buttons: I’m in, Maybe, Can’t make it. They pick one, hit Confirm RSVP, done.
There’s also an Add to Calendar button. Tap it, an .ics file downloads, and the event lands in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook with the right time, location, and a CONFIRMED status if they said Yes (TENTATIVE for Maybe, CANCELLED for No).
4. Reminders fire automatically
Two reminder types, both automatic:
- Day before the event (24 hours before start time): everyone who said YES or MAYBE gets a “Tomorrow: {title}” push and email.
- Day before RSVPs close: everyone who hasn’t responded yet gets a “RSVPs close tomorrow” prompt with the motion text and a CTA to RSVP.
Both reminders respect the user’s notification preferences. Both are routed through the same channels (push + email) per their settings. People who said NO don’t get pinged again. The system is automatic and idempotent: a reminder fires exactly once per event.
5. The board sees the headcount
Click into the event in the Community Events admin panel and you see:
- A live tally panel: how many said Yes, Maybe, No, or didn’t reply
- A capacity badge if you set one (“12 of 50 confirmed”)
- The full RSVP roster: name, property (or board title for board events), response, timestamp
- A Download Roster (PDF) button that generates a printable attendance roster with your community letterhead
The roster updates in real time as people RSVP. No refresh needed.
6. Edit when things change
Things change. Venue moves, time shifts, location updates. Click Edit on any open event and update the fields. Bottom of the modal: a checkbox Notify RSVPd attendees of this change. Leave it unchecked for typo fixes. Check it when the change matters and everyone who already said yes or maybe gets a “Event updated” push and email with the new details.
7. Cancellation is automatic and respectful
If you have to cancel an event, click Cancel in the admin panel. The system marks the event cancelled, and everyone who RSVPd gets a cancellation push and email automatically. No manual outreach. The cancellation banner replaces the original RSVP banner on the resident dashboard for a week, so even people who didn’t read the email find out.
Per-User RSVPs (Important Difference from Voting)
If you’ve used HomeHerald Voting, the eligibility model for Events is different in one important way.
Voting is per-property. One ballot per property, cast by the primary on file. A household with two adults gets one ballot, because voting tracks ownership rights, and a property has one primary owner of record.
Events are per-user. Every active community member gets their own RSVP. A household with two adults each get their own banner, their own RSVP, their own calendar invite. Because attending is personal, not legal.
This is what residents actually expect. Two adults in the same house both want to know if the block party is on. They both want to RSVP for themselves. They both want their own day-before reminder.
Notification Preferences That Actually Get Respected
Every notification (open, day-before-event, day-before-close, edit, cancel) routes through the user’s NotificationPreferences:
- Both push and email enabled - they get both
- Only push - they get push
- Only email - they get email
- HOA Alerts category turned off - they get nothing for events
Dead push tokens get cleaned up automatically. Push notifications carry a badge count. Email comes from your community name with the right reply-to. Everything is opt-in, everything is configurable, nothing is pushy.
Capacity Management Without a Waitlist
Some events have hard capacity limits. The clubhouse holds 50. The bus seats 30. The board meeting room only has 12 chairs.
Set Limit attendance when you create the event and once the YES count hits the cap, the next person who tries to RSVP Yes gets a “This event is full” message. They can still RSVP Maybe or No.
The check is race-safe (a Firestore transaction prevents two simultaneous RSVPs from both sneaking in at the cap). No waitlist in v1 - we’d rather not promise a feature that’s tricky to get right. If your community needs waitlist, ping us and it goes on the roadmap.
Calendar Export That Actually Works
The “Add to Calendar” button on the RSVP modal generates a personalized .ics file. Standard format, works in:
- Google Calendar (Web, Android, iOS)
- Apple Calendar (Mac, iPhone, iPad)
- Outlook (desktop and web)
- Any other calendar app that reads ICS
The status field reflects the user’s RSVP: CONFIRMED if they said Yes, TENTATIVE for Maybe, CANCELLED for No. So when they add the block party to their calendar, their calendar app knows whether they’re committed.
What HomeHerald Events Is NOT in v1
We made specific scope decisions worth being explicit about.
No recurring events yet. Weekly board meetings, monthly socials, annual potlucks - all currently require creating each instance individually. Recurring series is on the roadmap; we’ll ship it when someone asks (and they have).
No day-of attendance tracking. RSVPs are the source of truth for who’s coming. We don’t track who actually walked through the door. Add it to the wishlist if you need it.
No public RSVP list. Residents see counts (how many Yes, Maybe, No) but not individual names. Board events show full attendee lists to board + admin only. The audit-grade roster is admin-only either way. Privacy by default.
No proxy RSVPs. Each user RSVPs as themselves. No “RSVP for me and my partner.”
No email-driven RSVPs. The system sends notification emails but RSVP responses come from the app, not from email replies. The reply-to goes to your community contact, not to a parsing bot.
These constraints keep the core flow tight. We add capabilities when they don’t bloat the working flow.
Setup Time: Sixty Seconds
The first event takes ~60 seconds to schedule. The second takes ~30. Residents respond in 3 taps. Reminders fire automatically. The roster lives in your dashboard.
Same residents who already use HomeHerald for dues, voting, work orders, and amenity bookings RSVP for events in the same app. No separate event platform, no Eventbrite link, no Google Form, no spreadsheet.
Pricing
Community Events is included in every HomeHerald plan, including the Free tier (up to 50 properties). No per-event charge, no per-RSVP charge, no email-volume cap. If your HOA is on HomeHerald, you can run events.
Free for 50 properties. No credit card. Cancel any time.