How Association Membership Management Software Leads to Organization Success
When you run a membership-based organization, you’re highly motivated to do anything practical that can help your group succeed in reaching its goals, popularizing itself to prospective members, and achieving administrative efficiency. After all, you’re not in this so you can brag about how much paperwork you do or how many difficulties you face in fulfilling your role as an administrator. To keep your focus on productivity, look for association membership management software that can power a helpful website built to make your job easier at the same time that it helps your organization succeed.
Unify your member information in one secure database
As member-based organizations grow over time, information about their members can become fragmented among paper files, handwritten notes, numerous types of digital files, and other records. It’s no secret that compiling all this information together makes for greater efficiency and enables you to use your data to the fullest extent possible. But transferring all this information to yet another spreadsheet isn’t the answer.
With the right association membership management software, your website itself becomes the answer to your data management needs. Enroll members directly through your site with custom forms that enable you to specify and collect all the information you need to ensure proper member engagement. Export that information at any time for use in other software. All the while, ensure data safety with industry-standard security protocols that protect the privacy of the personally identifiable information entrusted to you. While you’re at it, create a private directory to promote member-to-member communication, in which each individual can opt to share as much or as little of their information as they choose.
Connect with members easily through built-in communication channels
Member engagement can be as essential to organization success as it can be difficult to accomplish. Even when members can share their contact information through a private member directory, that’s not enough to ensure the kind of communication that can be fundamental to achieving organization goals. Many groups make use of third-party social media sites to promote member communication, but this option forces members to join platforms in which they otherwise may be uninterested, and it fundamentally lacks the cohesive branding of a unified, single-site communication destination.
You can solve both the communication and the branding problems with one smart choice: The right association membership management software. When you build your group’s website on a software platform that incorporates built-in private messaging, you remove the need for external destinations to keep your membership in the conversation. With the addition of an online organization newsfeed, you can share essential developments and bulletins, with the further ability to enable members to comment directly on your posts if you so choose.
Collect secure online payments
One of the biggest hassles of member-based organization management arises when you need to collect dues and fees from members, and even from the public for participation in everything from your organization itself to events and other pay-to-participate functions. If you’ve ever tried to source payment processing for a website that you’ve built yourself, you know that these services can be both difficult to evaluate and expensive to engage. Additionally, payment processing involves the need for some of the most stringent forms of security involved with online affairs.
An association membership management software platform with built-in secure online payment processing can simplify your administrative life to an enormous extent. Look for features such as the ability to assess fees for late payment, accept partial payments, pass through payment processing fees as a part of the cost of each transaction, and set the terms of any invoice to match your needs. Furthermore, expect the right solution to include acceptance of ACH debits, so members and prospects can make payments directly from a checking account instead of with a credit or debit card.
Create and manage events and ticketing
Membership-based organizations range from local groups to others that transcend geography and enroll members from across the country. Nonetheless, both types of organizations often plan and schedule in-person or virtual events to engage their membership and even extend their reach further into the public at large.
To make these events easier to plan, schedule, and more, look for association membership management software that includes built-in event features. You’ll want the flexibility to create simple events that take place on a single day, all the way up to multi-day events with individual daily schedules. And of course, with secure online payments, you can collect your ticket fees online and watch them funnel directly into your organization’s account.
Feature members and their involvement
One of the easiest ways to increase the commitment of your members to your organization is to feature their involvement with your group on your website. Your association membership management software platform should offer you the ability to host photo galleries directly on your website, and, furthermore, make it possible to secure these galleries as private or share them with the public, depending on their content and your preferences. Whether you’re displaying images of individual achievements or photos you take at group events, you’re sure to add an important new dimension to your organization.
In fact, to increase the likelihood that members provide you with images, you can solicit their contributions through targeted e-mail messaging sent directly through your website. Send e-mail to your entire membership at once, or, if your software platform allows it, search for a subset of your membership to send specific messaging.
The Membershine Advantages
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that all the core features we’ve described in this post are standard advantages of the Membershine software platform. That’s because we’ve leveraged our years of experience in working with membership-based groups to build our software so it offers all the thoughtful components your organization needs. Beyond that knowledge, we also listen to our customers and formulate new features that incorporate their feedback.
Want to try our platform for yourself, and see how all our features can help you build the website that your organization really needs? Sign up for a completely free 14-day trial and experience the Membershine advantages for yourself. We’re confident that once you see how fully we’ve anticipated your needs, you won’t want to consider any other association membership management software to propel your website—and your organization—to greater productivity.
