A leaner alternative to Almabase

Almabase can be a good fit for institutions focused on alumni engagement, fundraising, alumni communities, and advancement workflows. Join It is a better fit for alumni associations or alumni-led groups that need a practical system for membership records, dues, renewals, events, donations, digital cards, and member portals. More than 4,000 organizations worldwide run their memberships on Join It, which holds a 4.7 overall Capterra rating — 4.9 for customer service — and has processed over $100M in membership payments since 2016. This helps alumni teams manage the membership side of alumni engagement without implementing an enterprise-style platform.

An alumni engagement platform often focuses on fundraising, alumni networking, institutional advancement, and large-scale engagement. A membership platform focuses on active members, dues, renewals, events, directories, donations, and communication workflows. Join It works well when an alumni group needs to manage membership operations directly, especially when the team is smaller or the membership model is simpler than a university-wide alumni engagement program.

A migration from Almabase should begin with the alumni records that support your membership program: names, emails, graduation years, membership types, statuses, renewal dates, donation activity, and event history where available. Join It can organize those records into membership types, custom fields, renewals, donations, and member portal access. This gives alumni groups a membership-first operating system while any broader engagement or advancement tools can remain separate if needed.