Harvard Club of the North Shore Simplifies Membership with Join It

At a Glance

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About the Harvard Club of the North Shore

The Harvard Club of the North Shore is a regional alumni association supporting approximately 4,000 Harvard graduates across the North Shore of Boston. After a period of dormancy, the club was revived by alumni leadership and rebuilt into an active community hosting events and programming. Susan Kelly, the organization's third president, became involved during this rebuilding phase and helped guide its continued growth.

The club operates entirely on volunteer effort, with no dedicated administrative staff. Since adopting Join It in 2019, it has grown to support 770 active members while maintaining lean, sustainable operations.

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The Challenge

After relaunching the club, membership management remained entirely manual. Each year, volunteers mailed thousands of letters asking alumni to return a $25 membership check.

This process created operational friction at every step. It required significant time and cost to manage, and it introduced unnecessary barriers for members. Alumni were willing to stay engaged, but many were discouraged by the need to write and mail a check annually. For a volunteer run alumni association, this model was not sustainable and risked limiting long term growth.

The key pain points included printing and mailing approximately 3,000 letters each year, processing individual checks by hand, tracking member status without a centralized system, and relying on a workflow that could not survive disruption from events like a pandemic.

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The Solution

The club selected Join It as its membership management platform to centralize member data and move dues collection online. The goal was to simplify operations, reduce admin time, and create a more accessible experience for members.

With Join It, the organization transitioned from paper based administration to a fully digital system. Members can now pay dues online by credit card through recurring billing, and administrators can track membership status, renewals, and payments in one place.

"I wanted something that really reduces administrative time and effort with maximum impact."

This streamlined approach aligns with the needs of alumni associations that rely on volunteers rather than dedicated administrative staff. Rather than managing a seasonal flood of envelopes and checks, the team now runs membership in the background with minimal effort.

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The Results

Since adopting Join It in 2019, the Harvard Club of the North Shore has transformed how it operates while sustaining an active and growing alumni community.

Eliminated approximately 3,000 mailed letters per year. The annual cycle of printing, stuffing, and posting membership renewal letters is gone entirely, saving the volunteer team significant time and cost.

Replaced manual check processing with online payments. Members pay dues by credit card, removing the friction that previously discouraged renewals. No more waiting for checks to arrive, depositing them individually, or reconciling payments by hand.

Centralized member records and renewal tracking. All membership data lives in one place, giving administrators a clear view of who is active, who has lapsed, and who is due for renewal.

Enabled continued operation during COVID. Because the club had already adopted an online membership system, it was able to continue operating without disruption when in person events stopped. As Susan Kelly, the organization's third president, explains, "Imagine the difference between just having a website versus mailing out 3,000 letters a year and dealing with checks coming in. This completely changed the club. It made it viable."

Susan noted that without this transition, the organization likely would have gone dormant again.

Sustained a community of 770 active members. Despite being volunteer led, the club maintains a strong and engaged membership base, supported by a system that works for both administrators and members alike.

The platform also remains accessible to non technical users. As Susan Kelly highlighted,

"Members are able to use the system fine, even those who aren't technical,"

reinforcing how ease of use supports both the team running the club and the alumni joining it. She also emphasized the value of responsive support from the Join It team.

For a volunteer run organization with no budget for dedicated staff or enterprise software, that kind of operational simplicity is not just convenient. It is essential.

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