What is Member Management Software? [Updated for 2024 with Video]

In December 2023, we published an update to this popular article. We also turned the content into an easy to view YouTube video. Enjoy!

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Three Components of Membership Software

    2A. Data Storage

    2B. Organizational Features

    2C. Member Portal

3. Three Signals That You're ready for Membership Software

    3A. Size of Membership List

    3B. Member Automation

    3C. Shared Access

4. Conclusion

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Introduction

If you've heard about Member Management Software, but you're not quite sure if it's for you - you're in the right place! In this article, we breakdown the three different components of membership software. And then we'll discuss the top three signals that you're ready for membership software.

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Three Components of Membership Software

In my time working on Join It, I've spent more time than I care to admin thinking about membership software. And I've introduced the concept of membership software to friends, relatives, and strangers who commonly have no context for what a member management system might do! 

Which has led me to the unique position of thinking about membership software abstractly, and then trying to break it into it's smallest core principles - which are Data Storage, Organizational Features and Member Portal.

In the following sections, I go into detail for each of these three components.

Data Storage

It's no doubt that first on the list is "Data Storage" - the primary purpose of membership software is to provide a reliable way for you to store your member information. This means that this hosted solution becomes the source of truth for all the records of membership within your organization.

This is critical because you need to have data that you can trust in order for your organization to run smoothly. With trusted member data, you'll have no problem running club operations - like your Annual General Meeting or providing members-only access to the venue.

Organizational Features

Next up, is a rather large bucket that I call Organizational Features - and this bucket has the widest variance from vendor-to-vendor. So you'll want to make sure that the vendor that you select meets your specific requirements (in this related video, we go over 8 features of membership software).

Below, we go over some of the different examples of tools that might fall into this bucket: 

Event Management

Through integrations with services like Eventbrite, you can easily import event activity to a member profile, sync your event’s attendance, and offer discounts or access codes for your event and its registration. Especially for large events like national yearly conferences, or events that happen more often like church events, a software to help you manage your attendee’s information will be invaluable. 

Donation Management 

If your organization is a nonprofit or another charitable group, you may also host fundraising events throughout the year. Donation management can help you track donations and raise additional funds outside of your membership dues. 

Content Management 

If you decide to place your content behind a paywall, such as blog posts, a video series, or recorded webinars, using membership management software or social media publishing with content management software can help you offer a better experience to your members. This way, you can create different access levels, allowing more content to be accessed without needing to do everything manually.

Administrative Work 

Nobody wants to spend their time managing membership expirations or venue billing, so having a dedicated system do all that work for you may save you time. You’re then free to spend that time on your actual organization rather than sorting through paperwork. You can better connect with your members, create valuable content, and actually enjoy your events rather than getting bogged down in the details. 

Web Presence 

Many platforms like Join It will also allow you to create web pages for your organization. These can be standalone pages like welcome pages or general information about your organization, or more specific information like directions to an event. 

Integrations 

If you run your email campaigns from MailChimp, gather insights from Google Analytics, collect payments through Stripe, and run a Slack members group, you’re probably spending a lot of time bouncing between tools. Find a membership software that integrates with all these tools and syncs your information. You’ll save time and you’ll be less likely to miss steps in your organization’s important processes. 

As you can see, this bucket can expand to cover quite a bit! 

An easier way to think about this component is by asking yourself "What backend tools do I need as an admin, to run my organization?"

Member Portal

The last bucket is the Member Portal - every membership software has some concept of a member portal, where your customers/members engage with the software to accomplish a task: typically related to their member information or membership payments.

The powerful concept behind Member Portals is that they can act as 'self-service' hubs, so that your members don't have to bug you to get things done. For example, if a member moves and needs to change their address - or their credit card expired, so they need to fix a failed payment - all of this should be facilitated with zero additional work from you, or other staff members, through the member portal.

So in this case, it's critical that member portals are easy to use and intuitive.

Three Signals That You're Ready for Membership Software

Now that we've broken Membership Software into three basic components, we should all have a better grasp of "What is Membership Software?". So we're now ready to answer the next question: "Do I need membership software?"

During my time working on Join It, I've worked with over 1,800 organizations - so I've been able to notice a patter of 3 really strong signals that mean you're ready to graduate from an Excel Spreadsheet to a formal membership software.

Size of Members List

There seems to be a magic number some where around 100 members - everything about the old way that you used to manage your members, starts to break. So once you cross this threshold, you should be looking at a formal membership software. My experience tells me that if you're below 100 members, then most times you can generally manage your list of members in an informal way (like a Google Sheet).

Member Automation

One of the most common things we hear from our customers is that "I don't have enough time" - so if you find yourself struggling with manual tasks like sending our renewal reminders or collecting payments, then it's probably time to consider a formal membership software.

A lot of folks don't realize that they're holding their organization's growth back because they're trying to save a few dollars by not purchasing membership software. However, when you're scarcest resource is time - the value that comes from automating the membership life-cycle can be incredible.

For example: 

• Membership Confirmation: When a member joins, automatically sending the correct information for their Membership Type. Also, automatically delivering any Digital Membership Cards or Members-only information.
• Renewal Reminders: Ahead of their Expiration Date, sending an email to remind your members to renew so that their membership doesn't lapse.
• Expiration Notices: If a membership crosses the expiration date, send a notice to the member with instructions on how to renew.

Learn more about Membership Automation.

Shared Access

And lastly, the largest signal that you need a formal membership software is if you're sharing access with multiple people. In my experience, I've seen that as soon as you have two or more folks collaborating on membership data - it gets really complicated, really fast.

If you're using an offline system, like Microsoft Excel, and you've sent someone else the file to work on - then you already have two versions of the same file and your data is already out-of-sync. This becomes the stuff of data integrity nightmares! 

Conclusion

I hope that I've been able to demystify membership software for you! And once we've understood the three important components of membership software: Data Storage, Organizational Features, and Member Portal - then hopefully it's easier to determine if it's right for your organization.

Now, if you're looking for Membership Software - we'd obviously love for you to start a free trial of Join It.

However, we've also put together a helpful resource of the best membership software for associations. Give it a read and let us know what you think! 

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