As we have onboarded new clients, we have seen it all, color-coded excel sheets, outdated databases, and an unclear membership. One of the first steps we take is understanding who makes up the membership and how they can be better organized. If your board is resistant to membership software or even an upgraded one, here are a few reasons we see it as insanely valuable to an association.
1. Save your organization time and money. We charge our clients by the hour in order to best fit their needs each month. When we first onboarded one of our clients, they used the membership software, YourMembership. It took our Association Manager two hours to create an event within the website. We recommended the organization switch to Wild Apricot. After the switch, creating an event took 15 minutes. This was an 87.5% decrease in wasted time allowing for the Association Manager to focus on other bigger picture items. Time spent is an important factor to keep an eye on. Whether it is your board or AMC spending it, it’s time that could be spent on more important issues.
2. If you don’t have membership software, you are not only losing time but also opportunities. Excel does not offer the same features that a membership database can offer. With membership software, you can email members directly, renewals can be done online, members-only content can be provided, and so much more. Meet your members in the 21st century and step up your technology game.
3. Allow your organization to make data-based decisions. Instead of shooting in the dark when planning for your next year, take a look at the data that your membership software offers. Which events were highly attended? On what touchpoint did members most often renew? These are things that can be answered when you have membership software. This will help you to make more educated decisions and ideally continue to grow your organization and/or engagement.
4. Allow for easier transitions. Whether volunteers or an AMC are managing your membership database, there will likely be a point in time where the person managing the database steps down and a new person takes over. Make this process smooth and clean by having your information stored in the database. If everything is kept up to date as it should be, there should be no confusion as to where members stand.
If you were looking for a reason besides this excel sheet makes me want to pull out my hair to justify switching to a membership software that works for your organization, we hope you found one or two. Feel free to reach out with any questions about our preferred programs!