The User's Edge : membership

Optional Module Monday: Membership

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:30:00 GMT

Membership in a club is a way to promote unity and camaraderie. If your organization offers memberships, you can use the Membership module to track memberships in The Raiser's Edge.

Adding a new membership is easy. To add one, go to the Membership tab in a constituent record and click new. In the New Membership window, add program, category, and subcategory information, as well as any dues, the date joined and the expiration date.

In Mail, you can generate membership cards, which can be used with barcode scanning. You can print bar codes on membership cards and then scan members' cards at exhibits, events and even the gift shop. With each scan, membership information is displayed, and employees can be alerted by customized sounds if a membership is lapsed or if it's almost time to renew. The member can renew or rejoin and update address and contact information on the spot.

You can record all membership activity in one place, including membership renewals, upgrades, and downgrades. When it's time to renew, you can generate renewal notices in Mail to send to your members. In addition to the features in Records and Mail, there are extensive reporting options, including membership lists, directories, attendance, and analytical and statistical reports.

Read more about the Membership module in Knowledgebase solution BB32005.

9/30 Forums Roundup

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:11:00 GMT

Here are last week's most popular Forums posts as well as unanswered posts:

Most Popular Topics:

Unanswered Posts:

8/19 Forums Roundup

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:08:00 GMT

Here are last week's most popular Forums posts as well as unanswered posts:

Most Popular Topics:

Unanswered Posts:

The answer to the Brain Buster in this month's edition of The User's Edge is that the letters in "DRAGON LEWIS" can be rearranged to spell "A SINGLE WORD".

7/22 Forum Roundup

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:01:00 GMT

Here are last week's most popular forum discussions as well as unanswered posts:

Most popular topics:

Unanswered Posts:

Join the discussion over at the forums.

Report Roundup: Comparing Membership Reports

Katy McGinnis — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:41:00 GMT

Different reports, or even the same report, can look at a set of data and produce entirely different results based on the report critera. One overlooked checkbox can skew totals. The Membership Statistics by Category report is often compared to the Comparative Membership Statistics report; comparing these results requires a deep understanding of what each report considers.

The Membership Statistics by Category report provides a snapshot of activity within each membership category for a specific time period, and includes information about upgrades, downgrades, total memberships, and income. The Comparative Membership Statistics Report compares the performance of membership categories in selected date ranges. This report includes the number of memberships or members for each membership level and the income generated.

The difference is in the report detail. The Membership Statistics by Category report documents each membership by category and the complete detail of what happened on the membership in the date range. The Comparative Membership Statistics Report shows the start and end totals of the membership categories, without providing additional detail.

Both reports follow the same formula:

Total:
Memberships prior to (Start)
New
Renew Upgrade In
Renew Down In
Rejoin Same
Rejoin Upgrade In
Rejoin Downgrade In
Upgrade During Cycle In
Downgrade During Cycle In
Subtotal = X

Total:
Renew Upgrade Out
Renew Downgrade Out
Upgrade During Cycle Out
Downgrade During Cycle Out
Dropped
Lapsed (Only in the Membership Statistics by Category report, when 'Include only active memberships' is marked)
Subtotal = Y

Subtract for total:
X - Y = End Members as Of...

So, if they reports consider the same records and use the same formula, they should match, right? Here's why they might not:

On the Membership Statistics by Category report, you have the option 'Include only active memberships in 'Membership as of' counts'. This is a bit of a puzzle. With this option marked, the 'Memberships Prior To' and 'Memberships As Of' columns will not consider dropped memberships, but the other columns will consider dropped memberships in the count if they are part of the activity in the report. So, if a membership was dropped within your date range, you might see one transaction for that membership in the Dropped column, but the Memberships As Of column will not include a record in the count for that membership. The option to 'Include only active memberships...' is not a filter; it is a tool for analysis.
The Comparative Membership Statistics Report has a filter option to include Membership records with a specific Standing. This will include memberships in the report based on their Standing on the day the report is run.
If a query is used in one report, it must be used in the other.
The date range must be the same in both reports.
The filters tab must be the same in both reports.

This information is also in the Knowledgebase solution BB93723.

Report Roundup: Membership Statistics by Category Report

Katy McGinnis — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:33:00 GMT

Membership reports provide statistics to make sense of changes to your constituents' memberships. The Membership Statistics by Category report provides a starting number of Memberships within each category, then lists the different memberships that had activity in a specific time period. For the memberships in the Start column, this activity includes upgrades, downgrades, drops, lapsed memberships, and renewals. You can use this to analyze the data between your programs, categories, and subcategories.

You can use this report to determine which programs are struggling. Let’s say you’re an organization geared towards helping animals, and one of your Programs is the Adopt an Animal program. You have several categories in this program – Family, Individual, and Couple. Your family attendance is down, so you run the Membership Statistics by Category report. This confirms your suspicions – of the 30 Family memberships you had at the beginning of the calendar year, 15 have dropped, and 10 have downgraded. This tells you it's time to start promoting the Adopt an Animal Family memberships – maybe by adding some new benefits.

The report parameters are pretty standard. A unique option in this report is the option Include only Active memberships in ‘Membership as of’ counts. This means that the report only considers memberships that were Active during your date range when calculating the Memberships Prior to, Lapsed, and Memberships as of values.

The report splits the memberships by Program, Category, and Subcategory (e.g., Adopt an Animal.Couple.Koala). The report in the example above first lists the memberships before your specified time period (Start Memberships, or ‘Memberships prior to…’ is an optional column, selected on the Format tab), followed by new memberships that started during the report's date range.

In the next set of columns, the report lists the numbers within each of the other possible activity actions: renewals, rejoins, upgrades, and downgrades.

Membersships that upgraded or downgraded during their cycle (as opposed upgrading or downgrading after their lapsed memberships – which is calculated in the previous section) are listed next, followed by dropped memberships.

After taking all of this activity into account, then provides a final total (column titled ‘Memberships as of…’). Here's how the final total is calculated:

Beginning number = Start Memberships (Memberships prior to…)

ADD x:
New + Renew Up-In + Renew Down-In + Rejoin-Same + Rejoin Up-In + Rejoin Down-In + Upgrade During Cycle-In + Downgrade During Cycle-In

SUBTRACT y:
Renew Up-Out + Renew Down-Out + Upgrade During Cycle-Out +Downgrade During Cycle-Out + Dropped ( + Lapsed only if the 'Include only Active memberships in ‘Membership as of’ counts' option is marked)

So, Start Memberships + (x – y) = Memberships as of…(end of date range)

The following activity is not accounted for in this formula:

Renewals - Same: This is accounted for in the Start membership value, adding it to the totals here would double count the membership
Rejoin Up-Out: This membership is not counted in the start membership value for this membership, but rather on the membership to which it was upgraded
Rejoin Down-Out: This membership is not counted in the start membership value for this membership, but rather on the membership to which it was downgraded

This information is also in Knowledgebase solution BB136964.