Membership Group Structures Overview

Creating a member group is the first step for setting up membership. The member group represents the membership organization itself. Multiple member groups can be created if necessary. For example, if there are completely different organizations that someone can belong to, not just different member types; or if there is a separate membership for online access with specific start and end dates.

Once a member group is created, membership products can be added using the member group as the Parent Product.

Primary vs. Non-Primary Member Groups

The primary membership group should be created to represent the most important membership entity in the association. As a member they will receive the most important benefits and discounts that the organization has to offer. This membership and status will be displayed on all major customer related screens, such as Call Center and Customer Central.

A secondary, or non-primary, member group would be created if there is a special membership offering whose rules are different than the primary membership group. The rules difference could be whether the membership is calendar or anniversary based, start at different times of the year, different proration of membership dues, and special benefits for members of this group. If a member in this group also has a membership in the primary membership group, the non-primary membership will NOT be displayed on the customer related screens. In fact, this group might get better discounts for certain services, such as a meeting that is hosted for all members by this (secondary) membership group. It is important when setting up the system rate structures to affect the differences in special pricing between the primary and non-primary membership groups.

Chapter Membership Requirements

The system provides a way to create memberships for organizations that have one flat level for chapter or section membership that is the assigned by geographical regions or states. If an organization has multiple sets of chapters that are assigned based on different national master membership products requires further consideration for automatically selecting the correct chapter during order entry. For example, if regular members and student members can have a chapter in the same state, then both of these chapter memberships could automatically be added to the order and one would have to be manually deleted. Further analysis to create a customized automated solution should be discussed with your Business Consultant.

Donation Products

Many organizations give members the option to donate to different funds and campaigns at the time that they are paying membership dues. The Level 1 Record Type of “Donation” will allow a membership product to act like a fundraising product. This special product will interface with the fundraising module by adding a fund credit record to the donor’s file and give them credit in their general donation giving history.

A membership Donation product does not convey any member benefits; the hard credit is created for the amount of the donation, which is the BASE_TOTAL_AMOUNT on the order line that has the Donation product.

Because this Donation product is within the Membership subsystem, if a user has previously purchased the Donation product, a soft warning validation message will appear upon attempting to purchase the product again. There is no way to set up a membership product to not display this message.

Typically the rate code setup for this type of product would use the short pay code of “Accept whatever is paid”. The “Allow Direct Price Update” checkbox should be selected for the product so any amount can be entered to override a suggested amount.

Special Interest Groups (SIG)

Most organizations offer membership in SIG groups for a nominal fee or free to any paid member. Another model is where the first group is free, but the member has to pay for any additional groups that to which they want to belong. The system will allow either paid or unpaid groups but does NOT have a way of enforcing payment of additional groups. If this is required by your organization, this should be discussed with your Business Consultant as a configuration option.

If members are allowed to change their group memberships on the web, then a discussion about how to configure this requirement should be scheduled with your Business Consultant.