Associations
The year an association runs on
Most associations have two busy seasons on the website: renewals and the annual conference. In renewal month, members click a link in an email and expect the form to know who they are, what they pay, and when they last paid. In conference season, the registration page has to show the member rate to members and the full rate to everyone else, and close when the room is full. In between, staff update the directory, post the newsletter, and answer the calls the website did not prevent.
What the site has to do
- Let a member join, renew, and see the member price without calling the office.
- Keep the public pages public: the mission, the next event, how to join.
- Give staff a screen for the directory and the event lists that is faster than their spreadsheet.
- Send payments to the processor you already use.
- Agree with your association management system or CRM, if you have one.
What we will not assume
We do not assume you need a new membership database. Many associations already have one, and the job is to make the website and that system agree. If you do not have one, choosing it is a decision we write up before building anything on top of it. We also do not schedule a launch in renewal month.
What you can look at
At Aero Design, Leonardo's work included Drupal sites for associations, with membership, commerce, and connections to systems such as CiviCRM and RedHen. That work belongs to Aero Design and its clients. It is described on the experience page without client names. LSCalado has not published an association client of its own.
The membership desk is a working concept with an invented association: a renewal, and a briefing with a member rate and a non-member rate. If you are moving from an old system, read planning a membership site migration.
A board scoring proposals will also ask who looks after the site after launch, and who answers when the renewal form breaks. That belongs in the same proposal as the build. See care.