Membership & fundraising software buyers guide

Step 1 - Determine your requirements

Before you start looking for membership management software, it's essential to identify your organisation's requirements/needs.

• Why are you looking for membership software, what problems are you trying to solve?
• Try to identify those problems or areas/ processes that need streamlining / automating.

By understanding your requirements, you can narrow down your options and find software that meets your specific needs.
Look at your requirements and see which features fulfil these.

You can categorise these features into two lists.

Essential features

• What features and functionalities are essential to your membership program?
• The software you choose should have essential features such as member profiles, automated membership renewals and reminders, payment processing, communication tools, and reporting capabilities.
• Use your requirements generated above to create a list of these essential features.

Nice to have features

• These features are not essential but would be nice to have and can be the differentiator between two similar products.

Here is a list of some possible features to get you started

Member acquisition and engagement

• A modern and simple registration and payment process for the members
• A good experience on a mobile device, as 90-95% of users will be on mobile device
• Digital membership card
• Family and group memberships
• Digital waivers and liability management
• Increase member engagement and sense of community
• Parner with local businesses and sponsors to offer member deals
• Customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities
• Event registration
• Newsfeed
• Push notifications / alerts to users
• Integrates with Trailforks
• Offline accessible
• Deals for members
• Ability for members to maintain their own data and minimise admin time on this

Revenue and member retention

• Needs to accept donations at the time of membership
• Needs to accept ad-hoc donations
• Recurring / auto renewing memberships
• Recurring / auto renewing donations
• Automated renewal reminders

Admin

• Must be user friendly for the admins
• Workflow automation of common administration tasks
• Accounting integration
• Dashboards and reporting
• Does the vendor understand your sector e.g. mountain bike based organisations
• Integration with your email campaign software e.g. mailchimp
• Flexible configuration to adjust to your organisation’s needs and branding
• Trail management
• Event management

Step 3 - Choosing your software

Considerations

Consider User-Friendliness:
The software you choose should be easy to use, even for non-technical users. A complicated system will frustrate your team and waste valuable time. Look for software with a simple user interface and intuitive navigation. The software should also be easy to set up and require minimal training with online help and support available.

Consider Cost:
Membership management software comes with varying pricing models, including monthly or annual subscriptions, and one-time purchases. Some software providers may also charge additional fees for premium features or support. Consider your budget and evaluate the software's pricing against the features and functionalities it offers. Transaction fees and fees for additional functionality are often hidden so look at the fine print and check what the “payment gateway” fees are listed as. These should be no higher than Stripe fees in your country. Stripe also offers a lower discounted rate for nonprofits.
A transactional pricing model means the providers goals are aligned with your organisations and they are incentivised to increase your member numbers and revenue.

Read user reviews and get recommendations:
Before making a final decision, read reviews from other organisations that have used the software. Reviews can give you insights into the software's strengths and weaknesses and how it performs in real-life situations. You can also ask for recommendations from other organisations that have similar membership programs to yours. Capterra is a reliable source of reviews.

Consider scalability:
Choose software that can grow with your organisation. Look for software solutions that can accommodate an increasing number of members and provide the flexibility to add new features and functionality. Look at how the cost would scale with this.

Check customer support:
Look for a provider that offers responsive and helpful customer support. Consider whether they offer phone or email support, whether they have a knowledge base or community forum, and whether they provide training or onboarding support. Read user reviews to see how others found the support.

What if we require extra features in the future:
Typically, membership management software does not offer custom development and will only add new functionalities if there is a high demand from multiple organisations. Therefore, it is crucial to select a product that caters to your specific niche area. Doing so increases the likelihood of getting the desired functionality developed for your needs.

Create a shortlist

Compile a list of potential software options. Narrow down your choices to a shortlist of likely products. You can discover suitable products through word-of-mouth, search engines, or review sites such as Capterra. Check with other mountain bike organisations to see what they are using. Review any case studies of organisations similar to yours.

Next, evaluate your requirements against the features offered by each product on your list, including the essential and desirable features you identified in the first step. If you have any uncertainties about a particular feature, you can contact the sales team to get more details. Lastly, consider the factors mentioned above when selecting the final product.