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Association membership package

The membership year in one system: applications by grade, renewals with recurring collection, a directory with member privacy choices and a live public register, committees with their minutes, meeting notices with proxy forms and voting, CPD records and branch events.

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Who it is for

Built for

A good fit

Trade associations, professional institutes, learned societies and federations with a few hundred to several tens of thousands of members, run by a membership team of one to ten with volunteer officers around them. It suits organisations that award more than one grade of membership, renew on a fixed cycle, hold an annual general meeting with a vote, keep committees whose minutes must be filed and found, and want their public register to be true on the day a member lapses. Daily users are the membership secretary working the renewal board, the company secretary managing committees and meetings, branch officers running regional events, committee chairs reading papers, and members renewing, logging CPD and updating their directory entry.

Not the right fit

It is not for paid-content subscription businesses with tiers and dunning, which have the membership platform package, nor for charities whose supporters give rather than join. A professional body that also runs examinations needs the assessment side through custom work or its existing provider.

The operational problem it solves

How it runs, step by step

Second week of January.

  1. The membership secretary opens the renewal board: 3,860 members due, grouped by grade and payment method.

  2. Those on recurring collection show the collection date and status as the provider reports it; card payers have received the first reminder and the board shows who has opened it.

  3. A Fellow whose collection failed appears in the retry column with the date of the next attempt and a note the secretary added after a phone call.

  4. An Associate applies to upgrade to Member and uploads two referee names and a portfolio; the application is routed to the membership committee's February meeting, where the chair sees it alongside the agenda.

The company secretary issues the AGM notice: the system lists the voting grades, counts eligible members as of the record date and sends the notice with a proxy form that comes back as a recorded submission rather than a scanned sheet.

  1. A branch officer in the north-west sets up a spring seminar with member and non-member pricing; attendees book from their member account and the branch sees its list while head office sees every branch.

  2. A member logs an evening course against her CPD category and sees her year-to-date total against the requirement; in March a random audit selects her and asks for the certificate she already uploaded.

  3. On the last day of February the grace period ends: eleven unpaid members lapse automatically, disappear from the public register and move to the reinstatement list.

  4. The chief executive opens the dashboard to see renewal rate by grade and branch, and the board papers are generated from the same numbers.

Features

What the package does

The package ships as modules that mirror the association year: membership and grades, renewals and payments, the directory and public register, governance with committees, meetings and voting, CPD, and branches. Each module below lists what it does; the comparison table shows which package variant includes it.

Memberships

  • Membership grades and applicationsGrades with eligibility criteria, online applications with evidence uploads and committee approval.
  • Committees, agendas and minutesCommittees and working groups with agendas, a minutes archive and tracked actions.
  • Meeting notices, proxies and votingNotices with a record date, eligibility, proxy forms and a vote that produces a tally with its audit record.
  • Events with member and non-member pricingEvents priced differently for members and non-members, with attendance recorded for each.
  • Branches and regionsBranch officers see only their own members and events, and cannot change grades, renewals or head office settings.
  • Policy consultationsConsultations that collect member responses and summarise them for the committee.

Billing and payments

  • Renewal cyclePro-rata joining, reminders, grace periods, automatic lapsing and reinstatement, so renewals no longer rely on a spreadsheet.
  • Card payments and recurring collectionSubscriptions paid by card or collected on a recurring basis through a connected provider, recorded against each member.

Directory and reviews

  • Member directory and public registerMembers choose what the directory shows about them, and the public can search a live register of current members.
  • Members-only documents and segment emailDocuments visible only to members, and email campaigns sent to segments such as grade or region.

Reporting and insights

  • CPD loggingMembers log CPD in categories, download an annual summary and can be selected for audit.

Package variants compared

  • Website
  • Business Software
Feature Website Business Software
Membership grades and applications Included Included
Renewal cycle Optional Included
Card payments and recurring collection Optional Included
Member directory and public register Included Included
Committees, agendas and minutes Not in this variant Included
Meeting notices, proxies and voting Not in this variant Included
Events with member and non-member pricing Included Included
Members-only documents and segment email Included Included
CPD logging Not in this variant Optional
Branches and regions Not in this variant Optional
Policy consultations Optional Optional

Roles and permissions

Who does what

  • Membership secretary

    • Work the renewal board, record payments and manage grace, lapse and reinstatement
    • Process applications and upgrades and route them to the committee
    • Edit member records and grade history
    • Run reports on renewal rates and membership by grade and branch
    • Send segment emails and reminders

  • Company secretary

    • Constitute committees and working groups with terms of office
    • Publish agendas, file minutes and track actions
    • Issue meeting notices, set the record date and open the vote
    • Record proxies and publish the tally with its audit record

  • Branch officer

    • Create branch events with member and non-member pricing
    • See members and attendees of their own branch only
    • Send the branch newsletter
    • Cannot change grades, renewals or head office settings

  • Committee chair

    • See the papers, agendas and minutes of their own committee
    • Review grade applications assigned to the committee
    • Record decisions that update the member record

  • Member

    • Renew, update details and manage their payment method
    • Choose what the directory shows about them
    • Log CPD and download an annual summary
    • Book events, respond to consultations and vote when eligible

  • Public

    • Search the register of current accredited members
    • Apply for membership and see grade requirements
    • Book open events at non-member prices

Example screen

Concept demo

Concept demo of an association renewal board showing members grouped by grade, recurring collection statuses, reminder stages and a grace period countdown.

The renewal board as the membership secretary sees it in January: members due grouped by grade, recurring collections with their provider status, card payers by reminder stage, a failed collection in the retry column with a call note, and the grace period countdown with the lapse date.

Scope and options

What is included and what is extra

In the base package

  • Membership grades with eligibility criteria, applications, evidence uploads and committee approval
  • Renewal cycle with pro-rata joining, reminders, grace periods, automatic lapsing and reinstatement
  • Card payments and recurring collection through a connected provider, recorded per member
  • Member directory with privacy choices and a live public register of current members
  • Committees and working groups with agendas, minutes archive and action tracking
  • Meeting notices with record date, eligibility, proxy forms and voting with a tally
  • Events with member and non-member pricing and attendance records
  • Members-only documents and segment email campaigns

Common add-ons

  • CPD logging with categories, annual summaries and audit selection
  • Branches or regions with scoped officer accounts and their own events
  • Policy consultations with member responses and summaries
  • Single sign-on for a journal, learning platform or forum

Needs custom work

  • Grade eligibility assessed against an external qualification or examination system
  • Branch-level finances and remittance statements
  • Unusual voting rules such as weighted or transferable votes
  • Migration from a bespoke or heavily customised legacy database
See the custom development service

Ownership, maintenance and pricing

After the build

Deployment and ownership

Runs on your own hosting or on hosting we manage; the choice is made in the proposal and can change later. The association owns the code and its data in both cases. Member records, grade history, payments, minutes and vote records can be exported at any time in standard formats, and nothing in the package stops a move to another provider.

Maintenance

Maintenance is optional and scoped separately from the build. When taken, it covers security updates, monitoring of payment callbacks and renewal emails, backups, and a monthly window for small changes such as a new grade fee, a committee restructure or next year's CPD categories. Larger changes, such as a new branch structure, are quoted as change requests.

Pricing model

Priced per proposal.

Sold as a one-off setup and customisation with optional monthly maintenance and hosting as separate recurring lines. The setup figure depends on the number of grades and the approval route, the renewal rules, the add-ons selected, the payment provider, the governance tooling needed and the volume of member and minutes history to migrate. The proposal itemises each line so recurring costs are never hidden in the build.

Prefer a fully custom build?

Association website development

Custom membership, governance and CPD systems for trade associations, institutes and societies whose grades, branches and AGMs do not fit a generic membership plugin.

View the service

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can we have different grades with different fees and rights?

Yes. Each grade carries its own fee, eligibility criteria, application route, voting entitlement and directory visibility. Upgrade paths between grades are defined by you, and the member record keeps the full grade history.

What happens when a member does not renew?

Reminders go out on the schedule you set, then a grace period you define begins. At the end of it the member lapses automatically, loses members-only access, leaves the public register and joins the reinstatement list. Nothing is deleted; reinstatement restores the record.

How does voting at the AGM work?

The company secretary sets the record date and the system counts eligible members by grade. The notice goes out with a proxy form submitted online; votes are cast in a window you define and tallied with an audit record. The rules follow your articles as entered; the package does not interpret them.

Can committee minutes be restricted?

Yes. Each committee has its own archive and only its members and anyone you add, such as council, can read it. Minutes are versioned so a draft and the approved version are both kept.

Does CPD logging include auditing?

With the CPD add-on, members log activities against your categories and upload evidence; the system shows progress against the annual requirement and can draw a random sample for audit at a date you set. What counts as CPD is your scheme, not ours.

Our branches want their own websites. Is that included?

Branch officers get scoped accounts and branch pages within the main site. Separate branch websites, or branch finances with remittances, are custom work through custom association development.

Is this a finished product I can see running?

Not yet. The readiness badge shows the real state: the package is a custom build assembled from our memberships, orders, directory, documents and bookings modules for each association, and the renewal board on this page is a labelled concept demo rather than a live client system.

Get a quote for Association membership package

Tell us about your locations, the people who will use it and the add-ons you need. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

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Get a quote for this package

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