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Club Membership Quandary

Catherine Goodwin
$organization
Hi all,

I am posting to a number of forums, because my quandary doesn't fit
under any of the conventional headings...

We sell annual boating club memberships in Tessitura. For the last few
years, we've built them as a perf with different price types indicating
the various levels (family, early bird, spouse, regular, etc.). We use
the Membership module to track expiration and renewal information, so
when a membership is sold in Ticket Orders, we have to add a zero value
membership record in the constituent's History tab.

The manual nature of this process is causing problems. Inevitably,
someone forgets to add the membership and so all of the membership
reporting is suspect. Eventually, I'd like our developer to create a
service interceptor that adds the membership automatically, but another
idea I've been toying with is that we could sell memberships as a
contribution in an order. This would have the advantage of adding the
membership automatically, but I am not sure if there are inherent
problems with using Contributions to sell things that are not actually
contributions. Does anyone else do anything like this? Are there
technical, procedural, fiscal or legal things I should be aware of?

I have also thought of ditching the Membership module and just tracking
expiration and renewal info using order dates. Basically, I am weighing
the relative merits of the 3 options.

Thanks in advance for any input you may have! Catherine
cgoodwin.vcf
  • $organization
    Hi all,

    I am posting to a number of forums, because my quandary doesn't fit
    under any of the conventional headings...

    We sell annual boating club memberships in Tessitura. For the last few
    years, we've built them as a perf with different price types indicating
    the various levels (family, early bird, spouse, regular, etc.). We use
    the Membership module to track expiration and renewal information, so
    when a membership is sold in Ticket Orders, we have to add a zero value
    membership record in the constituent's History tab.

    The manual nature of this process is causing problems. Inevitably,
    someone forgets to add the membership and so all of the membership
    reporting is suspect. Eventually, I'd like our developer to create a
    service interceptor that adds the membership automatically, but another
    idea I've been toying with is that we could sell memberships as a
    contribution in an order. This would have the advantage of adding the
    membership automatically, but I am not sure if there are inherent
    problems with using Contributions to sell things that are not actually
    contributions. Does anyone else do anything like this? Are there
    technical, procedural, fiscal or legal things I should be aware of?

    I have also thought of ditching the Membership module and just tracking
    expiration and renewal info using order dates. Basically, I am weighing
    the relative merits of the 3 options.

    Thanks in advance for any input you may have! Catherine
    cgoodwin.vcf
  • $organization
    Hi all,

    I am posting to a number of forums, because my quandary doesn't fit
    under any of the conventional headings...

    We sell annual boating club memberships in Tessitura. For the last few
    years, we've built them as a perf with different price types indicating
    the various levels (family, early bird, spouse, regular, etc.). We use
    the Membership module to track expiration and renewal information, so
    when a membership is sold in Ticket Orders, we have to add a zero value
    membership record in the constituent's History tab.

    The manual nature of this process is causing problems. Inevitably,
    someone forgets to add the membership and so all of the membership
    reporting is suspect. Eventually, I'd like our developer to create a
    service interceptor that adds the membership automatically, but another
    idea I've been toying with is that we could sell memberships as a
    contribution in an order. This would have the advantage of adding the
    membership automatically, but I am not sure if there are inherent
    problems with using Contributions to sell things that are not actually
    contributions. Does anyone else do anything like this? Are there
    technical, procedural, fiscal or legal things I should be aware of?

    I have also thought of ditching the Membership module and just tracking
    expiration and renewal info using order dates. Basically, I am weighing
    the relative merits of the 3 options.

    Thanks in advance for any input you may have! Catherine
    cgoodwin.vcf
  • $organization in reply to Catherine Goodwin

    Hi Catherine,

    I can't speak to whether there are legal issues with using the contributions area for something that isn't a contribution. But that aside, it seems logical to use the membership module to manage this. It looks to me like it is a time-bound annual membership, which is what that module is for. You'll get access to reporting in both Tessitura and T-Stats that will help you look after renewals and understand buying patterns.

    If you have more specific questions, feel free to email me at bvarro@smm.org and I'll see if I can help out!

    Beth

  • Former Member
    Former Member $organization

    As long as you are clear about whether those membership fees are deductible (all or in part) and are communicating that clearly to the members, then there can be no legal issue as to whether you can use this software to process those memberships.

     

     

    ____________________________

     

    Julie P. Hamre

    Staff Accountant

    5301 Tuckerman Lane

    North Bethesda, MD  20852-3385

    www.strathmore.org

    301-581-5136

    jhamre@strathmore.org

    In office Monday-Thursday

     

    From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Beth Varro
    Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2016 10:51 AM
    To: Julie Hamre
    Subject: Re: [Tessitura Development Forum] Club Membership Quandary

     

    Hi Catherine,

    I can't speak to whether there are legal issues with using the contributions area for something that isn't a contribution. But that aside, it seems logical to use the membership module to manage this. It looks to me like it is a time-bound annual membership, which is what that module is for. You'll get access to reporting in both Tessitura and T-Stats that will help you look after renewals and understand buying patterns.

    If you have more specific questions, feel free to email me at bvarro@smm.org and I'll see if I can help out!

    Beth

    From: Catherine Goodwin <bounce-catherinegoodwin3410@tessituranetwork.com>
    Sent: 6/27/2016 2:56:40 AM

    Hi all,

    I am posting to a number of forums, because my quandary doesn't fit
    under any of the conventional headings...

    We sell annual boating club memberships in Tessitura. For the last few
    years, we've built them as a perf with different price types indicating
    the various levels (family, early bird, spouse, regular, etc.). We use
    the Membership module to track expiration and renewal information, so
    when a membership is sold in Ticket Orders, we have to add a zero value
    membership record in the constituent's History tab.

    The manual nature of this process is causing problems. Inevitably,
    someone forgets to add the membership and so all of the membership
    reporting is suspect. Eventually, I'd like our developer to create a
    service interceptor that adds the membership automatically, but another
    idea I've been toying with is that we could sell memberships as a
    contribution in an order. This would have the advantage of adding the
    membership automatically, but I am not sure if there are inherent
    problems with using Contributions to sell things that are not actually
    contributions. Does anyone else do anything like this? Are there
    technical, procedural, fiscal or legal things I should be aware of?

    I have also thought of ditching the Membership module and just tracking
    expiration and renewal info using order dates. Basically, I am weighing
    the relative merits of the 3 options.

    Thanks in advance for any input you may have! Catherine


    This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!

  • $organization
    Thanks very much Beth!  That was my instinct, but the fact that the whole module is called "Contributions" intimidated me.  I'll see if I get any more input, and will then start of some testing.

    - Catherine

    On 6/28/2016 10:51 AM, Beth Varro wrote:

    Hi Catherine,

    I can't speak to whether there are legal issues with using the contributions area for something that isn't a contribution. But that aside, it seems logical to use the membership module to manage this. It looks to me like it is a time-bound annual membership, which is what that module is for. You'll get access to reporting in both Tessitura and T-Stats that will help you look after renewals and understand buying patterns.

    If you have more specific questions, feel free to email me at bvarro@smm.org and I'll see if I can help out!

    Beth

    From: Catherine Goodwin <bounce-catherinegoodwin3410@tessituranetwork.com>
    Sent: 6/27/2016 2:56:40 AM

    Hi all,

    I am posting to a number of forums, because my quandary doesn't fit
    under any of the conventional headings...

    We sell annual boating club memberships in Tessitura. For the last few
    years, we've built them as a perf with different price types indicating
    the various levels (family, early bird, spouse, regular, etc.). We use
    the Membership module to track expiration and renewal information, so
    when a membership is sold in Ticket Orders, we have to add a zero value
    membership record in the constituent's History tab.

    The manual nature of this process is causing problems. Inevitably,
    someone forgets to add the membership and so all of the membership
    reporting is suspect. Eventually, I'd like our developer to create a
    service interceptor that adds the membership automatically, but another
    idea I've been toying with is that we could sell memberships as a
    contribution in an order. This would have the advantage of adding the
    membership automatically, but I am not sure if there are inherent
    problems with using Contributions to sell things that are not actually
    contributions. Does anyone else do anything like this? Are there
    technical, procedural, fiscal or legal things I should be aware of?

    I have also thought of ditching the Membership module and just tracking
    expiration and renewal info using order dates. Basically, I am weighing
    the relative merits of the 3 options.

    Thanks in advance for any input you may have! Catherine


    This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
    cgoodwin.vcf
  • Former Member
    Former Member $organization
    Hi Catherine,

    This was something done here very briefly... I still have nightmares about it. The problems introduced by recording non-contributed income in contributions became significant. It is not impossible to run contribution reports without certain transactions (and therefore exclude the non-contributed amounts), but you effectively compromise ability of your org's staff to do very basic contribution reporting easily.

    Every contribution related report run in Tessitura would need to specifically exclude the transactions, so every user needs to understand campaign-fund-designation setup of the non-contribution transactions to avoid it properly, which is unrealistic. Every list created in list manager regarding contributions needs to specifically exclude these contributions. The headers at the top of the screen which show total giving will be incorrect - non-donors will look like donors. Every T-Stats would have to be setup to specifically exclude those transactions, and the dimensions for Total Giving, Current Fiscal Year giving, etc. would be incorrect.

    That said, I really love your interceptor idea!

    Best regards,
    Carla

    Carla Moy
    Development Manager, 92nd Street Y
    P: 212.415.5482  |  cmoy@92y.org

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Catherine Goodwin
    Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2016 11:44 PM
    To: Carla Moy
    Subject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Club Membership Quandary

    Hi all,

    I am posting to a number of forums, because my quandary doesn't fit under any of the conventional headings...

    We sell annual boating club memberships in Tessitura. For the last few years, we've built them as a perf with different price types indicating the various levels (family, early bird, spouse, regular, etc.). We use the Membership module to track expiration and renewal information, so when a membership is sold in Ticket Orders, we have to add a zero value membership record in the constituent's History tab.

    The manual nature of this process is causing problems. Inevitably, someone forgets to add the membership and so all of the membership reporting is suspect. Eventually, I'd like our developer to create a service interceptor that adds the membership automatically, but another idea I've been toying with is that we could sell memberships as a contribution in an order. This would have the advantage of adding the membership automatically, but I am not sure if there are inherent problems with using Contributions to sell things that are not actually contributions. Does anyone else do anything like this? Are there technical, procedural, fiscal or legal things I should be aware of?

    I have also thought of ditching the Membership module and just tracking expiration and renewal info using order dates. Basically, I am weighing the relative merits of the 3 options.

    Thanks in advance for any input you may have! Catherine


    This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums.

    In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
  • $organization
    Carla, thank you soooo much for your clear response. We already have 4
    different membership organizations here, with contributions happening in
    3 of them, so I think our gift reporting is complicated enough without
    adding an extra level of pain. I wanted to be able to put the idea to
    rest, and your answer allows me to do that.

    Much appreciated! Catherine

    On 7/28/2016 5:09 PM, Carla Moy wrote:
    > Hi Catherine,
    >
    > This was something done here very briefly... I still have nightmares about it. The problems introduced by recording non-contributed income in contributions became significant. It is not impossible to run contribution reports without certain transactions (and therefore exclude the non-contributed amounts), but you effectively compromise ability of your org's staff to do very basic contribution reporting easily.
    >
    > Every contribution related report run in Tessitura would need to specifically exclude the transactions, so every user needs to understand campaign-fund-designation setup of the non-contribution transactions to avoid it properly, which is unrealistic. Every list created in list manager regarding contributions needs to specifically exclude these contributions. The headers at the top of the screen which show total giving will be incorrect - non-donors will look like donors. Every T-Stats would have to be setup to specifically exclude those transactions, and the dimensions for Total Giving, Current Fiscal Year giving, etc. would be incorrect.
    >
    > That said, I really love your interceptor idea!
    >
    > Best regards,
    > Carla
    >
    > Carla Moy
    > Development Manager, 92nd Street Y
    > P: 212.415.5482 | cmoy@92y.org
    >
    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Catherine Goodwin
    > Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2016 11:44 PM
    > To: Carla Moy
    > Subject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Club Membership Quandary
    >
    > Hi all,
    >
    > I am posting to a number of forums, because my quandary doesn't fit under any of the conventional headings...
    >
    > We sell annual boating club memberships in Tessitura. For the last few years, we've built them as a perf with different price types indicating the various levels (family, early bird, spouse, regular, etc.). We use the Membership module to track expiration and renewal information, so when a membership is sold in Ticket Orders, we have to add a zero value membership record in the constituent's History tab.
    >
    > The manual nature of this process is causing problems. Inevitably, someone forgets to add the membership and so all of the membership reporting is suspect. Eventually, I'd like our developer to create a service interceptor that adds the membership automatically, but another idea I've been toying with is that we could sell memberships as a contribution in an order. This would have the advantage of adding the membership automatically, but I am not sure if there are inherent problems with using Contributions to sell things that are not actually contributions. Does anyone else do anything like this? Are there technical, procedural, fiscal or legal things I should be aware of?
    >
    > I have also thought of ditching the Membership module and just tracking expiration and renewal info using order dates. Basically, I am weighing the relative merits of the 3 options.
    >
    > Thanks in advance for any input you may have! Catherine
    >
    >
    > This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums.
    >
    > In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
    >
    >
    > This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums.
    >
    > In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
    cgoodwin.vcf