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
cgoodwin.vcf
Parents
  • 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
Reply
  • 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
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