This question isn't Tessitura specific, but Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 I’m wondering if anybody here has experience taking a membership program where members renew at any point in the calendar year, most commonly ~12 months from the date of the individual’s previous donation, and converting it into a program where the entire membership would renew at the same time each year. I'm talking about the whole membership ecosystem here.
Specifically, I'm looking for concerns and suggestions on the transition period, and what impact that shift had on the program’s performance (short-term and long-term).
If you have anything that you would be willing to share, I would be most appreciative!
We actually tried this a few years ago, we had a new Finance Director come in and decided that things would be so much more tidy if everyone gave at the same time. For all the reasons that Beth has outlined, it never really worked. We had to "grandfather" all those people who had already given within the past 6 months and attempted to renew the rest early. These people were resistant, so we allowed that a pledge entered now, with payment coming on their usual donation date would suffice. We also had the problem that one of our major benefits, early ordering for the next season, comes into play right after the beginning of our fiscal year. Once that was past we had a difficult time persuading new Members to join. All in all it proved to be a very bad idea for our organization and we quietly reverted to our previous system which creates an expiry date 11 months after the end of the month of the donation (for new Members) and 12 months after that as they renew. We also allow a three month grace (lapsed) period where we continue to give Membership privileges. This system has been working well for at least fifteen years, maybe longer.
Thank you, everybody, for sharing your experiences and thoughts on this. Our jury is still out on our conclusion here. We're changing our performance schedule to a full year-round model in a couple of years, so I feel we need to wait until that model is in place and we've seen how our audience reacts before implementing any significant changes in renewal structure. However, just thinking through this now has been helpful in identifying things to look for as we approach and launch our programming changes.
Thanks again...