• Replies 4 replies
  • Subscribers 414 subscribers
  • Views 127 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

Using multiple Membership Organizations

Anthony Busti
$organization

Hi,

We are about to implement a membership program with a "sustainer" model...meaning a donor can be automatically set up to give $10,$20, whatever amount they want, each month.  These donors would be considered full members, with the same member benefits as those who give a straight out membership gift.  In implementing this, we want to be sure we are setting this up in Tessitura so that we are able to track, report, and compare between this model and our existing regular membership model, but also to report on all our memberships as a whole.  Right now, we only have one membership organization in Tess.

1) Has anybody else done something similar, and how did you set up?  Did you or would you suggest creating another membership organization with its own set of rules?

2) How does the reporting work?  It seems to me that most reports only allow you to select one membership organization at a time...is that true?  Are there custom reports that would allow you to combine all membership organizations (I guess this is a question that can be answered by anyone using multiple membership organizations, regardless if it is a sustainer model or not.)

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Anthony

  • Former Member
    Former Member $organization

    I'm curious how this would be set up, too.

    I do know that Tessitura is happy to let you pour membership money into the same Membership while it is in its active period.

    One of our members pays four times throughout the year without a solid pledge.  When we get the first gift for the year, I manually adjust the membership to credit him at the level he's aiming for (he gives either the base amount or higher, typically).

    At the end of the year, there are four gifts in his record that meet or exceed that level.

    For reporting, I adjust the "Recognized Amount" to be the level he's aiming for, but financial reports will only show the gifts he's actually paid.

    This doesn't answer your entire question because you're looking to systemize this process, but I think the building blocks to do it exist, and you probably don't need to create a separate membership group to do it.

    -- Mike

  • $organization

    Anthony,

    It sounds like the only difference between these "sustainer" members and your other members is that they give monthly.  If that is the case I would be inclined to use your existing set up but differentiate these monthly donors with some kind of constituency or other indicator that will allow you to pull a list of these types of donors.  Many of the standard membership reports allow you to filter by a list.

    I would also probably recommend that you try it out in your Test database to see what kind of results you get.


    Dale

  • $organization

    We have our memberships tied to our Individual Annual Fund.  When someone wants to join our program of monthly giving we will book a pledge to our current fiscal year and then book a pledge for each of the next two fiscal years (we do have them submit a signed pledge form before we book the pledges).  This creates a membership that is tied to the donation for each year and we have the pledge billing report scheduled to go out and charge their credit card.  Every year at the end of our fiscal year, a letter is sent to those donors thanking them for being part of the program and informing them that we will continue to charge their card for our next fiscal year unless we are notified.  We also ask if they would like to increase the amount.  If the donor has reached the end of the 3 years of pledges and the donor still wants to participate, we will book a pledge for the new fiscal year.  This does require some oversight by staff to make sure that credit cards that are close to nearing their expiration date are updated, or if any card is declined to contact the donor in a timely manner so that they don’t fall behind on payments. 

     

    Ideally, if a donor wanted to make a monthly $10 pledge with only two months left of the fiscal year, he would be a $20 donor ($10 for two months) to the current year and then a $120 donor each year after. 

     

    I’m sure there are other ways that you could set it up, but this model works for us.

     

    T.C. Brown

    Database Administrator

    412.392.4834

     

    From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Michael Mariano
    Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2012 1:37 PM
    To: TC Brown
    Subject: Re: [Tessitura Development Forum] Using multiple Membership Organizations

     

    I'm curious how this would be set up, too.

    I do know that Tessitura is happy to let you pour membership money into the same Membership while it is in its active period.

    One of our members pays four times throughout the year without a solid pledge.  When we get the first gift for the year, I manually adjust the membership to credit him at the level he's aiming for (he gives either the base amount or higher, typically).

    At the end of the year, there are four gifts in his record that meet or exceed that level.

    For reporting, I adjust the "Recognized Amount" to be the level he's aiming for, but financial reports will only show the gifts he's actually paid.

    This doesn't answer your entire question because you're looking to systemize this process, but I think the building blocks to do it exist, and you probably don't need to create a separate membership group to do it.

    -- Mike

    From: Anthony Busti <bounce-anthonybusti1670@tessituranetwork.com>
    Sent: 2/2/2012 12:18:45 PM

    Hi,

    We are about to implement a membership program with a "sustainer" model...meaning a donor can be automatically set up to give $10,$20, whatever amount they want, each month.  These donors would be considered full members, with the same member benefits as those who give a straight out membership gift.  In implementing this, we want to be sure we are setting this up in Tessitura so that we are able to track, report, and compare between this model and our existing regular membership model, but also to report on all our memberships as a whole.  Right now, we only have one membership organization in Tess.

    1) Has anybody else done something similar, and how did you set up?  Did you or would you suggest creating another membership organization with its own set of rules?

    2) How does the reporting work?  It seems to me that most reports only allow you to select one membership organization at a time...is that true?  Are there custom reports that would allow you to combine all membership organizations (I guess this is a question that can be answered by anyone using multiple membership organizations, regardless if it is a sustainer model or not.)

    Any advice would be much appreciated!

    Thanks,
    Anthony




    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 in reply to Dale Aucoin

    We use the same membership organization and just set them up as pledges.  They get credit for the full amount although it will not be completely paid until the end of the year.  Their renewal date remains the date they first signed on to make the monthly payments.