Hello,
We are in the process of redesigning our library membership program, and the idea is that we will have three types of passes available (admit 2, admit 4, admit 6) and libraries would be able to get any combination of passes they want. That way, for example, they would be able to give two separate couples passes that admit two people each rather than giving their only admit four pass to a couple who only needs to get two people in leaving the other couple waiting for them to return it.
My tentative plan is to create membership organizations and levels as follows:
Library Membership - First Pass
Admit 2
Admit 4
Admit 6
Library Membership - Second Pass
Library Membership - Third Pass
If a library gets multiple passes, they would have multiple memberships on their record, each in a different organization. At this point I think I just need to know: if we receive a check paying for two passes for one library, is there any way to attached multiple memberships to one contribution?
Thanks!
Anne Mullane-Stevens
Manager of Institutional Advancement Data & Operations
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Hello Anne,
I am not 100% confident that I have an answer for you, but my suspicion is that you can attach multiple memberships to one contribution IF they memberships are in different Membership Organizations. Perhaps someone else can confirm or qualify/clarify this for both of us?
Mary-Ellen Callahan
Membership & Annual Fund Associate
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Hartford, CT
Hi Anne,
I don't think this is possible if you enter the check as one payment. You can't have multiple active memberships on an account that have the same membership organization, so you'd need separate organizations. Membership organizations are tied to specific campaigns and there can only be one membership organization per campaign. In order to get two different membership organizations, you'd have to put the contribution in two different campaigns, which is impossible to do with only one payment.
You could split the check into multiple contributions, one for each pass. For example: a check for $75 would be split into a contribution of $25 and another contribution of $50. The payment method and check number would be the same, but the amount would be different. That way, you can put the gifts in separate campaigns to trigger separate memberships. Check with your finance department to make sure they can reconcile this type of split payment.
I've set up different membership organizations that are not mutually exclusive before. Some individuals had both active memberships. It broke a lot of custom reports and the custom header just had ERROR in every membership field. It wouldn't have been as bad if we were prepared for it, but we were not. I'm not saying not to do it, but just be prepared for what will happen with accounts that have multiple active memberships. I wasn't and I still shudder at all the problems it caused.
Allison FuhrmanManager, Development DatabaseNew York Philharmonic