allowing people to have multiple memberships

Kelly Olson
Kelly Olson
Seventh Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

I am curious to hear from any folks who allow people to be named on multiple memberships. Do you have issues when it is time to renew with making sure the correct membership gets renewed if someone is named on multiple memberships?

We are a children's museum where typically each family has one and only one membership. Each membership allows for 3 - 4 named adults so that families can include any combination of parents and/or caregivers. We are finding that occasionally we have grandparents or other caregivers that want to be named on two separate memberships, so we are trying to think through the implications of doing this and what issues we might run into.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Kelly

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Comments

  • Kristy Kaufman
    Kristy Kaufman
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Facilitator 1

    Kelly - you will probably need to use Constituent Codes instead. People can have multiple codes if that helps. I think as far as I can tell you can only have one membership status.

  • Debbie McKenzie
    Debbie McKenzie
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    Allowing multiple memberships is a setting on the General tab. I worry that it would be super easy to create a new membership when someone is actually renewing - you can't merge memberships.

  • Kelly Olson
    Kelly Olson
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
    Debbie - that is exactly what we are worried about. To get around it, we. are thinking of creating a duplicate constituent record for the same person. One record would be on one membership and the second on the other membership. This has its own set of possible issues though.
  • Regina Holten
    Regina Holten
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    I'd think about this carefully! Dupes in the system are generally confusing…and if someone attempts and successfully merges two (though the memberships might keep that from happening) might mess up things further. The Constituent Code sounds good, but Member CC is so helpful at identifying a person, adding another…that means member, too, might get confusing….how about Attributes? I've had this on my mind since seeing this topic yesterday…still thinking….

  • Regina Holten
    Regina Holten
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    Instead of linking that person on multiple memberships, could you just add their name on a member card? Like Aunt Sally Smith is the caregiver for a few member households AND has her own membership. So on her record is her own membership. On the first and second households she cares for, only her name is on the card?

  • Regina Holten
    Regina Holten
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    And perhaps adding relationships - like Aunt Sally Smith would be Aunt/Niece or some such…

    Our membership program that is most managed by Altru only allows one level for a program on a record. Not multiple membership levels. One could be an Honorary Member at the Staff Level and be General Member at the Voyager Level. But NOT also a General Member at the Explorer Level. Does that make sense? MAYBE a new level of Caregiver is created for your program?

  • Kelly Olson
    Kelly Olson
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
    Thanks everyone for thinking about this and for some ideas. We set up a test case in an old membership program that we aren't currently using to try it out. It looks like there would be issues both at check-in and with renewals. We are still thinking about how best to implement this.
  • Leslie Gehring
    Leslie Gehring
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1

    We are a children's museum, and we use duplicate constituents when a child is named on a family membership and a grandparent membership. We link the duplicate records with a do not merge relationship and note that they are the same child on two different memberships. This keeps anyone from merging them. It's not a perfect system, but it was less confusing for us than having multiple memberships on the same person's record.

  • Regina Holten
    Regina Holten
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    Ah! the note of do not merge is a great idea - one I've used for any elder/son senior/jr records…good work around…

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