Alternatives for membership modules

Dariel Dixon
Dariel Dixon Community All-Star
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in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

Good morning community,

I'm looking at adding the membership module for my organization. Unfortunately, with Blackbaud's new pricing structure makes this difficult, as adding a new module would move us to a different tier and that is not really an option as the price difference is almost ⅓ of our already substantial contract. Does anyone know of an customization or another add-on that would make this possible. My organization was ready to purchase the module, but they wouldn't sell it by itself.

Comments

  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    @Dariel Dixon, what features in Memberships are you looking to supplement? We do have the Membership module – for as long as I've been working here, over 12 years – but you know, we've never used it even though the setup does appear to be intuitively useful. The reality is that we use Attributes and Constituent Codes to accomplish everything that the Membership module does.

    • Giving Society members get a Constituent code with begin dater and end date (akin to membership expirations)
    • Oblates have Attributes denoting their various levels and initiation dates
    • Board Members also use Constituent codes and Attributes
    • Queries pull any Attributes with “less than this month” dates (expired memberships)
    • Any membership-related mailings (renewal cards, etc) are outputted in Export and merged in Word.

    So I guess I'm curious what element you're seeking that is not already able to be accommodated in RE's other features?

    If you do need a robust membership software, I have heard of Yourmembership.com. It's supposed to be an online membership software for small nonprofits, and I believe they have a Raiser's Edge integration. However, I have never used them and don't know what their prices are.

  • Dariel Dixon
    Dariel Dixon Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management

    @Faith Murray:

    @Dariel Dixon, what features in Memberships are you looking to supplement? We do have the Membership module – for as long as I've been working here, over 12 years – but you know, we've never used it even though the setup does appear to be intuitively useful. The reality is that we use Attributes and Constituent Codes to accomplish everything that the Membership module does.

    • Giving Society members get a Constituent code with begin dater and end date (akin to membership expirations)
    • Oblates have Attributes denoting their various levels and initiation dates
    • Board Members also use Constituent codes and Attributes
    • Queries pull any Attributes with “less than this month” dates (expired memberships)
    • Any membership-related mailings (renewal cards, etc) are outputted in Export and merged in Word.

    So I guess I'm curious what element you're seeking that is not already able to be accommodated in RE's other features?

    If you do need a robust membership software, I have heard of Yourmembership.com. It's supposed to be an online membership software for small nonprofits, and I believe they have a Raiser's Edge integration. However, I have never used them and don't know what their prices are.

    This is a great question @Faith Murray. My organization is looking for a solution to giving societies. Constituent codes and attributes are fine for a snapshot but for historical purposes the membership module works better. I'm not a big fan of constituent codes and attributes for this, as I'd like to see when constituents lapse and when they return. Also, we have several giving societies and I'd like to see it in the top of the screen in NXT, but not like a constituency. To get historical data if constituents lapse requires multiple versions of the same code or attribute.

    I'll look into Yourmembership.com though.

  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    @Dariel Dixon, yes, I can see the benefit in a membership module for that kind of historical data, then. You can record those start/end dates in Constituent codes, but then if you are tracking multiple society levels or have a monthly donor society with a lot of flux, that can quickly (and undesirably) clutter up your Constituency codes.

    I hope you can find what you're looking for!

  • Kevin Hardy
    Kevin Hardy
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Faith Murray Hi - I was just browsing looking for any new news about Memberships in NXT.

    What we're looking for here is the same functionality in the database view, but in the Webview. There was talk about this at the 2019 bbcon but really haven't heard anything about this.

    The most exciting part about it being in the Webview was the hope that it would have SkyAPI endpoints that would allow for automation and integration with other processes/software. (Example: Someone buying something in a POS and it triggers a flow to create a membership at a certain level for that buyer)

    We've been using RE Database View for Memberships for a couple of decades now (except for a handful of years… we don't talk about that time ?) and they're a significant part of our organization. Does anyone know if the idea of Membership functionality in the Webview has been dropped/shelved? I'd hate to start looking for alternatives at this point.

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