Getting Started with Memberships in ActivistCentral

Memberships gives your organization a flexible way to track the people you consider members and the information that matters about their membership.

Different organizations manage membership differently. Some collect dues. Some use membership tiers. Some track renewal dates. Others simply need to know whether someone is an active member, a former member, a prospective member, or something more specific to their organization.

ActivistCentral lets you configure Memberships around the way your organization already works.

Understanding Memberships

Every membership belongs to a Contact in ActivistCentral.

A membership can include information such as:

• Membership status
• Membership type or tier
• Join date
• Dues amount and payment frequency
• Renewal date
• Commitment date

You decide which of these fields your organization needs.

To get started, open Memberships from the ActivistCentral navigation.

The Membership Management page is organized into four areas:

• Members
• Membership Types
• Statuses
• Settings

Start with Membership Settings

Before adding members, it's a good idea to review:

Memberships → Settings

Settings let you choose which membership features your organization uses.

You can enable or disable:

• Track dues, payment frequency, and annualized revenue
• Track renewal dates
• Track commitment date
• Use membership types / tiers

Only enable the information that is useful to your organization.

For example, an organization that doesn't collect dues can turn dues tracking off entirely. An organization that has different membership levels can enable Membership Types.

Select Save settings after making changes.

Creating Membership Types

Membership Types are optional and are useful when your organization has different kinds or levels of membership.

If Membership Types are enabled, open:

Memberships → Membership Types

Select Add type and enter:

• Name
• Description (optional)
• Default dues amount
• Default payment frequency

For example, you might create types such as:

• Standard Member
• Retired Member
• Associate Member
• Student Member

The names are entirely up to your organization.

Default dues information can save time when adding members, while still allowing membership information to be adjusted for an individual when needed.

If your organization doesn't use membership types, simply turn Use membership types / tiers off in Settings.

Creating Membership Statuses

Statuses describe the current membership state of a person.

ActivistCentral includes standard statuses such as:

• Prospect
• Pending
• Active
• Lapsed
• Inactive
• Cancelled

But your organization doesn't have to use those names.

You can create statuses that match the terminology your organization already uses.

Open:

Memberships → Statuses

Select Add status and enter the label your team should see.

For example, an organization might use statuses such as:

• Member in Good Standing
• Retired Member
• Dues Paying
• Dropped
• Rejoined

When creating a status, you'll also choose an Internal lifecycle.

Statuses and the Internal Lifecycle

The Internal lifecycle lets ActivistCentral understand what your organization's custom status means for reporting.

The available lifecycles are:

• Prospect
• Pending
• Active
• Lapsed
• Inactive
• Cancelled

For example, your organization might use a status called Member in Good Standing and map it to the Active lifecycle.

Another organization might simply call that status Active.

Both mean the same thing to ActivistCentral for reporting, while each organization can use the terminology its staff already understands.

This separation lets ActivistCentral remain consistent without forcing every organization to manage membership the same way.

Archiving a status

If your organization stops using a particular status, you can archive it.

Existing members who already have that status keep it, but the archived status is no longer available when assigning statuses to new members.

Use Show archived on the Statuses page when you need to review or restore archived statuses.

Adding a Member

Once your settings, types, and statuses are ready, open:

Memberships → Members

Select:

Add membership

Search for the Contact you want to add.

A Contact must already exist in ActivistCentral before you can create a membership for them.

Contacts who already have a membership are identified as Already has a membership and cannot be added a second time.

Choose the appropriate membership information, which can include:

• Status
• Membership type
• Dues amount
• Payment frequency
• Join date
• Renewal date
• Commitment date

The fields you see depend on your Membership Settings.

Select Add membership to save the membership.

Finding Members

The Members page gives you a central directory of your organization's membership records.

You can search by:

• Name
• Email
• Phone

You can also filter the directory using your organization's membership statuses.

For example, you might quickly view everyone with an Active, Pending, or organization-specific status.

The Summary area at the top of the page can also show information such as:

• Total members
• Active members
• Renewals due in the next 30 days
• Annualized membership revenue

The cards shown depend on the Membership Settings your organization uses.

Understanding Annual Revenue

If dues tracking is enabled, ActivistCentral can calculate an annualized revenue estimate from the dues information stored on active memberships.

For example, monthly dues are annualized across 12 months and quarterly dues across four quarters.

This number is a membership planning and reporting estimate. It does not represent payments actually collected.

ActivistCentral Memberships does not process membership payments or automatically charge members.

Updating a Membership

To make changes, find the member on the Members page and select Edit.

You can update the membership information your organization tracks, including the person's status.

The Contact itself cannot be changed on an existing membership.

If someone's membership situation changes, update their status rather than creating another membership.

For example, someone might move from:

Pending → Active

or:

Active → Lapsed

Your organization can accomplish the same thing using its own custom status labels.

When Someone Leaves or Rejoins

Membership status represents the person's current membership state.

If someone leaves your organization, change their membership to the appropriate status, such as Inactive, Lapsed, Cancelled, or one of your organization's custom statuses.

If they later rejoin, update the same membership to the appropriate active status.

ActivistCentral does not create a new membership record each time someone's status changes.

Memberships on Contact Profiles

Membership information is connected directly to the person's Contact record.

When a Contact has a membership, their current membership status can appear on their Contact profile.

Selecting the membership status takes you back to the corresponding membership in Membership Management.

This makes it easy to move between the person's CRM record and their membership information.

Memberships and Outreach

Memberships currently provides membership tracking and reporting.

Membership status is not currently a filter for Contacts, Saved Lists, or outreach audiences.

When building an audience for email, text messaging, calling, or other outreach, use the available filters in Contacts and Saved Lists.

A flexible membership system

The most important thing to remember is that ActivistCentral doesn't require every organization to define membership the same way.

Your organization decides:

• which membership information to track
• whether to use membership types
• what your membership types are called
• what statuses your staff uses
• which lifecycle each status represents

ActivistCentral provides the structure underneath those choices so your organization can track membership consistently while continuing to use the terminology and processes that already make sense to your team.