Best Practices - Membership Renewals

Jennifer Rudder

For those of you who have a memberhsip program, and send out monthly renewal remidners. We send out three different renewal letters - one for memberships that expired the previous month, one for memberships that expire this current month, and one for memberships that expire next month. After 6 months of no response from the constiutent, we delete them from the list. How do you all pick the dates for the expirations? I think I am overthinking it and am getting over 800 people for each list, which I know is way too many!



Thanks for your help!

Marlena Mason 2

Our memberships expire at the end of the month, 1 year after renewal.  Our renewal cycle includes phone, email, and mail touchpoints, but we only have two notices that go out for mail.  Based on the configuration of the membership, the first one goes out one month before expiration, the second, one month after.



One of our programs is larger than the other one, so I expect to get a larger quantity of letters.  Also, since our memberships expire at the end of  the month, instead of on the cycle when the donor paid, my renewal notices run a little differently and i don't have to exclude certain people that may have received the notice earlier - since if they're expriation date changed, they will fall off (b/c they renewed).



Setting up the renewal notices has been quite a challenge and historically, they weren't processed in the renewal letters section - but through export.  I think it was because of the configuration settings on the membership.  That was the hardest part for me to understand.



Not sure if that's helpful.  I really am still working through this process myself!

Jennifer Rudder

Marlena Mason:

Our memberships expire at the end of the month, 1 year after renewal.  Our renewal cycle includes phone, email, and mail touchpoints, but we only have two notices that go out for mail.  Based on the configuration of the membership, the first one goes out one month before expiration, the second, one month after.



One of our programs is larger than the other one, so I expect to get a larger quantity of letters.  Also, since our memberships expire at the end of  the month, instead of on the cycle when the donor paid, my renewal notices run a little differently and i don't have to exclude certain people that may have received the notice earlier - since if they're expriation date changed, they will fall off (b/c they renewed).



Setting up the renewal notices has been quite a challenge and historically, they weren't processed in the renewal letters section - but through export.  I think it was because of the configuration settings on the membership.  That was the hardest part for me to understand.



Not sure if that's helpful.  I really am still working through this process myself!

Thanks for your response Marlena! I think my main problem is that our renewal dates are dependent on when the person signs up (i.e. if the person joins, their membership starts 7/16/2015 and is good for 13 months, so until 8/16/2016). I think I am overthinking it, I just don't want to waste paper or over mail people!

John Heizer

It's been a long time since I've had to set this up, but once you get everything set for the Membership Categories and Renewal Letters in Mail it should all work just fine without having to jump through hoops.  Getting it set up can be tricky.  Work in the Sample Database and create some tests there.

Jennifer Rudder

John Heizer:

It's been a long time since I've had to set this up, but once you get everything set for the Membership Categories and Renewal Letters in Mail it should all work just fine without having to jump through hoops.  Getting it set up can be tricky.  Work in the Sample Database and create some tests there.

How did you get the Sample Database to work? I tried downloading it from the BlackBaud website, but it refuses to open!