Running Membership Reports

Delene McConnaha

I'm very frustrated.  When I run membership reports (new members, renewals, expired) for a certain time period.  I get information that doesn't jibe.  For example:

Total Active Membership for CY 2015:  530

New Members for CY 2015:  118

Expired Members for CY 2015:  120

Renewals:  385

This results do not add up to 530 total membership.  Anyone know why?  I'm sure it's user error.


And can someone explain the difference between "expired" and "lapsed?"

 

Daniel Noga 2

How many members did you start with? New members, renewals and expired members won't account for everyone.


The way RE: handles memberships can be frustrating if you're coming from another system.


A membership has three basic activity states in RE: "Active," "Lapsed," and "Dropped."


Active memberships are those that are considered active and have not yet reached their expiration date.

Upon reaching its expiration date, a membership then slips by default into the "Lapsed" state, which occupies a "twilight zone" between Active and Dropped.

In order for memberships to be Dropped, if I remember correctly, some action must be taken; memberships have to be pro-actively set to this state. It is up to each organization to determine how to employ these states. Some organizations have no use for "Lapsed" and establish routines to set memberships to Dropped right away after the expiration date. However, I worked at an org that gave members a three-month grace period; when the expiration date hit, we would leave the memberships "Lapsed" during that time, and would then Drop them if no renewal came through.


I am not sure what "Expired" refers to in that report, but I am thinking it is only referring to memberships that have gone beyond their expiration dates and that it doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of which memberships are actually "gone." If you are showing discrepancies in your reporting, it may be because of this difference between "Lapsed" and "Dropped." That is usually the culprit in my experience.