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How You Can Save Time With Member Jungle

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Volunteer time is finite, so why waste it on manual data entry and disjointed software? This article explores how a centralised membership management system like Member Jungle gives committees their weekends back. Learn how to automate sign-ups and renewals, empower members to update their own details via self-service portals, and eliminate the headache of wrangling multiple disconnected platforms.

Time is unbelievably precious; it is the one thing in this world we can’t get more of. It would literally be easier to have a second heart sewn into your chest than to get more time. In fact, both you and I are closer to death now than we were at the start of this paragraph. I know that’s a dour way to start an article, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Out of respect for our dwindling time here on this earth, let's get straight to the point of this article. 

A few years ago, a new club signed up to Member Jungle, and their story really stuck with the team. They were a volunteer committee of only three people trying to manually manage 2,500 members using a single Excel spreadsheet. 

Every year, they would print 2,500 annual renewal letters, stick them in envelopes, and post them out. Over the next few weeks, thousands of envelopes would slowly trickle back in, complete with paperwork, scribbled change-of-address details, and cash and checks. Then, for each renewal that came in, they printed a welcome letter, had a new membership card made, and sent it back to the member. 

For every single renewal, those three volunteers had to:

  • Post them a letter.
  • Manually find and update the member in their Excel database when they renewed.
  • Get a new membership card printed.
  • Post the new membership card and renewal letter to the member.
  • Physically drive to the bank with a bunch of cash and cheques to bank it all.

To make matters worse, postage at the time had just gone up to a dollar a letter. This meant the entire process was costing the club $5,000 in postage alone, not including printer ink, envelopes, or the frustrating fact that 10% of them bounced back marked Return to Sender.

It was at this point that they decided there had to be a better way to run their club. Our team worked with this organisation to implement Member Jungle and move them to an online membership system. They took a staged approach, allowing a manual payment option for the first year, and eventually charging an additional fee for anyone who still wanted to do paper applications.

Within two years, the committee had completely eliminated their postage costs, stopped doing manual database updates, and completely removed the need for bank runs. They saved the club thousands of dollars and, more importantly, saved themselves hundreds of hours of manual work.

So, let's talk about how your committee can do exactly the same thing, so you spend less time doing boring admin and more time actually enjoying your club.

How Can You Save Time Managing Your Membership Organisation?

Running a membership organisation like a club or association is a full-time job, but unfortunately for most club volunteers, it isn’t actually one. You don’t get paid, you don’t get 40 hours a week, you don’t get sick leave. It’s something you do when you get home after your actual full-time job, while on your lunch break or on your weekend when you should be enjoying yourself. It’s getting to the fields three hours before the games start just to get everything organised, and staying late after everyone else has gone home. You are already giving up enough of your free time, which is exactly why you shouldn't be wasting what little you have left on tedious administrative chores. 

To stop wasting your life on these manual tasks, organisations need to move away from spreadsheets and embrace automation. To ensure you are getting your time back, make sure your organisation is:

Set Your Renewals & Sign-Ups On Auto-Pilot

Membership sign-ups and renewals, in particular, are a massive time sink. Sending out printed renewal letters and reminder emails, physically driving to the bank to deposit cash payments, and playing detective trying to work out exactly which mystery direct deposit came from who, it all takes an agonising amount of time. 

Automating that entire mess with a membership management system is the easiest way to buy your weekends back. You can empower your members to sign up online, pay via a secure payment gateway, and instantly be granted access to the club without you having to lift a single finger.

When a new member joins, the system automatically:

  • Captures their details via your custom online application forms.
  • Processes their payment securely (no more anonymous bank transfers).
  • Generates and emails them an invoice.
  • Sends a welcome email with instructions on how to access the member portal or download your club's mobile app.

As an administrator, your involvement is reduced to receiving a lovely little email notification telling you someone new has joined. You don't have to print anything, you don't have to post anything, and nobody has to wait weeks for their application to be manually processed by a volunteer who is already flat out. If you want, you can set the system up so new members need approval from an admin before they can join, but even doing this is quick and easy. 

When it comes to renewal time, the system is just as efficient. You can set up automated renewal reminders to go out a set number of days or weeks before a member’s membership is due for renewal. It prompts the member to log in, pay online, and have their membership instantly renewed for another year, or for however long you need it to be. 

If your member doesn’t renew, you don't have to awkwardly chase them down. The system can automatically send out additional follow-up reminders after they miss their due date. You also get to decide exactly how long a membership can lapse before the system revokes their access to the member-only areas of your website and app. You can cut them off the exact day they fail to renew, give them a whole year, or stick to the industry standard of a 90-day grace period.

All this is to say, you spend an hour setting up your system, customising it to manage sign-ups and renewals exactly how you like, collecting the information you need, and telling new members what they need to know, and then you forget about it. The system practically runs itself, and you don’t need to spend any more of your precious time on it.

Self-Service: Let Members Be Their Own Data Entry Clerks

If you are the lucky committee member who fields the endless stream of "Hey, I just moved, can you update my address?" or "My phone number has changed, can you please update it?" emails, or worst of all, deals with people who take a simple typo in their name as a grave personal insult that you must have committed on purpose, you know exactly how mind-numbing data entry can be.

Multiply those requests by hundreds or thousands of members, and you're essentially working an unpaid, part-time job as a receptionist. That is not a fun use of your time.

A cloud-based membership management system changes all of that by allowing your members to enter their own information. By giving them access to a self-service portal, members can log in to your website or your club's mobile app and update their demographic information whenever needed. It puts them in charge of keeping everything up to date. They are less likely to make mistakes entering their own information than a busy admin entering dozens of names, and they are less likely to misspell their confusingly named child when entering them into the under-15s team. 

I'm sorry, but if you spell your kid's name Liut or Kviiilyn, you should expect people to spell, or at the very least pronounce, their names wrong. I know that you are not going to hear another word I say until I tell you how those names are pronounced. So, here is how those REAL names people have given their kids are actually pronounced: Liut is apparently Elliot, and Kviiilyn is Kaitlyn, VIII being the Roman numeral for eight. 

face palm gif  

Every time a member makes a change on their end, your live database is instantly and automatically updated. Because your database is always perfectly up to date without you lifting a finger, you can confidently use the system to send out bulk emails or push notifications without worrying about them bouncing back from a dozen dead email addresses.

Your member list stops being a static spreadsheet that decays over time and becomes a living, breathing entity that effectively maintains itself.

Stop Wrangling Multiple Disconnected Systems

Eventbrite is a great event system, Mailchimp is a fantastic email service, and Passkit makes great digital membership cards. But trying to use all of them together to manage a membership organisation? That is a massive time sink.

You have your master spreadsheet of members, and whenever one of them changes their email address, you have to manually update it across all your systems. These individual platforms might be great on their own, but trying to keep your data accurate across all of them takes a ridiculous amount of time and leaves the door wide open for mistakes.

An all-in-one membership management system puts all of those features under one roof. Your memberships, events, digital cards, and email communications are all driven by the exact same database.

Because the system is all connected:

  • No more manual syncing: When a member updates their email in the self-service portal, it is instantly updated for your newsletters and event ticketing. You never have to copy-paste between systems again.
  • Automated discounts: When a member logs in to buy an event ticket or a club polo shirt, the system automatically recognises their active status and applies their member discount. Non-members pay full price, and you don't have to check a thing.
  • One seamless checkout: Your members only need one login. They can renew their membership, buy a ticket to the Christmas party, and purchase a bumper sticker all in a single transaction.

Key Takeaways: Getting Your Time Back

  • Put Sign-Ups on Auto-Pilot: Automate your onboarding and renewal reminders so the system handles invoicing, status changes, and secure payments while you do nothing.
  • Enable Self-Service: Let members act as their own data entry clerks. When they update their own demographic info via the portal or app, your live database remains perfectly accurate.
  • Consolidate Your Software: Stop manually syncing data across spreadsheets, Mailchimp, and Eventbrite. Use an all-in-one platform to seamlessly manage memberships, communications, and ticketing.
  • Prevent Volunteer Burnout: Eliminate tedious, unpaid administrative chores so your committee can actually enjoy the club they work so hard to run.

Enjoy Your Club Again 

Most of the Member Jungle team are in clubs too, fishing clubs, motorcycle clubs, car clubs, soccer clubs, and dog clubs. We know that running a club can be a lot of work, and that these days people are busier than ever, with less time to donate. 

Investing in a system that helps you make all of your processes quicker and allows your overworked volunteers to do more with their limited time is crucial to your long-term success. 

If you want to find out how an all-in-one membership management system like Member Jungle can help you run your organisation better, check out What Is Membership Management Software For Nonprofits? - All Your Questions Answered. 

For more about Member Jungle in particular, have a look at The Big Questions Answered: Everything You Need to Know About Member Jungle.

 

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