New subject: Membership grace period

10 Feb 2013

I'd agree with Wierspiel. Most large member organizations have "natural" 
anniversaries, to give the membership department something to do all 
year. If you have one renewal date you only find out once a year if 
people stop renewing, which makes it much harder to try & do something 
about it.  You also get the income all in one lump.  January is also the 
run-up to the year-end, & the whole period Jan to mid-March is not a 
time to schedule extra work, as the year-end & audit already increase 
the office workload.  I think you naturally discourage people from 
joining mid-year, unless you get into some complicated pro-rata fee for 
the first year.  Altogether it creates more problems than you solve. But 
I'd emphasize again the importance of letting people know when their 
renewal date is, and trying to get as many as possible onto direct debits.

John

On 10/02/2013 11:53, wikimediauk-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
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  Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Membership grace period
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 Hi Jess,

 First of Jan is an awkward time of year - people are most likely to get
 into debt over Xmas so I'd be cautious about trying to harmonise all our
 renewals at that time of year. If you have a bunch of regular AGM attenders
 who pay their memberships in cash then it is obviously easiest to get them
 to pay when they turn up at the AGM, but I doubt that greatly applies to us
 and I wouldn't recommend 1st Jan for an AGM.

 There are many disadvantages to having all renewals on the same date. It
 means you are always signing up new members on the basis of a part year
 membership at one price followed hopefully by full year memberships; It
 concentrates all your membership renewal work in one point of the year; and
 it means there is a particular point in the year when your membership dips
 which could be awkward for special AGMs etc. If membership revenue was ever
 a significant part of our income it would also mean that our cashflow was
 distorted with a spike in our revenue that didn't coincide with a spike in
 expenditure.

 By contrast I'm not aware of any advantage to having them all on the same
 date. So I'd suggest it is better to have them as evenly spread through the
 year as possible.

 WSC

 On 9 February 2013 22:35, Jessica Taylor&lt;jessica.s.taylor71(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote:

> >Richard, thanks for that explanation. I may be barking up the wrong tree
> >but I'll jump in anyway.
> >
> >If memberships became due each 1st of January, fundraising/dues collection
> >could be easier. I realize that there would be many logistical hurdles
> >which may moot this suggestion.
> >
> >Is it plausible that WMUK could ask members if they'd be willing to pay
> >both the membership from their next expiration date to the next normal
> >expiration date PLUS their next year's dues for the year of 2014 with the
> >understanding that their membership period will thenceforth be from January
> >to January and will next be due on 1 January 2015. I realize that some
> >members would say, "No."
> >
> >Alternatively, could WMUK ask members if they would voluntarily relinquish
> >their leftover membership periods at midnight on the 31 December 2013 AND
> >start their memberships over the next day? Again I realize some members may
> >say, "No," because of the lost value of X months of membership.
> >
> >Final alternative, might WMUK ask members if to anonymously gift part-year
> >memberships on behalf of other anonymous members 