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@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Membership grace period Message-ID: CAAanWP2nWa8ggVJvEd891JpwzE+xVZcgkYTksZ6dNgheLiXWaA@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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 Taylorjessica.s.taylor71@gmail.comwrote:
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
Thanks, WSC and John,
Now I see the advantages of spacing out membership renewals. Every other organization I'm part of uses 1 January. Instead of prorating for mid-year members they make them pay a full-year. I admit to timing my joining to the first half of the year for that reason. Having been part of dues collection for a small charity, I agree the collection period is a pain.
This is obviously something WMUK has deliberated on and come to the most useful conclusion about.
Thanks all,
Jess
On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 6:26 AM, John Byrne john@bodkinprints.co.uk wrote:
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@lists.**wikimedia.orgwikimediauk-l-request@lists.wikimedia.orgwrote:
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Membership grace period Message-ID: <CAAanWP2nWa8ggVJvEd891JpwzE+**xVZcgkYTksZ6dNgheLiXWaA@mail.** gmail.comCAAanWP2nWa8ggVJvEd891JpwzE%2BxVZcgkYTksZ6dNgheLiXWaA@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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<jessica.s.taylor71@**gmail.comjessica.s.taylor71@gmail.com
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
______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-lhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org