Our new product for Membership Organizations was released last week, and dozens of running clubs have already upgraded to the new product. Yesterday we hosted a webinar with Jonathan Farrell, the lead developer (and former running club president) to introduce the status of Memberships. You can find a recording of the webinar and slides below, but we also wanted to pull out some of the common questions both during and outside of the webinar.
FAQ: What to Know About Memberships
Getting Started with a Membership Organization
Who is Memberships For?
Running clubs are coming over from our legacy RunSignup Clubs platform, but the Memberships platform is built to be much more flexible for a variety of organizations. Organizations like Zoos, Gardens, and Museums can also take advantage of Memberships technology.
I want to create a new Membership Organization. How do I start, and what do I need to know?
Getting started is easy. You can start your Membership Organization here: https://runsignup.com/MemberOrg/New. The initial setup is just 3 quick Wizard steps to collect your basic organization information, desired Membership Levels, and payment information (if you already have a Payment Account on RunSignup, you can simply link that account).
There are a few features that aren’t ready yet that may impact your ability to get setup now. Perhaps most importantly, imports are not yet available to move over existing members from other platforms. Expect importing to be available within a few weeks; in the meantime, you’re free to start setting up your membership options and website.
You can see the status of other features that may impact the timing of going live with your Membership Organization here.
We have a running club set up as a race on RunSignup (we only charge once a year). Is it worth moving over to Memberships versus using what we have?
Yes. Your club might work as a race, but you’ll have more specific functionality on Memberships. That includes things like auto-renewal, race discounts for members, member numbers, etc.
Upgrading to a Membership Organization
What do I need to do to upgrade my legacy Club to a Membership Organization?
We have more details about why (and how) to upgrade your organization here. All your members and membership information will automatically show up in your Membership Organization. However, if you’ve made customizations to your Club, there will be some manual updates after the upgrade.
You will need to copy/recreate your custom website content with the new website builder, recreate your emails, and more. You’ll see a list of what does and doesn’t carry over before you finalize the upgrade; you can also see that list here. For items that do need to be manually recreated (like your custom website content), you can access your legacy content on your dashboard under Legacy Content to see your previous settings and content and copy it to the new platform.
What do my members need to do after I upgrade?
Nothing! Your club members will automatically become members of your Membership Organization and will not need to do anything to “claim” their membership again.
If I upgrade, how do I know it’ll work? Am I the first to upgrade?
You’re not the first! We had 15 successful beta testers in our beta program. Since going live with Memberships, 44 clubs have set up new Membership Organizations and 50 clubs have upgraded (as of 4/3/2024).
Is there a deadline to upgrade, and what happens if you don’t upgrade?
We don’t have a set deadline yet. Eventually, we will require everyone to upgrade so we aren’t maintaining an old system, but you have have plenty of time. When we do set a deadline, we’ll communicate that clearly and work with you to make sure you can be ready to upgrade in time.
Do we need a new link for our membership sign up?
No. There is a new link created for your membership organization that you may want to start using, but the old links are re-directed so all your members will still be able to find your page from previously shared links.
Memberships Reporting
What reports are available?
Current reporting similar to what was available previously with some light updates. They include membership purchases, individual members, expiring members, and a general search. More reports are coming this summer.
Reports use our generic reporting framework, allowing you to search/filter, edit columns, export and print. Saving reports and exporting reports will be coming soon.
Can we have a report showing Expired Members instead of Expiring Members?
Currently, by manipulating the date, you can use the existing report to see members who have recently expired. We will be making improvements to that report in the coming months, though.
Is it possible to sort reports without exporting them?
Currently, no. That will be coming as an update to reports across products, but we don’t have a timetable yet. For now, you can export all reports and sort by any field in Excel.
Will our year-to-date financial information transfer over from RunSignup Clubs to Memberships?
Yes. All financial information is unaffected and will show in your upgraded membership.
Membership Organization Websites
On our old RunSignup Club website, we rely heavily on the menu system and themes/colors. Will we still be able to build a menu system and customize text via HTML?
Yes! The new Website Builder lets you create dropdown menus and unlimited pages. The text editor has options for headers, paragraphs, and text size, but you can also edit the text (including color) via HTML. The website builder gives you a lot more flexibility than the old website system.
Are members-only pages (content only viewable to current members) available on Memberships?
Not yet. They should be available soon.
Is it possible to integrate a calendar into your website?
Not yet, but we will have a website component coming that will allow you to add a race or event list to your website.
Member Management
Will my new members still need to claim their accounts?
Some people may still need to claim their account to tie their Membership to their RunSignup account, but we are improving that experience by contact matching your imports to known RunSignup users and automatically tying together accounts that we can match. Accounts will be matched on email, name, and date of birth.
If one of our members has a membership with an open spot and they want to add another person, can they do that themself?
Currently, no, only the director can edit the membership to add the new member. A self-serve portal that would allow the member to do that is on the roadmap.
We have members who pay by check. How does that work with the system and what is the cost?
Members who pay by check will be imported by an admin for your club. Imports are not working yet, but will be in a few weeks. There is no fee for you to import members manually.
When you are editing a membership, is there a way to add a member?
Yes. If you have a multi-person membership with open slots, you can add a member to that membership.
Will there be any kind of attendance or check-in feature with Memberships?
Not yet, but yes. The first step will be getting a membership card into the Apple Wallet, and then we will be working on the ability to check in a membership. We also want to add self-check-in for events like a track workout, allowing the club to track attendance without checking each person in as they arrive.
Can non-board officers be manually given access to the system?
Yes. Currently, you can give users either full director access or non-financial access. More flexible access options are coming soon.
Auto-Renewals
Is auto-renewal automatically enabled?
No. Both you, as a director, and a member have to take action to enable auto-renewal because we need permission to charge someone’s credit card.
First, you will need to enable the option for auto-renewal (and pick your options) in your dashboard (Memberships >> Membership Levels >> Edit). You will also be able to select settings for auto-checking (or not) the option for members to renew, as well as when you want to trigger the auto-renewal.
Once auto-renewal is enabled, members signing up will see the checkbox option to agree to autorenewal as they join or renew.
How does auto-renewal work for our current members who are migrated over?
Auto-renewal has to be opted in, so members coming over will not auto-renew without action. Eventually (Q3/Q4) we will have a self-serve portal for members to take actions like enabling auto-renewal, but for now, your members will opt-into auto-renewal when they renew their membership. Make sure you’ve enabled auto-renewal as noted above!
What Features Are (and Aren’t) Available…and How Do I Know?
What’s not available yet? What is still coming?
You can see the full list of planned features and estimated timing here. One of the big ones that could impact the timing of you going live with a Membership Organization to getting donations into the purchase path. Currently, standalone donations work, but they are not available in the purchase path yet. You can see the next upcoming updates below – these are generally Q2 updates.
Where can I find the status of new releases?
Broadly, you can get updates on the system via our blog. Subscribe for all updates or look through the Clubs/Memberships category to see what’s new: https://info.runsignup.com/category/product/clubs-memberships/
Additionally, the matrix in this blog is a great resource to understand what’s done and what’s coming (and when): https://info.runsignup.com/2024/03/26/membership-organization-product-released/#feature
If we have customized our notifications that go out after someone signs up, do those customizations come over?
We are using a new notification system, so those do not come over automatically. You will need to re-customize your notifications.
Is the API going to change?
The Club API does not change for accessing members/club information. However, we will eventually add more end points and functions that you can call. There are a few things that will break, such as questions, because we are moving to a new questions module.
Race and Event Discounts for Members
Can we still offer a race discount to our club members? What about a discount to a ticket event like an annual Awards Gala?
Yes, you can still offer a race discount to club members (and promote your club to non-members registering for the race). The same ability to offer discounts for ticket events is coming later this year.
What happens to existing race discounts for clubs when you upgrade to a membership?
Absolutely nothing – the integration between races and members will still work even if it was setup before you upgraded to Memberships. There is one additional option with Memberships – the ability to offer discounts only to specific types of memberships (or change the amount based on the type of membership).
Providing Feedback
What do I do if I have a suggestion or a feature that I’m not seeing?
Please let us know! We will be continuing to add functionality to Membership Organizations. You can send in your feedback via your account manager, by emailing info@runsignup.com, or by submitting a support ticket.