Set Up and Manage Automatic Membership Renewal

Are your memberships tacitly renewed? Do you want to avoid the hassle of annual membership renewals by offering your members an automatic membership renewal system? This feature is for you. 

In this article, we explain : 

• The main principles of the Automated Membership Renewal feature
• How to set it up?
• How does the membership renewal system work?
• Advanced uses of the feature

No time to read? Check out this video!

The main principles of the Automated Membership Renewal feature

The Automatic Membership Renewal feature allows you to create membership forms that automate: membership renewal AND the associated online payment. 

Let's take at an example. 

Year 1 → John becomes a member. He joins online in February in year 1 for an amount of $100.00. He pays by credit card.

Year 2 → At the end of John's membership, it is automatically renewed: 

• he is renewed for another year, on the same basis as last year ($100.00)
• he pays with the same payment method as the one he used last year. 

Year 3 → Same principle as Year 2.

Year 4 → John moves. He wants to put his nonprofit life on hold and does not want to renew his membership. He can do it directly from the software, or you can do it for him! John's membership is not renewed at the end of the membership period.

Setting Up Automated Renewal Memberships

Let's explain how to set up your membership form with automated renewal 💪

1. Enable the tool

This feature is enabled by default. If it is not the case for you, you can activate it by going to your Settings Center: Settings > Forms & Campaigns. 

Once this option is enabled, go to your Membership tool (path: Forms & Campaigns > Memberships) to create your membership campaign with automatic renewal 🎉.

2. Create your membership form with automated renewal

Step 0 - Create your membership form

From Forms & Campaigns > Memberships, click on "Create a membership form". 

During the creation process, you will be asked if you want your membership form to include an automatic renewal process or not. Choose "Membership campaignswith automated renewal". 

Once you have made this choice, you can then define the main elements of the form. 

Step 1 - Setting up the Form: Defining General Information 

As with other membership forms, you can set the "General Information" of your form: its title, image, etc. that your members will see when they join

Step 2 - Setting up the form: Membership plans & periods

In step 2, you set up the membership plans and the membership period in force. 

You can create your different membership plans. You can create flat rate memberships, free-amount memberships or free memberships. 

Note: for auto-renewal memberships, it is not possible to add other types of rates.

Regarding the setting of the membership periods, you have 2 choices, depending on your needs and the functioning of your nonprofit: 

• Rolling Memberships (Memberships for X months from the date of joining):
  The person becomes a member the day they pay. They remain members for the number of months you have defined. They are then renewed on the anniversary date of their membership, for the same duration as that set.
  
  
• Date-to-date memberships
  Your members become members on a fixed date, regardless of the day they join online. You have 3 choices
  
  
  • Annual memberships:
    If you choose this option, you can configure 2 elements:
    • The start date of the membership according to the month in which your membership starts: January 1st, February 1st, etc.
    • The membership period (in months): here you define until when a member becomes a member in the current year.
      
      For example, if your membership runs from January 1st to December 31st, and you consider that members who join from September 1st will be members not for the current year but for the next year. 
      
      
  • Quarterly memberships
    If you choose this option, you can configure 1 element: 
    The membership start date based on the month in which your membership begins: 1st month of the quarter, 2d month of the quarter, 3ᵉ month of the quarter. 
    
    It is not possible to edit the membership period limit. So, if you have quarterly memberships running from January to March, then April to June, etc., you will need to edit the membership period.
    If a person joins on March 15, the membership they take will be for the current period. The person will then be considered a member from January 1 to March 31 and will be renewed the following month
    
    
  • Monthly memberships:
    A person will be a member for one month and will be renewed automatically the following month. 
    If you make this choice, you can then, you do not have to configure anything. 
    If a person joins during the current month, he will be considered as a member for that month (and he will pay the annual membership fee). And they will be automatically renewed for the following month

Step 3 - Setting up the form: Forms

In step 3, you set up the personal information requested from the member when he/she first joins: postal address, telephone number, date of birth, etc. 

Step 4 and 5 - Setting up the form: Payment & publication

In these final sections, you set up the payment and publication information, allowing you to define the access rules for your form.

Note: for memberships with automatic renewal, you can only choose online payment methods, as the purpose of this feature is to automate the renewal and the payment of memberships. 

Once you have completed these steps, you are ready to go! You can start managing your memberships and their renewals automatically.

How does the membership renewal system work?

You've created your auto-renewal membership form and want to start managing your memberships through it. 

Below, we will detail the key steps in the life cycle of an auto-renewal membership: from taking out the membership to renewing the membership and ending the renewal. 

 

Step 1 - The member joins

The first step is for people in your community to join from a membership form with automatic renewal.  People can join. 3 steps are required: 

1. The choice of the membership plan
2. Entering the personal information needed to join: last name, first name, email, phone number, and all the information you have set up in your membership form
3. The payment. 

These 3 steps are important because they will be the basis for the amount of the membership and the payment method used to make the payment. 

Step 2 - Membership is renewed 

Once this step is validated, the person becomes a member for the period you have defined. For example: from January 1st of the year to December 31st. 

Once the period of membership of the person is over (so here, December 31), we will then automatically renew the membership of the person! 

The system will then automatically:

• Renew the person's membership
• Charge the member with the payment method he/she had indicated when he/she first joined.
• Notify the member of this renewal by email

If an error occurs during the payment, we detail the case below.

If, on the other hand, everything goes well, then the membership will be renewed for another year. 

Step 3 - The member terminates the renewal 

Let's assume that the member wishes to leave the association and not renew. 

An administrator - or the member him/herself - can terminate the renewal of his/her membership at any time

To do this, go to the member's profile, in the 'Membership' tab of the profile. Then click on Stop renewal.

Once this action is completed: 

• ✅ the membership and its payment will not be renewed at the membership end date.

However

• ❌ the person's membership will not be terminated at the time of the action. The individual will be a member until their membership end date.
• ❌ we do not automatically refund part of the membership. What has been paid to your association stays with your organization.

Advanced uses of the feature

Here we address advanced questions about the feature

What to do if the membership renewal payment fails?

Above, we detailed the automated membership renewal process if everything goes well. But, you know, life isn't a smooth ride.

Between the first event (your member's enrollment) and the last (renewal), many things could have happened to John

- his payment method could have expired
- his bank card could have been stolen or lost
- your member changed bank accounts, etc.

Good news! We manage these events for you. From now on, if the payment of a membership renewal fails:

• we send an email to the member to notify them of this error.
• the member can then - from this email - update their payment method.

How to change the amount of the membership to be renewed?

Let's suppose that John is one of your members. He has already joined two years ago and wants to change his membership package (for example, from a classic membership to a premium membership).

He can do this by doing the following:

1. stopping the renewal of his membership
2. participate again in the membership campaign by choosing the formula that suits him/her.