This is the second post in a series designed to prepare users for MemberHub 2.0 changes.

As mentioned yesterday in the introduction to subdomains post, the driving factors behind the upcoming enhancements have been to make the user experience more about your organization, while also making it easier for administrators to manage membership information. This has resulted in a new approach to user accounts in general. Of course the design had to change just a bit too.

Your Calendar and Dashboard are Scoped by Organization

To get to your combined calendar, dashboard, or profile for the current organization, simply click on the organization name [link] in the upper-left. The Dashboard will not look very different if you’re affiliated with only one organization in MemberHub. Same goes for the Calendar. (NOTE: if you’re currently subscribing to events on your combined calendar, you will need to re-subscribe to your organization Calendar). You’ll notice both of these pages now have the organization’s name and logo in the header instead of MemberHub’s.

Quickly let me explain what we mean by “scoped”. At the time this post is being published, Your Dashboard is a view across all your hubs; across multiple organizations (if you’re part of multiple orgs). In 2.0, you can only be on the Dashboard for the organization you’re currently logged into. Using our example from yesterday, when Gerald logs into Trinity Community Church at tcc.memberhub.com he will land on the Dashboard for that organization. He can switch organizations from the same dropdown.

Your Account, Your Profile; What’s the Difference?

Your Account will consist of your email addresses (yes that’s multiple addresses), your password, time zone, and global notification preferences. Your profile is everything else like your mailing address, phone numbers, gender, birth date, etc. The profile is managed by the organization and you both can make changes. You will have a separate profile for each organization that you’re affiliated with on MemberHub. We’ll talk more about what admins can do in the next post.

Your Family will be Created by Organization Administrators

After doing some real digging into the ways that the family concept was being used in MemberHub we decided to move the responsibility of creating and managing families to organization administrators. Most users were confused about the ability to add family members; especially when joining a hub and didn’t understand the implications of creating those records. Members will be able to edit Family Members but the responsibility of grouping members in to families will be left to the staff at your organization who decide to make use of the family view and new family directory. More on this down the road too.

In the next post we’ll share why we’re making life much better for organization administrators.

Please, leave us a comment below.

We’ve been busy…listening. In the last 6 months, we conducted customer interviews, spoken with prospects, chatted with early adopters and even formed a Customer Council. We’ve been listening to your feedback, suggestions and problems and now we’d like to make some noise!  We’re making some enhancements that we know are going to be warmly welcomed…even more than the beloved sound of a vuvuzella.

We’ll be communicating the details of these changes out to our users over the next few weeks via email and this blog. So if you’re not already subscribed, then do so at the top right. You can subscribe via email and the blog posts will be delivered to your inbox.

Here’s an idea of what to expect in the upcoming changes:

• Sub-domains (ex. http://trinity-church.memberhub.com)
• Branded login pages for your organization and branded user dashboards
• Ability for admins to manage member profiles
• Register multiple email addresses
• Easier member directories

These changes will open up the door to even more enhancements. Enhancements that weren’t possible before; like more membership management capabilities. The bottom line is that it’s going to be MUCH easier to get your members into the system, easier to manage member profile information and therefore easier to enhance communication with and among your members. Your experience with MemberHub will be branded less with MemberHub and more with YOUR ORGANIZATION.

Thank you to those of you we’ve spoken with and especially to our Customer Council.

Photograph by: UNITED PHOTOS
Credit: REUTERS

“It’s all about timing.” How many times have you heard that? How many times have you said it? A lot…I bet. No one can doubt the truth behind that simple statement. Choosing the right software at the right time is no exception. Knowing when to buy that key piece of software for your organization and more importantly why you’re buying it is important. Let me give you an example of how our organization recently messed up on this very thing.

One of the most crucial aspects to any business is keeping up with it’s customers and prospects. Some type of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is vital to keeping a history of all communications and relationship details with your customers. By they way, churches and nonprofits you need one too. Either a ChMS or some Membership Management Software….look into it. Anyway, we set out to get a CRM. But we didn’t do our homework, we just signed up for Salesforce. We don’t use 2/3 of the system. Sure that happens a lot when you get a feature-rich (ready “bloated”) software but the worst part is that we spent too much money. We should have selected a much cheaper, simpler solution for the first year (perhaps 37Signal’s Highrise). Salesforce was the wrong software at the wrong time.

At the same time, we totally missed the boat on the software that we should have been running since DAY 1. It’s called KissMetrics. From their website: “KissMetrics is the simplest and easiest way to visualize your conversion funnel in order to increase your ROI”. Basically it helps businesses increase sales and conversion rates. We should have adopted this type of software even before we had customers! Live and learn.

Here are a few points to keep in mind when thinking about software for your organization

1. Most software has been created because there is a tangible benefit. Seriously…like saving time and/or money. This is especially important to keep in mind for young organizations that assume they cannot afford software or worse that they should not have to pay for it. In the middle of any organization process that’s taking place you should always be asking yourself if there is software that makes this easier. Sometimes that means spending some money on software. If you’re a small organization (like a church plant) can you really not afford to pay $12/mo to enhance communication and centralize all all logistics? Yes that was self-serving :).

2. Learn the tangible benefits the software offers. Does the software pay for itself? Can the return on investment be measured. If so, make sure you know what the ROI is. If the software offers a free trial then try it out. And really give it a go. You may crash and burn but you’re better off trying something then just thinking about it. If you can’t tell by the trial or just looking at the website, then pick up the phone!

3. Call software providers. Yes, pick up the phone and call them. If they don’t list a phone number then that’s a bit questionable in my opinion, but the point is…reach out to them. You’ll usually find that honest and fair people are behind most of the reputable software that’s available on the internet these days. Even more…

4. Ask for a discount. If you really can’t afford the software at the time, but you know you need it, then simply ask for discount. Talk is cheap (sometimes). We use coupons at MemberHub and there a handful of them floating around the internets. Just like us, many vendors will be happy to help you out for a little while. Just ask.

So, what’s that piece of software that you’ve been thinking about for a while now? What can it do for your organization? What are you waiting for?

One question that we hear often is:

Do we add member data in directly or do I have my members signup?

Most customers love the current implementation where members signup and manage their own information. Others want complete control and even want to add members manually and start communicating. So the question is: Who owns the data?

Can a system be designed that can be both a membership management system and a self-serve member communication tool? We think so. And we’re taking steps now to be the best of both worlds.

Organization administrators can now manually add person records in their organization’s management console. What this means is that you can now accurately reflect all the people in your organization. You can enter the profile information and upload their picture.

The next step will be to merge any offline person records with a real account should that person create a MemberHub profile. We’ll be speaking with existing customers to gather feedback on how this should work.

If you’re an administrator, check out the New Person button and let us know what you think!

If there is one thing that I’m surprised about as we continue to serve churches, it’s the number of folks that are unhappy with their current technology. Countless times I’ve spoken with customers and church leaders who have a laundry list of complaints with their current “IT” situation.

Many times it’s just about one particular piece of outdated membership management software. Other times it’s simply the challenge that comes with having too many tools adopted. On top of all this is the pressure to get involved in social media and enhance communication among their members.

So what is the silver bullet? What would the perfect church technology tool look like? Is it even possible?

Here are just 5 things that I think churches are looking for in technology:

1. SIMPLE. Simple membership management for example. Less features.
2. Private communication tools; NOT private social networking tools.
3. Technology that enhances real relationships somehow.
4. Tools that empower ministry and group leaders to get organized.
5. Reporting on member activity.

Do you agree? Please add more in the comments!

With the latest release of MemberHub.com users can take advantage of membership management features and get a feel of the MemberHub to come. In the last post we introduced the concept of organizations in MemberHub and provided an explanation of how we got to where we are in the application. Now you might be wondering what is all the “organizations in MemberHub” about, what is the Early Adopters Program? and what do these new features look like? Well  here are some screen shots of what’s available in the latest release for those who are ready to get started with MemberHub for organizations.

When users create an organizations (not just a hub) in MemberHub, they open up the door to membership management. Currently, users have to sign up for the Early Adopters Program to create an organization. Let’s take a look at what you’ll see when you do create your organization.

The first noticeable difference for existing users is on their dashboard. The “Your Hubs” section on the left has been changed to read “Organizations & Hubs”. 

Organizations in MemberHub can contain as many hubs as they need. For example a religious organization can have a hub for each ministry or an association can have a hub for all the members and another for just the staff. Hubs which you are affiliated with that are owned by an organization are listed under that organization heading. Hubs that you are affiliated with that are not owned by organizations (free hubs) are underneath the “Other Hubs” heading. 

If you are the account owner or administrator for an organization in MemberHub you will see a “Manage” link beside that organization. The “Manage” link takes you into the organization view which opens up an entirely new layout.

This is where membership management functionality for the organization is exposed. Currently there are four tabs in the organization layout. A Home tab, a People tab, a Hubs tab and tab for various Settings. The Home tab serves as the organization dashboard. Ultimately this page will contain tables and charts to track membership, shortcuts to various tasks and general important information. Recent activity across all the organization’s hubs will give admins a glimpse into what’s happening in their organization.

The People tab contains a record of each and every member in every hub owned by the organization. Organizations admins can access the profile of every member and with the next release will be able to perform actions on those members. For example, you might select 10 members and then put them into an existing or new hub. 

The Hubs tab contains a records of each and every hub that is owned by the organization. You can access the hubs from the tab and create new hubs for you organization. 

The Settings tab is where administrative functions for the organizations can be performed. For example adding new organization admins, change your MemberHub subscription plan and update any general information (like mailing address) about the organization. 

Over the next few months, these and many more features will be added to MemberHub. Administrators will be able to use “tags” to associate keywords with people and hubs in their organization. The People tab will also have powerful filter and search capabilities as well as the ability to manually add new people who haven’t signed up with MemberHub.

As new features become available we will update this blog, so come back.