Membership

The Membership Accordion contains the details regarding a contact's membership, including individual dues payments. The top portion of the accordion has basic membership fields like Membership No, Membership Name, Membership Type, Dues Amount, Payment Interval, Last Paid Date, and Paid Thru Date. You can also record information about the start of the membership, such as Date Joined and whether the member joined as result of a specific campaign. The middle section of this accordion lists any other contacts that are part of this membership. Historical dues payments are displayed and accessed at the bottom of this accordion.

Before working with memberships, be sure your membership settings are set up under Contacts Settings. These settings include Membership Types, Membership SubTypes, and a Membership Dues Receipt. Membership Renewal Letters should be set up under Letter & Email Templates.

Creating Memberships

There are two ways to create memberships in PastPerfect: adding a new membership or joining an existing membership.

Add New Membership

When a contact decides to join your organization as a new member or when entering backlogs of old memberships, you will need to create a new membership.

1. Click "Edit" in the Edit Bar at the top of the contact record
2. Click the Membership Accordion bar to expand it
3. Fill in the Membership Name, Membership Type, Payment Interval, and Date Joined fields 
   • The Membership Name field is required in order to add dues payments and have the member appear on membership lists.
   • If the member is a Life member, select "Life" as the Payment Interval.
   • Membership No will automatically be added when a membership is created.
   • The Dues Amount field will populate automatically based on the Membership Type if you have set up your membership types with amounts.
4. If desired, you can also populate the Membership SubType, Joined as Result of This Campaign, and Campaign Activity fields
5. Click "Save" in the Edit Bar at the top of the screen

Join Existing Membership

If you have two or more contact records who will share a membership (like a family membership), you will need to enter the primary member first using the steps to create a new membership. The primary member will be the one receiving the renewal notices. For the secondary (or joint) members, you will join them to that existing membership.

1. Be sure the joint member's contact record has been created
2. Navigate to the primary member's contact record
3. Click "Edit" in the Edit Bar at the top of the screen
4. Click the Membership Accordion bar to expand it
5. In the Other Contacts included in the Membership section, click the "Add" button

6. When the modal opens, locate and select the contact(s) who are joint member(s) for this membership:

   • Browse using the buttons at the bottom of the pop-up window.  Records can be sorted by clicking on a column header. Using the check boxes to the left, select the contact(s) and click "Add All Checked Records."
   • Use a filter to find the contact(s) (See Working with Filters). Once the filtered list is showing only the desired contact(s), click "Add All Records Selected by Filter."
7. The joint member(s) will be listed under Other Contacts included in the Membership
8. Click "Save" in the Edit Bar at the top of the screen

When you go to the joint member's contact record, the primary member will be listed in the Included in another Membership field on the Membership Accordion. Other membership fields will display information about the membership from the primary member's record, but they are not editable on the joint member's contact record. Dues payments only display on the primary member's record.

All of the membership management (changing membership type, adding additional joint members, adding dues payments, etc) must be done on the primary member's record.

Change Primary Member

Since only the primary member receives the renewal notices, you may need to change who the primary membership is for a membership.

1. Navigate to the current primary member's contact record
2. Click "Edit" in the Edit Bar at the top of the screen
3. Click the Membership Accordion bar to expand it
4. In the Other Contacts included in the Membership section, click the "Change Primary Member" button

5. When the modal opens, select the contact who should be the new primary member for this membership

6. Click "Yes" to confirm
7. The Included in another Membership field will now display the name of the new primary member
8. Click "Save" in the Edit Bar at the top of the screen

When you go to the new primary member's contact record, the previous primary member will now be listed under Other Contacts included in the Membership. The dues payments will now display on the new primary member's record.

Renewal Letters

Membership Renewal Letters can be printed individually from the contact record or they can be printed in bulk using the Upcoming Membership Renewals standard view on the Contacts Query screen or from a Contact List.

Print/Email Individual Renewal Letter

1. Click "Letters" in the upper right corner of the contact record
2. Select the appropriate membership renewal letter under Letter
3. If you plan to email the letter, select the appropriate email address in the To field
4. Use the "Send Email, "Save as PDF," or "Print Label" buttons to produce the desired document

Active vs. Inactive Memberships

By default, all memberships in PastPerfect are active, meaning the organization intends to send renewal letters and general announcements to the contact.

Checking the Inactive Membership check box will exclude the membership from the Memberships Overdue and Upcoming Membership Renewals standard views on the Contacts Query screen. The Inactive Membership designation can also be used in a filter statement to remove the membership from query results.

An inactive membership is defined as a membership the organization is no longer planning to solicit for membership renewals. Each individual organization can determine what qualifies as an inactive membership (a request from the contact, a set number of expired years, etc.). Deceased and Stop Mail contacts should also be marked as inactive so they can be excluded from mailings and other communication.

Mark Membership as Inactive

1. Navigate to the primary member's contact record
2. Click "Edit" in the Edit Bar at the top of the screen
3. Click the Membership Accordion bar to expand it
4. Check the box next to "Inactive Membership"
5. Click "Save" in the Edit Bar

Deleting Membership

It is rare that an organization will want to delete membership records.  However, it is possible to remove a membership without deleting the contact record.

One example of where this might be useful is if Person A had an individual membership for a year and then decided to join Person B's family membership the next year. You would need to delete Person A's membership so that Person A can join Person B's membership. Any historical dues payments Person A made will stay on Person A's record.

1. Click "Edit" in the Edit Bar at the top of the contact record
2. Click the Membership Accordion bar to expand it
3. Remove all the data from the Membership fields in the top portion of the Membership Accordion: Membership Name, Membership Type, Membership SubType, Dues Amount, Payment Interval, Last Paid Date, Paid Thru Date, Date Joined, and Renewal Letter Sent
   • Dues Payments can stay as they are part of your organization's financial history.
4. Click "Save" in the Edit Bar at the top of the screen