Membership: User Guide

1. About This Tool

Improve a document you already have: As well as generating documents, you can upload one you already wrote and have AI improve it. Open the AI Automations page and use the "Improve an existing document with AI" card: pick a file (Word, text, or a text-based PDF), and AI returns a cleaner version plus a summary of what changed, with your original kept.

The Membership app is the sixth app in the All In One Nonprofit Governance suite. It is built for small membership organizations: booster clubs, friends-of groups, community associations, alumni circles, and any nonprofit where people join, pay annual dues, and (with care) renew year after year.

Three working tabs hold your data:

• Member Roster: every member, with contact details, level, join and renewal dates, and an automatically derived lifecycle status.
• Levels & Dues: your membership tiers (Individual, Family, Student, Life, and so on), each with annual dues and benefits. The app computes member counts and expected dues per level for you.
• Renewals: who is due in the next 45 days, who is overdue, one-click "Mark renewed," your payment link, bulk reminder sending, and a monthly dues digest.

The AI Automations page turns that data into the documents a membership chair actually writes: welcomes, receipts, renewal reminders, win-back letters, event invitations, a directory, health and pricing analyses, and the annual report for the board.

Everything you enter is stored locally in your browser (localStorage), so the app works instantly and your roster stays on your machine. AI drafting and email sending go through the All In One Nonprofit automations service when you are signed in.

2. Your First Session

Follow these steps in order the first time you open the app. By the end you will have your levels set, your first member on the roster, your payment link saved, and one welcome letter drafted. The labels below match exactly what you see on screen.

3. Getting Started

1. Sign in. Visit the member portal at app.allinonenonprofit.com, enter your email, and open the one-click sign-in link we send you (or use Google). Signing in unlocks AI drafting, email sending, and the dues digest; the roster, levels, and renewals tabs work without it.
2. Name your organization on the Dashboard. It appears on every letter and report.
3. Set up your levels under Levels & Dues. The "Use typical levels" button gives you a starter set (Individual, Family, Couple, Student, Senior, Associate, Life); adjust the amounts to yours.
4. Add your members on the Member Roster. Name and level are the essentials; join and renewal dates power the automatic status.
5. Paste your payment link under Renewals, so reminders can tell people exactly how to pay.

That is the whole setup. From then on, the Dashboard funnel and the Renewals lists update themselves every time you open the app.

Everything you type is saved automatically in your browser; a small ✓ Saved pill flashes in the bottom-right corner whenever the app records a change.

3. The Member Lifecycle Model

The app uses the platform's published member lifecycle: prospective → new → active → renewing → lapsed, with life members standing outside the cycle. You never set a member's status by hand. The app derives it from three facts you record: the join date, the renewal date, and the life-member checkbox.

The derivation rules, exactly as the app applies them

Because the status is computed, it is always current: a member quietly slides from active to renewing to lapsed as the calendar moves, and slides back to active the moment you click "Mark renewed."

4. The Dashboard

The Dashboard is your at-a-glance health check:

• Organization name: set once; used on every generated document.
• Stat tiles: total members, how many are due or overdue, dues expected this year (levels × paying members, computed by the app), and how much you have marked paid this year.
• Lifecycle funnel: a bar per status, counted live from your roster.
• Payment-link callout: a nudge until you set your link, confirmation once you have.
• Quick links to every tab, plus a pointer to the member-lifecycle scenario in the Workflow Scenarios.

"Dues expected this year" counts members whose status is new, active, renewing, or lapsed (lapsed members still represent recoverable dues). Life members and prospects are excluded. "Marked paid" totals the level dues of members whose recorded paid date falls in the current calendar year; clicking "Mark renewed" on the Renewals tab records that date for you.

5. Member Roster

The roster is the single source of truth. For each member you record:

• Name, email, phone
• Membership number, the ID your organization assigns (shows on the roster and in the CSV export)
• Level, chosen from your Levels & Dues list, which also sets their dues amount
• One-time / initiation fee, an editable field for any join fee on this record
• Join date (leave blank for a prospect)
• Renewal date (when the current membership runs out; a life member never carries one)
• Life member checkbox (no renewal date, no dues or renewal reminders)
• Notes: how they joined, volunteer roles, household members covered, anything worth remembering

Email history

Every email the app sends about a member is logged on that member's roster record: Send now emails, Send later scheduled sends (with the delivery date), and each Bulk Renewal Reminder, including failed bulk sends, which appear with a red failed badge so you can chase them. A small ✉ count chip next to the member's name (and the ✉ button in their row) opens the history: date, subject, and a badge for the type and the automation that produced it. The history lives in the member's record in your browser's saved data, so it persists with the roster.

Filtering and exporting

Filter chips above the table show the count per status and narrow the list with one click. The Export CSV button downloads the whole roster, including the derived status, paid dates, and notes, as a spreadsheet-ready file built entirely in your browser; nothing is uploaded anywhere.

Accounting CSV export

The roster also offers an accounting CSV export of dues revenue built for your bookkeeping software. Every row carries a Restriction column with the FASB ASC 958 net-asset class. Membership dues are unrestricted exchange revenue (the member receives benefits in return), so dues rows export as Without donor restrictions. That means dues import cleanly into QuickBooks, Xero, or Aplos alongside your Donor Management gifts, in the same column format, with no manual re-categorizing.

6. Levels & Dues

Levels are your membership products: a name, an annual dues amount, and a one-line description of the benefits. Click Use typical levels to load a ready-made starter set, Individual, Family, Couple, Student, Senior, Associate, and Life, then edit the amounts and benefits to match yours.

Beyond the basics, each level can also carry: a renewal term (Anniversary, Calendar year, or Calendar year with a fall cutoff, see Renewal Terms), one or more one-time fees charged at join, and age-banded pricing for levels (especially Life) where the price depends on the member's age. Those are covered in their own sections below.

Two columns in the table are computed by the app and cannot be edited:

• Members: how many roster members carry this level.
• Expected dues / yr: the level's dues times its paying members (statuses new, active, renewing, lapsed). A total row sums every level.

These numbers feed the Dashboard tiles and every automation that talks about money. The AI never calculates them; it only writes around figures the app has already computed.

7. Renewals & Your Payment Link

The payment-link model, honestly explained

All In One Nonprofit never touches your money. There is no platform wallet, no processing fee, no middleman account. Instead, you paste your organization's own payment link: a PayPal pay link, a Stripe payment link, or your donation page. The app includes that link in every renewal reminder, members pay you directly through your own account, and when the money arrives you click Mark renewed here to keep the records straight.

Mark renewed does two things: advances the member's renewal date according to the level's renewal term (anniversary, calendar year, or calendar year with the fall cutoff), and records today as their paid date (which feeds the "marked paid this year" tile on the Dashboard).

Life members are never on these lists. A life member carries no renewal date and never receives a dues bill or a renewal reminder, so they never appear as due or overdue and are never included in a bulk reminder send.

The two lists

• Due in the next 45 days: members whose renewal date is approaching. Remind them now, gently.
• Overdue: renewal date passed. Up to 60 days overdue they still count as renewing (most are just late); past 60 days they show as lapsed on the roster and become win-back candidates.

Bulk renewal reminders Included

The bulk sender emails a personalized reminder to every due or overdue member with an email address, up to 25 per batch. Each email carries the member's name, level, dues amount, renewal date, your payment link, and an optional personal note. Before anything is sent, the app shows you the exact recipient list and asks you to confirm; afterwards it shows a sent/failed report you can export for your files. This automation uses a fixed, tested template rather than AI, because real emails to real members should never improvise.

The monthly dues digest Included

A monthly nudge to your sign-in email when it's time to run renewals: pick a day of the month, click Save digest, and the platform emails you on that day each month so the Renewals tab actually gets opened. Remove it any time with one click.

Sending email: now or later

Every document the automations draft opens in an editor whose Email panel can deliver it two ways. Send now sends immediately. Send later reveals a date picker (today onward, up to a year out): pick the delivery date, click Schedule, and the platform sends the email for you on that day, around 9-10am Eastern. Scheduled emails appear in a compact Scheduled emails card on the Dashboard, listing each pending recipient, subject, and date, with a ✕ button to cancel any of them before they go out. Scheduling requires being signed in. Either way, the result is unmissable: a large centered confirmation overlay appears (green check for a successful send or schedule, red for a failure with the reason) and fades after a couple of seconds (or click to dismiss).

Renewal Terms & the Fall Cutoff

Not every organization renews members on the same clock. On Levels & Dues, each level can carry its own renewal term, and there is an organization-wide default the app uses when a level does not specify one. Set the term that matches how your program actually works:

• Anniversary: the membership runs for one year from the join date, then renews on that anniversary every year. Best when people join all year round and you want each member's clock to start the day they joined.
• Calendar year: the membership runs through December 31, regardless of when in the year someone joined. Best when your whole program renews together at year end.
• Calendar year with a fall cutoff: a calendar-year term with a fairness rule for late-year joins. The cutoff date is editable and defaults to October 1. Someone who joins on or after the cutoff is covered through the end of the following year; someone who joins before the cutoff runs through the end of the current year. This way a member who joins in November is not asked to renew again six weeks later.

One-Time Fees & Age-Banded Pricing

One-time fees (initiation, application, and the like)

Some programs charge a fee once, at the moment someone joins, on top of annual dues. On Levels & Dues, each level can carry one or more one-time fees (an initiation fee, an application fee, a badge fee, whatever you charge). They are collected once when the member joins and never again at renewal. The manual Add member and Edit member form also has an editable One-time / initiation fee field, so you can record or adjust a join fee on any individual record.

Age-banded join pricing

Life membership (and sometimes other levels) is often priced by age: a younger person pays more because the organization expects to serve them for more years. Each level supports age bands: you define the price for each band (for example Under 40, 40–64, and 65+), and when someone joins they pick their age band, which sets the price they pay. Use age bands wherever a single flat price would not be fair across ages; leave them off for levels with one price for everyone.

Membership Numbers & Life Members

Membership number

Each member can carry a membership number, a field on the member record for the ID your organization assigns (a card number, a sequence, a legacy number imported from an old system). The membership number shows on the roster and is included in the CSV export, so it travels with your data and lines up with membership cards or an external system.

Life members never get a dues bill

A life member stands outside the renewal cycle entirely: they never carry a renewal date and never receive a dues bill or a renewal reminder, individually or in a bulk send. Once the life-member checkbox is ticked, the app simply stops counting that person as ever due. This keeps your renewal lists honest (no life member ever clutters the "due" view) and prevents the awkward reminder to someone who has already paid for life.

Public Signup & Committee Approval

The Membership app can publish a public join page, www.allinonenonprofit.com/join/, that prospective members fill out themselves. You control how applications are handled from the new Applications page in the left sidebar.

Choose how people join

On the Applications page, pick one of two modes:

• Join immediately: the applicant completes the form, pays any dues or one-time fees through your organization's own connected Stripe account, and is added to the roster right away.
• Require committee approval first: the applicant submits an application, your membership committee reviews and votes, and only an approved applicant is invited to finish joining and pay.

When your choice is set, click Save & publish my levels to generate your public join link. Share that link anywhere: your website, an email, a flyer, a QR code.

The approval workflow, step by step

Who counts as the committee and the chair

The committee and its chair are managed on the My Organization (Team) page. Create a committee whose name contains the word "Membership", and add the people who should vote. To name the chair, set that person's role to Chair. The Membership app reads this committee to decide who may vote and who finalizes.

Forms-App Signup Form

You can put membership signups on autopilot with a public form built in the Forms app. Open www.allinonenonprofit.com/forms/ and choose New Membership Signup. You get a shareable link a prospective member fills out themselves: they enter their details, optionally pay their dues through your organization's own connected Stripe account, and on submission they are added to your Member Roster automatically.

Free levels join instantly; paid levels are added once the dues payment clears. This is the same payment-link principle described under Renewals (the money goes to your own account, All In One Nonprofit never holds it), just collected at the moment someone joins. New members appear on the roster the next time the app loads and syncs.

Newsletter

The Newsletter page in the left sidebar lets you compose and send a real email newsletter to your members through your organization's own MailerLite account. All In One Nonprofit composes the email and hands it to MailerLite; MailerLite owns the actual sending, your subscriber list, the unsubscribe link, deliverability, and CAN-SPAM compliance, all on your own account.

Connect your MailerLite account first

Before the Newsletter page can do anything, connect your own MailerLite account: open the Technology app, go to Communications, and paste your MailerLite API key. One connection then powers every newsletter you send from here. If you do not have a MailerLite account, creating a free one takes a few minutes; verified 501(c)(3) nonprofits get 30 percent off MailerLite's paid plans.

Compose the email

Two ways to build the message:

• Compose mode: set a subject line and the short inbox preview text, optionally upload a header banner (about 1200px wide, for example 1200 by 400; large images are shrunk to 1200px automatically to keep the email light), then add repeatable sections, each with a heading, body text, and an optional image you can upload (also auto-downscaled). Every section has a Remove button. A live Preview shows the finished email as you work.
• Bring your own HTML: if you already have an email designed elsewhere, paste the HTML or upload an .html file and it is sent as is.

Draft with AI Included

Short on time? List a few topics or bullet points and Draft with AI writes the sections and a subject line for you to edit. It invents nothing: anything specific it does not know is left in [brackets] for you to fill in. This drafter is included with the All-Access subscription.

Templates and resets

Save a monthly skeleton as a template and reuse it next time, and Clear / Start over resets the page for a fresh issue. You can also Download HTML or Copy HTML if you would rather paste the finished email into MailerLite by hand.

Pick who receives it

Under Send to, choose a MailerLite group from the list, that group is your recipient list. Build a group from your records creates a MailerLite group in one click from your own data (Members, Donors, or Contacts), so you do not have to build the list by hand. Only ever send to people who have opted in to hear from you.

Send, schedule, or save a draft

When the newsletter is ready, choose Create draft (safest first time: it lands in your MailerLite Campaigns for a final look), Send now, or Schedule for a future date and time. Everything is delivered through your own MailerLite account, and every draft or sent issue is archived there under Campaigns.

Predictions

The Predictions page sits directly under the Dashboard in the left sidebar, right next to AI Automations. It scores your own members so you can see who needs attention before they quietly slip away. The first score is renewal risk: for each member, the app weighs status, how close (or how far past) the renewal date is, how long they have been a member (tenure), and their payment history, then ranks members from most at risk to least. The page also shows a projected dues forecast for the next period, an estimate of what you can expect to collect, based on who is due to renew and at what level. Use the risk ranking to decide who to call or email first.

The AI brief button

The Predictions page also has one AI button, the Member Retention Brief. It turns the scored data into a short, prescriptive action plan: which members are most at risk, why, and what to do about each group this week. See the AI Automations Guide for details.

✨ AI Automations

Twelve automations, grouped by module (everything is included with the All-Access subscription). Each card harvests what it needs from your roster and levels, shows you a "Pulled from your records" banner so you can see exactly what it found, sends code-computed numbers to the AI, and opens the draft in an editor with Copy, Text, Print, Word, and Email export. For the member-targeted automations (welcome, receipt, renewal, win-back, life member), the Email panel's "To" field comes prefilled with the chosen member's address; you can still edit it before sending.

• Included: New Member Welcome, Dues Receipt
• Included: Renewal Reminder Letter, Lapsed Member Win-Back, Life Member Recognition, Member Event Invitation
• Included: Membership Health Analysis, Dues & Levels Review, Win-Back Campaign Plan
• Included: Membership Directory Compiler, Annual Membership Report, Bulk Renewal Reminders

The full what-it-does / what-it-needs / what-you-get breakdown for each lives in the AI Automations Guide.

Your Membership Workflow

The lifecycle tells you which automation to reach for, and when:

8. Retention Best Practices

• Renewal is won in the first 90 days. A member who is welcomed, thanked, and invited to something within their first three months renews at dramatically higher rates. The New status exists so you can see exactly who is in that window.
• Remind early, remind twice. Send the first reminder when the member enters the 45-day window and a second near the date. The bulk sender makes both a five-minute job.
• Treat "lapsed" as "late" for 60 days. Most small-organization lapses are forgetfulness, not a decision. The grace window in the model reflects that; so should your tone.
• Win-backs work best with news. "We miss you" plus "here is what is new since you left" outperforms guilt every time. Put the news in the win-back letter's notes field.
• Watch the funnel, not just the total. A flat member count can hide a leaky funnel where new joins exactly replace quiet lapses. The Membership Health Analysis reads the funnel for you.

9. Dues Best Practices

• Few levels, clear differences. Three or four levels members can explain to each other beat seven they cannot. Each level's benefits line should answer "what do I get for the extra money?"
• Price the Family level honestly. If Family costs less than two Individuals, expect couples to choose it; that is fine if it is intentional. The Dues & Levels Review flags cannibalization like this.
• Raise dues rarely, explain always. A small increase with a one-paragraph explanation retains better than silent creep. The review automation can model what a change means for expected revenue using your real counts.
• Receipt every payment. It is professional, it prevents disputes, and the Dues Receipt automation makes it one click with the tax wording handled correctly.
• Reconcile monthly. The dues digest exists so that once a month, you open Renewals, compare the lists against your bank account, and click Mark renewed for whoever has paid.

10. Common Pitfalls

• Setting statuses by hand somewhere else. A spreadsheet column called "status" goes stale the day after you update it. Here, status is derived from dates, so it cannot go stale.
• No renewal dates on the roster. Without a renewal date the app cannot tell you who is due. When importing an old list, set everyone's renewal to their next anniversary, even approximately.
• Forgetting to Mark renewed. If payments arrive but never get recorded, the lists fill with false overdues and reminders annoy paid-up members. Make Mark renewed part of your deposit routine.
• Deleting lapsed members. A lapsed member is a warm lead with history, the easiest "new" member you will ever recruit. Keep them on the roster and run the win-back.
• Calling dues a donation on receipts. Dues that come with benefits are generally not charitable contributions to that extent. Use the receipt automation's wording rather than improvising.
• Sending bulk email without checking the list. The confirm dialog exists for a reason: read the recipient list before you click. It is your last chance to catch the member who paid in cash yesterday.

Clean Up Duplicates & Import

Two tools on the member roster keep your list clean and make onboarding existing records simple.

Find duplicates. Detect members that share an email address or name, choose the record to keep, and merge. Merging combines the members, joins their payment history (deduplicated by payment reference), and preserves notes, with an undo.

Import CSV. A guided wizard maps your spreadsheet columns (Name, Email, Phone, Level, Joined, Renewal, Notes) and matches each row to an existing member by email to update it, or creates a new member when there is no match.

Contact & Support

Questions, feedback, or stuck on a step? We read everything.

Looking for help beyond the platform? See our Helpful Resources page for vetted external resources on legal and tax filing, funder research, governance training, insurance, technology discounts, and more.

• Website: buildyourclub.com
• All apps: buildyourclub.com/apps.html
• Open the app: Membership
• Automation details: AI Automations Guide

This guide is general information for nonprofits, not legal, tax, or professional advice. A Step Ahead Media, DBA All In One Nonprofit.

A note on legal advice

All In One Nonprofit provides plain-language educational tools and document drafts, not legal advice. For decisions with legal consequences, consult a qualified attorney who works with nonprofits.

Document branding, signatures & snippets

In your settings you can brand the documents this tool generates and speed up repeated writing:

• Letterhead and footer: add your organization's letterhead image and a footer (address, contact details, EIN) that appear on your Word and PDF exports.
• Signature: save a default closing (for example, "Sincerely,"), your name, your title, and an optional signature image, added at the sign-off on letters.
• Stats & Snippets: save reusable blocks of text you use often (your mission statement, boilerplate, a standard call to action) and copy any of them into a document you are drafting.

Set these up once and apply them to your exports.