At its most basic level, the membership module assigns a status that you define to a constituent record for a period of time. You can use this in many different ways to suit your organization’s needs. Most often, people set it up so that their constituents regularly pay dues to receive some sort of benefit or access to their organization.
You can:
- Keep track of current and expired members
- Process membership fees
- Set up automatically-renewing membership payments
- Provide a front-end login for members to access the membership system features
- Run reports on members
Membership Levels
First, you need to create your membership levels. These are found here: Global Settings > Memberships > Levels & Terms.
Membership Levels are categories you create to define a type of member, such as "individual" or "family" or "student." You create these to suit your organization’s needs. You may also choose to indicate membership levels with terms such as "Gold" or "Silver" or "Bronze" as needed.
To create a new membership level, click New Membership.
Name your membership level, and add a code if you like. Codes are only for your internal tracking. This field is optional.
By changing the Status of a membership level, you control whether or not this level is available for use.
Membership Rank
Neon CRM can track if a person has upgraded or downgraded their membership level. Thus, you can assign a rank to each membership level. Numbers at the bottom of the list are higher in rank, meaning a "1" in this field is a lower level of membership than "3."
Force automatic renewal on front-end forms
While your members usually have the choice of whether to renew automatically, selecting "Yes" here sets a certain membership to always automatically renew.
When this setting is enabled for a Membership Level, it applies to all membership terms created for that level, including sub-member terms.
Additional information on auto-renew memberships is available in this guide.
Membership Type
Neon CRM gives you the ability to set up and process three membership types, which include:
No Group Memberships are memberships for a single entity, such as a single individual or a company with no additional contact memberships (i.e., only the company is recognized as a member.)
A No Group membership will be available:
- To be added to any membership forms created in Forms & Pages > Forms (including Individual Only, Company Only, or Individual & Company Form Types.
- On both the individual and company online Legacy membership enrollment forms
Company Group Memberships allow one company to sign itself up for a membership and then add company contacts (such as employees) as "child" members all in the same transaction. The child members each get their own account in Neon CRM, and these child members will be added as Company Contacts on the primary member's account.
Company group memberships will be available:
- To add to Company or Individual & Company Type forms (in Forms & Pages > Forms)
- On the company version of the Legacy online membership enrollment form
Household Group Memberships allow one individual to sign him/herself up for a membership and then add household contacts (such as spouses, children, etc.) as sub-members all in the same transaction. The sub-members each get their own account in Neon CRM, and these sub-members will be added as Household Contacts on the primary member's account.
Household group memberships will be available:
- To add to Individual or Individual & Company Type forms (in Forms & Pages > Forms)
- On the individual version of the Legacy online membership enrollment form
Membership Terms
After creating a new Membership Level, you will need to assign a Membership Term. A Membership Term is a configuration that fills in the price and length of time for the membership. You may configure several terms for the same membership level. For example, you could set a one-year term at $25, and a two-year term of the same membership at $40.
To configure your terms, navigate to: Global Settings > Memberships > Levels & Terms
From this page, you can configure the terms for each membership level. Click on a level to configure it.
From this page, you may add as many terms as you like. Click New Membership Term to add a new term, or click Edit to make changes to an existing term.
Clicking New Membership Term will take you to the Membership Term/Pricing configuration page, as shown below.
Enrollment Type
Each Membership Term requires that you set up two Enrollment Types - one for joining members, and one for renewing members:
- Membership Term - Join
- Membership Term - Renew
When creating a membership, you will configure the Join term and the Renew term at the same time. This can be useful if you want to have a low joining fee, but perhaps a higher rate to maintain membership. You must add at least one membership term to each membership level, but you can add as many different terms as you like.
Display Name
Your Display Name is what you’ll call this specific configuration of the membership term. This is the name that will display on your Membership Forms. When you enter the name of the Join term, Neon will auto-populate the Renew term with the same name and identify it as the "(Renew)" term.
Fee
The Fee is the price a constituent must pay for this membership term. The fee for Renew term can be different from the Join term if you like.
Term
The Term is the length of time this membership lasts before expiring. This can be any number of days, months, years, or a lifetime. Specify the term duration and term unit for each membership. The renew term duration and unit will be the same as the join term.
Online Settings
If you allow members to enter their own membership payment amount online, this means they can choose to pay however much they want for this membership, as long as it is equal to or larger than the fee you've set for the membership level. Note: This option can only be used for one membership term at a time.
The hide this membership term option will hide the Membership Term from appearing on Legacy online membership forms. For Form Builder forms (created via Forms > Forms & Pages), there will be additional options to show/hide forms when you are editing each unique form. See
Complete all required fields for both enrollment types then click Submit to finish setting up your new memberships.
After configuring both Join and Renew settings, your membership term is ready to use.
Membership Registration Forms
Create Online Membership Forms via Forms & Pages > Forms. Click here for a walkthrough for creating membership forms.
(Legacy) Membership Registration Form Settings
Membership Terms on your Legacy Neon Forms:
Membership Type determines if the terms will be available for individuals, companies or both.
- No Group Membership Terms appear on both the Individual and Company versions of your membership registration forms.
- Company Group Membership Terms only appear on the Company versions of your membership registration forms.
- Household Group Membership Terms only appear on the Individual versions of your membership registration forms.
Membership Display Sequence
Once you've created your memberships, you can rearrange the display order.
Click Reorder Membership Display Sequence to adjust the order in which your Membership Levels display on internal Neon CRM pages, including this page, the Membership Dashboard, and the back-end add membership drop-down choices.
Click Reorder Membership Term Display Sequence to determine the order in which your Terms display on your Membership Registration forms.