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Vladimir Drkulec
05-26-2018, 12:37 PM
This is the discussion space for the Go Membership platform.

I went through a demonstration of the Go Membership platform and subsequently arranged the same demonstration for Bob Gillanders and Fred McKim.

The English Chess Federation has signed up with them.

http://www.gomembership.com/

An excerpt from their promotional material:

GoMembership is the next generation in membership management
software.
GoMembership has been developed by the team at Azolve who have
amassed over 5 years’ experience in delivering membership systems
for national governing bodies of sport. Working with this hugely diverse
range of customers, and overcoming the challenges of incorporating
and updating many legacy, bespoke or basic manual systems gave us
the insight and incentive to develop a truly cutting-edge, flexible, fit-forpurpose membership management solution. This is GoMembership.
GoMembership is a subscription based solution - that means a monthly
charge based on the number of active members in the organization. An
initial set-up fee is also required.
GoMembership core functionality includes as standard:
 Membership Management;
 Club Management;
 Course & Event Management
 Communication & Marketing;
 Online Payments;
 Reporting
Looking ahead, through continued innovation, GoMembership will
provide features and benefits that will not only help NGBs and other
membership organizations achieve their objectives, but will also benefit
clubs and improve the overall member experience. Planned new
features include online survey, mobile applications, advanced equality
questionnaires, club development assistance, membership insight and
further reporting analytics. All of this will be built into the off the shelf
solution.
Launched in January 2016, GoMembership has already been selected
by over 40 NGBs including Badminton England, Scottish Swimming,
Cycling Ireland, Nautical Archaeology Society and Horse Scotland.

Michael Lo
05-27-2018, 03:42 PM
Any initial set-up fee & pricing information available? How does it compare with the current workload and cost of maintaining our memberships?

Thanks,
Michael Lo

Vladimir Drkulec
05-27-2018, 03:55 PM
Any initial set-up fee & pricing information available? How does it compare with the current workload and cost of maintaining our memberships?

Thanks,
Michael Lo


I think the cost is on the order of $5500 for the first year for a full package but there would also be some offset of current costs like web hosting which are included under some scenarios. There are also additional modules which can for example feed directly into your accounting system. It is a viable idea now and probably necessary within a year or two if we continue to experience growth as we have this past year. At the moment there is a glitch in our shopping cart which requires much manual intervention by Bob. This would eliminate that shopping cart and substitute one that is fully automated, takes credit cards without paypal and lets people manage and update their own memberships and information more easily. The system would also allow clubs and provinces to integrate into the system at a reduced rate and then we would see an impressive amount of possible integration.

The second to largest module can handle 2500 members. I think we would outgrow that quickly if things keep firing on all cylinders and the pricing is good up to 5000 members.

The exact numbers are $750 USD for setup and a discounted $300 USD per month fee (normally $340).

We also have to offset the possible cost of having to hire someone part time to help Bob if things get a lot busier. We are running Bob somewhat ragged at the moment. Things slip and then we don't have financials for the start of the meeting. As a member of the board the frustrating thing is that we are sometimes flying blind about decisions with financial consequences and as a result we are more cautious than we need to be though in general that is probably not a bad thing. I still remember when we were worried about the solvency of the CFC. We are currently operating near an inflection point where just about every incremental dollar in revenue flows right to the bottom line because our fixed costs are already covered.

Pierre Dénommée
05-27-2018, 11:31 PM
Have you considered CiviCRM https://civicrm.org/ ? It is totally free and can be added to any web site using Drupal, WordPress or Joomla! The web site could be a dummy web site, we just need one of those three content manager to be present. They have registered more then 24,441,697 event participants.

Vladimir Drkulec
05-27-2018, 11:50 PM
Thank you Pierre for bringing that to our attention. That also looks interesting but the issue I am having is that Drupal is getting somewhat ponderous to support and update. This is in part likely why our original website design firm bailed on us. We are having some issues with occasional unreproducible reports of redirects to malicious websites. The people who are experiencing these redirects are reliable people in some cases IT people. It happened to me once and not before or after.

We should consider other options but they are really only free if we have the expertise in house to apply and use them. If we have to bring in consultants to do it for us we will quickly move beyond the pricing that Go Membership is offering. It does appear to me that GoMembership is based on a similar codebase and perhaps even the same codebase as their look and feel is quite similar.

Michael Lo
05-28-2018, 01:57 PM
A quick search on Association Management Software:

1) Open source (probably not preferable since we do not have strong in-house tech support)
- The Top 9 Free and Open Source Membership Management Software Products: https://blog.capterra.com/top-7-free-open-source-membership-management-software-products.

2) Paid service with support
- Association Management Software list: https://www.capterra.com/association-management-software/
- In particular - Wild Apricot (https://www.wildapricot.com/association-management-software) & Brilliant Directories (https://www.brilliantdirectories.com/membership-software-free-demo)
- Comparison - https://www.capterra.com/association-management-software/compare/129236-78039/Brilliant-Directories-vs-Wild-Apricot
- Brilliant Directories pricing - https://www.brilliantdirectories.com/online-directory-pricing
- Wild Apricot pricing - https://www.wildapricot.com/association-management-software#pricing

Wild Apricot & Brilliant Directories are among the most established and popular Association Management Software, with much reasonable pricing then gomembership. We should do a more thorough research before committing.

Pierre Dénommée
05-28-2018, 11:13 PM
Thank you Pierre for bringing that to our attention. That also looks interesting but the issue I am having is that Drupal is getting somewhat ponderous to support and update. This is in part likely why our original website design firm bailed on us. We are having some issues with occasional unreproducible reports of redirects to malicious websites. The people who are experiencing these redirects are reliable people in some cases IT people. It happened to me once and not before or after.

We should consider other options but they are really only free if we have the expertise in house to apply and use them. If we have to bring in consultants to do it for us we will quickly move beyond the pricing that Go Membership is offering. It does appear to me that GoMembership is based on a similar codebase and perhaps even the same codebase as their look and feel is quite similar.

Usage of Drupal is not mandatory. Both Joomla! and WordPress are supported. I disagree that we have nobody in house with IT experience. I got my Master of Computer Science degree in 1998. I certainly do not earn a living with CiviCRM, but I have installed it many times on both Drupal and WordPress. I have even considered doing a specialized chess tournaments web site offering with CivicCRM as the main player, but this will have to wait.

Vladimir Drkulec
05-29-2018, 03:06 AM
Usage of Drupal is not mandatory. Both Joomla! and WordPress are supported. I disagree that we have nobody in house with IT experience. I got my Master of Computer Science degree in 1998. I certainly do not earn a living with CiviCRM, but I have installed it many times on both Drupal and WordPress. I have even considered doing a specialized chess tournaments web site offering with CivicCRM as the main player, but this will have to wait.

I didn't say we had no one in house with IT experience. I am in house with IT experience. I just don't have the time to perform the duties of president and handle the type of integration you are proposing and perform my other duties for which I do earn pay. Anything we do has to save time or money or streamline what we do now. TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Michael Lo
05-29-2018, 01:11 PM
I agree with Vlad. It is not just installing a package, it is the long term update and maintenance that should either be a pay job (hire a consultant or an in-house tech support) or a pay platform. Between the two, using a pay platform will certainly be more economical and trouble free.

Vladimir Drkulec
05-29-2018, 11:43 PM
I agree with Vlad. It is not just installing a package, it is the long term update and maintenance that should either be a pay job (hire a consultant or an in-house tech support) or a pay platform. Between the two, using a pay platform will certainly be more economical and trouble free.

Its much easier to hold a paid vendor accountable than would be the case with a volunteer.

Pierre Dénommée
05-30-2018, 10:54 PM
Its much easier to hold a paid vendor accountable than would be the case with a volunteer.

This is obviously true. In Quebec, the legal warranty is the following. The length of time a product lasts, also called the "life expectancy", should be reasonable given the price paid. If it is a volunteer's work, the price paid is 0 and the judge will take that into account.

Vladimir Drkulec
05-30-2018, 11:26 PM
This is obviously true. In Quebec, the legal warranty is the following. The length of time a product lasts, also called the "life expectancy", should be reasonable given the price paid. If it is a volunteer's work, the price paid is 0 and the judge will take that into account.

Hopefully there will be no judges involved whether we are talking volunteers or paid vendors.

Pierre Dénommée
05-31-2018, 06:52 PM
Hopefully there will be no judges involved whether we are talking volunteers or paid vendors.

For obvious reasons, I also prefer to keep the judge away.