Most organizations need to classify members by categories. In our work we seen many different types of associations work to classify there membership: agricultural organizations want to keep track of the types of crops their members grow, veterinary associations want to know members specialties, education associations want to know members certifications, county associations want to know county employees from non county employees.
At Capitol Impact, our membership management and event registration tools can handle the classification for our clients. Each client can set up new member sign up and an existing member renewal form in the event system. The system allows for creating questions for which the responses can be linked to membership categories. Our agriculture clients can ask the member to indicate what crops they grow, and then specify a list of crops for them to check off on the form. Based on the options chosen, the member is then assigned to the categories they chose. So as dues are being collected online the members are updating their records with the categorization.
This process lets the members specify their categories, but does not mean that you as the association membership manager cannot change them as well. In the Capitol Impact AMS software, you have the ability to first define all the categories. Then for each person you can edit their record to assign them into or take them out of categories. Mistakes are easily corrected. Plus, the Capitol Impact AMS has list management tools where you can create new categories and select members from different lists that would be added to the new category.
Managing membership and grouping members is critical to the association management process. Associations need the flexibility to manage lists and move people between lists. The Capitol Impact AMS approach has broad list management tools, to make it more efficient for association managers to access and utilize their membership information to meet their daily requirements.