A membership database is a small thing that bodies make complicated. Six fields carry the work: the member, how to reach them, the tier, the join date, the renewal date, and the payments made against the membership. Everything else is your body's own business and belongs in the record only if a named process reads it. This page sets out those fields, what member database software adds once the list will not fit in a spreadsheet, and where the free tiers stop.
The six fields, and why the renewal date is the hard one
Name and contact are obvious, tier and join date are easy, payments arrive whether you plan for them or not. The renewal date is the field bodies skip, and it is the one the year turns on. Without it, membership is inferred from the last payment, which means a member who paid twice in one year looks current for two, and a member who pays by standing order at the old rate looks current forever. Put the date on the record and the arrears list writes itself.
When a spreadsheet stops being the right database membership tool
A spreadsheet is a good membership database while one person maintains it and the renewals are on one date. It stops working at three points: when a second person has to edit it, when renewals spread across the year, and when the body needs history rather than today's state. Bodies usually notice the third last, at the annual meeting, when somebody asks how many members joined and left and nobody can say.
What the free tiers cap
Membership database software free, membership database free and free membership database software mean a cap somewhere, and it is worth finding it before you load a year of members. Caps come as member limits, as features held back at exactly the renewal step, or as a cut of payments. Free membership database software for nonprofits often means the first, which is the one that bites in a good year.
The nonprofit case
Membership database software for nonprofits and a membership database for nonprofit bodies have one extra requirement: the record has to keep dues and gifts apart, because the same person often does both and the year-end treatment differs. A database that lumps them into one contributions total is easier to set up and harder to report from, and the difference surfaces exactly when the return is being prepared.
Questions people ask about member database
What fields does a membership database need?
Member, contact, tier, join date, renewal date, payments. Add anything your body will actually use, and nothing you cannot name a use for.
Is a spreadsheet a membership database?
For a small body kept by one person, yes. It fails when two people edit it, when renewals spread across the year, or when the body needs history rather than today's state.
What does member database software add?
History, multiple people working one record, and the renewal logic that makes arrears computable rather than reconstructable.
How much data should we keep about members?
As little as the processes you run require. Every extra field is maintenance and, on a directory, a consent question waiting to happen.