A non profit association is two things on one record. It is an association, so it has members who join, pay dues, sit on committees and belong to chapters. It is a tax exempt body, so what it collects has to be described to a board and to the IRS at the end of the year. Software sold to charities is built for the second half and treats a member as a donor who gave twice; software sold to associations is built for the first and often assumes a budget a body with one administrator does not have. This page sets out what the record has to hold to serve both halves, and where the cheap end of the market stops.
What is association management when the association is also a non profit
Association management is the administration of a body whose members join, pay and take part: the membership itself, the dues and their renewals, committees and chapters, events and education, and the reporting that sits on top. For a non profit the same list gains a second reader. The board wants members by tier, joiners and lapses, dues collected and arrears; the annual return wants the year described in the categories the IRS uses. A record that can produce the first and cannot produce the second leaves somebody rebuilding the year from bank lines in the spring, which is the work the software was bought to remove.
Trade association management and professional bodies are the same tax animal
The IRS sets out section 501(c)(6) as the exemption for business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, and says in the same place that trade associations and professional associations are business leagues. So trade association management and the administration of a professional society are one buyer wearing two names, and the market prices them as two. A trade body shopping under its own label will be quoted a suite; the same body shopping as a professional association is often quoted a membership record and an events tool. Read the quote, not the label on the category.
What chapter management software has to do for a federated association
A federated body is a permissions problem before it is a feature problem. A chapter secretary needs to see the members of that chapter and nobody else, needs to add a member without waiting on the national office, and must not be able to change a national tier or a national rate. Under that sits the money: which part of a member's dues belongs to the chapter, when it moves, and who reports it. Chapter management software that only adds a chapter field to the member record gives the national office a filter and the chapter nothing, and the chapters go back to their own spreadsheets within a year.
Free association management software and association management software free tiers
The free end of this market caps in one of three places: a member ceiling, a feature ceiling that stops at renewals, or a cut of the payments. All three are honest ways to sell, and all three arrive at the same moment, which is the renewal cycle that made the body go looking in the first place. A body evaluating a free tier should load one full renewal round into it before deciding, because the cap that matters is the one that bites when every member is being asked to pay at once. What free almost never includes at this end of the market is the chapter split and the export.
What a non profit association should pay for, in order
The record first: members, tiers, join dates, renewal dates, dues, and the ability to hand the whole thing to the next administrator as a file. Then renewals, because that is the work that repeats. Then whatever the constitution forces, which for a federated body is chapters and for a certifying body is education records. Events, a job board, a magazine and a community are real products, and they are the ones bodies buy first and use least. A body that is not sure which it needs should price the record on its own and put the difference into the renewal round it is about to run.
Questions people ask about non profit association management software
What is association management software?
A system that covers several of an association's jobs from one member record, so that the person registering for a conference is already known to be a member and charged the member rate. At the small end that means the membership, the dues and the renewals; at the large end it adds events, education, certification, committees and a job board on an annual contract.
Is non profit association management software different from a charity CRM?
In one place that matters. A charity CRM is built around gifts, which are events that happened. Membership is a state that persists and then expires, so the record needs a tier, a renewal date and a lapse rule applied the same way every time. A charity CRM can take the money and usually cannot tell you who is a member today.
When does an association outgrow a membership record?
When two of the other jobs become weekly work rather than annual: a conference with a member rate, education records that have to be produced on request, or chapters with their own money. One of those is usually cheaper to run beside the record than to buy a suite for.
What does an exempt association have to file each year?
The IRS states that Form 990, 990-EZ or 990-PF is due by the 15th day of the 5th month after the end of the organization's accounting period, which for a calendar year body is May 15 of the following year, with Form 8868 available for an automatic six month extension. This site gives no tax advice; what the record has to do is make the year answerable without being rebuilt from the bank statement.