Guest Author: Joe Rominiecki, Associations Now
The “member until you cancel” model has intriguing potential for associations, but a new survey shows they have a lot of work to do to adopt it.
In the span of a few months last year, here on this blog we explored both the potential power of automatic membership renewal combined with monthly payments as well as an example of one association that had launched just such a model.
Up to now, there wasn’t a great name for it, but a recent survey on associations’ usage of automatic billing and installment payment plans gives it a name that, at least in my mind, just might stick: “perpetual membership.”
Mark Jones, CAE, president of enSYNC Corporation, an association technology solutions firm, says his organization has been using the term for several years. While “recurring billing” or “installment plans” sound like accounting techniques, “perpetual membership” makes the concept clearer for associations by “putting something around it that really makes them think differently,” Jones says. Hence the title of enSYNC’s study released in October, “The State of Perpetual Memberships.”
