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Understanding Membership Management Program Setup

  • January 21, 2025
  • 7 replies
  • 195 views

Happie Pingol
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Overview

Setting up your Membership Management program in EveryAction involves creating a structured hierarchy of membership levels based on your organization's existing membership rules. The system will use these rules to automatically assign members to the appropriate levels without requiring manual intervention. This process ensures consistent application of your membership criteria and reduces the administrative burden of tracking memberships. 

Before beginning setup, it's important to understand your internal rules for classifying members in your hierarchy. Having these rules documented will help ensure your automated system works as intended and minimizes the need for manual corrections later. The Fundamentals: Membership Management resource includes a downloadable spreadsheet to help gather all necessary information before configuration. 

Getting Started 

To begin setting up your Membership Management program, navigate to Membership Management in the sidebar menu or through Main Menu > Fundraising. When you access the Membership Management page, you'll see a status indicator showing your progress in the setup process. The initial step is adding a membership level, which will introduce you to the process and criteria selection options. As you move through the workflow, you'll have opportunities to create benefits and customize universal membership settings. 

Feature Details 

The Membership Management setup process consists of several key steps: 

  1. Creating membership levels - Define each tier in your membership hierarchy, starting with the highest level to establish the proper sorting order. For each level, you'll specify details like name, description, eligibility criteria, qualifying dues, and duration. 

  1. Adding benefits - Associate specific benefits with different membership levels, such as membership cards, special access, or other perks. Benefits can be created during the level setup process or managed separately through the Benefits tab. 

  1. Configuring universal membership settings - Establish global rules that apply across all membership levels, including contact naming conventions, exclusion criteria, expiration handling, and renewal windows. 

  1. Testing your settings - Generate a test file to verify your configuration will correctly assign members to the appropriate levels before activating the automated process. 

  1. Activating the overnight process - Once your settings are confirmed correct, approve the configuration to activate the nightly process that automatically applies membership levels to contacts based on your rules. 

After activation, the system will run an automatic nightly process to apply membership levels to contacts according to your configuration. This allows you to see membership details on contact records and use membership information in searches and reports. If needed, you can pause the overnight tracking to make adjustments to your membership program settings. 

Feature Navigation 

Read more about how to: 

  • How Do I Create Membership Levels? 
  • How Do I Configure Contact Eligibility? 
  • How Do I Define Qualifying Dues? 
  • How Do I Set Up Benefits? 
  • How Do I Test and Activate My Membership Program? 

Tracking Your Success / Reporting 

Once your Membership Management program is activated, you can track its effectiveness through various reporting options. The system allows you to generate reports on membership levels, expirations, renewals, and upgrades. You can also track reasons why members might end their memberships early, providing valuable insights for retention strategies. These reporting capabilities help you analyze program performance and make data-driven decisions to improve your membership initiatives. 

Transition Statement 

With your Membership Management program properly configured and activated, you'll be able to efficiently track member status, automate level assignments, and focus more on member engagement rather than administrative tasks. 

7 replies

  • First Timer
  • February 22, 2026

Our museum has a free complimentary membership level that we give to those who donate items. I’m trying to set this up in Every Action. The AI said the following, but the Membership Management page is not letting me set a $0 contribution or no contribution at all. Maybe the free tier has been discontinued? Can someone clarify and suggest the proper method? Thanks  

Here's how you can set up a free membership level in your membership management program:

You have the flexibility to create different membership levels, including a free membership tier, by defining the eligibility criteria and dues requirements for each level. When setting up a membership level, you can specify the minimum qualifying dues amount. To create a free membership, simply set the minimum dues amount to zero for that level. This way, individuals, organizations, or families can qualify for membership without making a payment.

During the setup process, you can also:

  • Define who is eligible (individuals, organizations, or families).
  • Choose which types of contributions (including none) count toward membership.
  • Set the duration of the membership (calendar year, fiscal year, or custom).
  • Assign benefits to the free membership level if desired.

  • First Timer
  • April 3, 2026

Is there a way to bypass the automated updating of memberships? I would like to use this functionality but membership for my organization is not solely based on contributions. Because of the way our membership is set up, I so not want EveryAction to programmatically assign membership. Thanks!


Joe Conley
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  • Bonterran
  • April 7, 2026

Is there a way to bypass the automated updating of memberships? I would like to use this functionality but membership for my organization is not solely based on contributions. Because of the way our membership is set up, I so not want EveryAction to programmatically assign membership. Thanks!

Hey Jennymcv,

Yes, once you set up the membership levels you can choose not to turn on the automatic processing. In which case, the levels will exist but all adjustments to them will have to be done manually.

Alternatively, this MAY be a case where Donor Leveling helps to accomplish your goal. I say maybe because we’d have to know more before we can say for sure. But, it is probably worth a conversation with your account executive. Please do note that there is a one time cost associated with setting up Donor Leveling.


  • First Timer
  • April 7, 2026

Is there a way to bypass the automated updating of memberships? I would like to use this functionality but membership for my organization is not solely based on contributions. Because of the way our membership is set up, I so not want EveryAction to programmatically assign membership. Thanks!

Hey Jennymcv,

Yes, once you set up the membership levels you can choose not to turn on the automatic processing. In which case, the levels will exist but all adjustments to them will have to be done manually.

Alternatively, this MAY be a case where Donor Leveling helps to accomplish your goal. I say maybe because we’d have to know more before we can say for sure. But, it is probably worth a conversation with your account executive. Please do note that there is a one time cost associated with setting up Donor Leveling.

Thanks, Joe! My organization sells subscriptions via a different platform and we are looking for a way to track this information on EveryAction so that I have a full picture of our donors across both platforms. I would be interested in exploring how we can create this transfer of information between the two systems we use. Would this be possible?  


Joe Conley
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  • Bonterran
  • April 7, 2026

Jennymcv,

Whenever we start talking about moving information between systems, that is always a hard MAYBE until we dive in. But, there are a few routes. I’ll list them in ascending order of technical challenge.

  1. You could bulk import this information intermittently. You could add an activist code for “subscriber” and have that applied during import. I would then have different code for “cancelled” and use an automation to remove the subscriber code. Very easy but does require the manual import.
  2. Zapier. We do have an inbound Zapier connection. The overall process is essentially the same but Zapier can automate it.
  3. Bulk Process API: EA have a bulk process API. The advantage here is that it allows for building a bi-directional sync. But, it is something that takes more technical skill to set up (though AI is lowering the barrier constantly). 

Please note that support can help with our import tool but we do not build custom Zapier or API connections but I know some of the partners here do.

 


  • First Timer
  • April 7, 2026

Joe, 

Thank you for that information! Would I need to contact our account executive to explore these options? 


Joe Conley
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  • Bonterran
  • April 7, 2026

Jennymvc,

If you want help with imports, that would be a conversation with support. If you are interested in Zapier or the API, you already have everything you need from a product/package/contract perspective. Your account executive may be able to recommend a partner but that is it. We don’t do custom API or Zapier builds.