Wild Apricot - A Medium-Sized Solution for Membership Management
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I consult with multiple organizations to implement Wild Apricot for membership management and association website creation/management. For most clients, Wild Apricot has been implemented to streamline membership management, renewal, donations and basic online sales. Each company uses the integrated content management system to also build and maintain a website for the association. Wild Apricot solves a variety of management issues including member communications, simplified tracking of member dues and renewal periods and event registration management
Pros
- Automate member renewals and provide reminders for members with automatic renewal
- Tracking of member donations and the ability for a member to retrieve detailed donation receipt/acknowledgement for a variety fo donation types (in-kind, cash, etc)
- Provide integration between membership records and the association's website - using either the integrated CMS or code snippets
- Track member financials - open invoices, paid invoices
- Enable event management for both free and paid events
Cons
- The store functions are very basic - while suitable for small organizations with simple sales objectives, the function lacks some mainstream tools including coupons.
- PayPal integration is grossly inadequate and results in considerable frustration for members who try to pay via that platform.
- Recently (last three months), the system seems to have some difficulties maintaining availability of the admin backend. While users and site visitors do not notice downtime, it is not unusual to encounter difficulties logging in as an admin.
- The email marketing function is not as robust as separate commercial systems like MailChimp.
Most Important Features
- Membership records management with detailed financial and donation tracking
- Integrated content management system
- Easy to use email management system
Return on Investment
- Wild Apricot has enabled the organization to have a much higher level of confidence in the accuracy of membership data including growth/loss by membership type.
- Wild Apricot's poor implementation of PayPal has resulted in a loss of donations, membership/renewals and product sales.
- Wild Apricot has enabled the association to present and maintain a professional website without the cost of high-end development and maintenance.
- Wild Apricot has enamel the association to sell digital assets (eBooks and online classes) without the need to create a separate store.
Alternatives Considered
iMIS Engagement Management System
Other Software Used
WordPress, Shopify Plus, PayPal Payments Pro, PayPal Zettle, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Audition, Adobe Dreamweaver, Zoom, Apple iCloud, Yumpu
