Manage Renewal Information for Membership Programs

To manage rules for renewals for membership programs, select the Renewals tab on the Add a membership program screen. Or, from Memberships, click a membership program to go to the program page and select the Renewals tab.

When you set up membership programs, you determine how and when the membership status of a member should change once the membership has expired, based on the rules for the membership renewal window. For example, a member's status might change to lapsed once the membership expires. You can run the Update Membership Status global change to go through your membership programs and update the members' statuses automatically based on the rules for the renewal window for the programs.

To update membership statuses, from Administration, select Global changes. On the Global Changes page, click Add and select the Update Membership Status global change definition. You can use a selection to specify the membership programs to include.

Screen Item	Description
Membership term	Select how the membership term is calculated for dues-based memberships. The term is either fixed (such as based on a calendar year) or can vary according to the membership start date (such as based on a rolling year).
When a member joins a dues-based level, set the expiration date to	Select Same day as transaction date if the membership should expire on the same date as the transaction, according to however the membership term is defined. For example, if a constituent buys a membership with a one-year term on the first of December, the membership expires on the first of December the following year. Select End of month to give members a little extra time before their memberships expire. For the same example, if a constituent buys a membership with a one-year term on the first of December, the membership expires at the end of December the following year. When you select End of month, you can also indicate the membership should expire at the end of the prior month. When you select this, you set the day of the month to use. For example, you could set the membership to expire at the end of the prior month when starting before day 2 of the month. If a member joins on the first of December, rather than giving the member 13 months for a one-year term, you might set the membership to expire at the end of the following November instead, which would be exactly 12 months. If the member joined on the second (or later) of December, the membership expires at the end of December the following year. You can also select Is fixed and set a date when all dues-based memberships for the program expire. If selected, you must enter a date. To expire the memberships for the program on the same day and month every year, select Is fixed and enter the month and day in the Expiration date column. In the Push to next period after column, enter the membership join date that extends the membership until the next expiration date. For example, you enter 12/31 in the Expiration date column. If you enter 09/01 in the Push to next period after column, the expiration date for a constituent who joins on or after September 1 is December 31 of the following year, not the current year. You can enter multiple rows of dates in this grid if you want to expire and push multiple dates throughout the year.
Before the expiration date	Set rules for when the renewal begins and whether memberships can be set up to renew automatically. For dues-based programs, when a membership is in the renewal window, the membership page for the constituent has a Renew now button. Prior to the renewal window, this button is Upgrade now and is used for a mid-term upgrade of the membership. For contributions-based programs, the Membership contribution process uses the renewal window to determine when existing members are eligible for a renewal. In Renewal window starts, select how many months before the expiration date (0 to 12) or select "at start of membership." The renewal window options are the same regardless of the length of the terms. For members who are set to renew automatically, you can set the renewal process to take place 1-31 days or 1-12 months before the expiration date. Or you can set the renewal process to take place on a specific day of the month the membership expires. You can also specify whether members can renew automatically.
After the expiration date	Define when the renewal window for the membership program ends. You can set it to end 0-12 months after the membership expires. If this is set to zero months after expiration, the renewal window ends when the membership expires. If the renewal windows ends 1-12 months after expiration (as opposed to zero months), revenue received during that window counts toward a renewal of the membership. You can then set rules for when membership statuses should change for members whose memberships have expired, but are still within the renewal window. You can set status changes for each month until the renewal window is closed. For example, if the renewal window ends three months after the membership is expired, you might keep a member "Active" during the first month, "Grace" during the second month, and "Lapsed" during the third month after expiration.
After the renewal window	Specify how to count revenue from a member after the renewal window closes. It can count toward a rejoin of the previous membership or toward a new membership. You must also specify the status for members after the renewal window closes. For example, after the renewal window closes and a member does not renew, you might consider those members "Expired."