How to Choose an Association Management Software

An association management software (AMS) system can drastically improve the way your association does business to serve its members — but only if it’s chosen properly. With such a wide variety of systems on the market — from out-of-the-box solutions to highly-customized products — how can you be sure to find the right AMS to meet your association’s needs? It’s as simple as three easy steps.

1. Define Objectives and Requirements
You should begin by articulating exactly what you hope membership management software will help your organization achieve, and what capabilities the software must have to enable such success.

• Ex: A good business objective might be to improve the efficiency of target marketing campaigns. A functional requirement might be the ability to add custom fields to track key demographic information.

Keep in mind certain baseline technologies that should provide the foundation for these requirements, including system redundancy, database backup, PCI Compliance, etc.

2. Identify Possible Solutions and Evaluate
Using your functional requirements as a checklist, “test drive” potential membership management systems. Most Web-based AMS products offer guided online demonstrations, which should help you quickly and easily analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Wes Trochlil at Effective Database Management makes the point, though, that too many choices is often worse than too few. He recommends test driving no more than four products. “I’ve discovered through painful experience that when a staff reviews more than three or four software systems, they will start to confuse the systems – their features, pricing and offers,” he says on his blog. “And as the staff becomes more confused, they are less likely to make a decision, and less likely to be confident in the decision they make.”
 
If questions remain unanswered or you’d like to explore a solution in greater depth, schedule a full-day, scenario-based demonstration. Provide the vendor with a list of any unique or complex business processes you’d like to see demonstrated.

3. Check References, Close Gaps and Negotiate a Contract
After comparing products against your organization’s requirements and tentatively deciding on a membership management software, check the vendor’s references and conduct a site visit, if possible, to see the software in action.

Then, review any gaps in the software’s functionality and discuss ways to bridge the gaps with off-the-shelf software or custom development by the vendor.

Finally, negotiate a contract and begin reaping the time-saving, member-serving benefits of association management software!