Member portal development makes sense if you serve a group of people who get more than ordinary visitors. Think of an association, professional body, sports club, training provider or paid community. In a member portal, members log in, see their details, pay their membership fees, sign up for activities and find documents that aren't public.
In this article you will learn what a member portal is, which features are often needed, when a standard package will do and when custom work pays off, and how the project runs.
What is a member portal?
A member portal is a private online environment for members. It runs as a web application in the browser and works on phone and computer. It is often attached to your public website: visitors read what your organisation does, members log in for more.
The difference from a customer portal lies in the relationship. A customer portal revolves around jobs, invoices and appointments between you and one customer. A member portal revolves around a group: membership, fees, activities, sharing knowledge and contact between members.
Who is a member portal suitable for?
- Sports clubs and hobby associations managing members, teams and activities.
- Professional and trade associations with knowledge documents, registers or continuing education.
- Training providers and trainers with a regular group of participants.
- Paid communities and networks, where the membership is the product.
- Cooperatives and foundations with donors or participants.
Which features does a good member portal have?
Which features you need depends on your organisation. These come up often:
- Signing up as a member, logging in, password recovery and, if you like, two-step login.
- Viewing and updating their own details, such as address, phone number and preferences.
- Paying membership fees online, one-off or automatically per month or year.
- Signing up for activities, training sessions or meetings, with a maximum number of places.
- Private documents, such as minutes, manuals or knowledge articles.
- A member list or directory, if members give permission for it.
- Messages or news for all members or for a group.
- Different types of membership, each with its own permissions.
- An admin environment for the board or team, with overviews and exports.
Don't start with everything at once. Choose the features that remove the most manual work. Often those are membership administration and fees. A forum or extensive community features can be added later once members are really using the portal.
Think about the admin side too. Members only see their own environment, but the board or your team wants an overview: how many members there are, who has joined or cancelled, who still needs to pay and who has signed up for an activity. A good admin environment often saves just as much time as the features for members themselves. So involve the volunteers who manage the portal in deciding what they need.
Collecting membership fees through your member portal
Membership fees are often the biggest time drain for a treasurer. A member portal can largely automate that. Members pay via iDEAL or another payment method, and recurring payments run automatically through a payment provider. The portal keeps track of who has paid and sends reminders to those who haven't yet.
Also agree in advance what happens if a payment fails. Does a member get a reminder after a few days, is access restricted after a while, or does the board get in touch personally? You set those rules once and the portal then carries them out.
How to connect payments and what to watch out for is covered in integrating online payments. Where possible, also connect the portal to your accounting, so you don't have to enter payments twice.
Standard membership software or a custom member portal?
There are ready-made packages for membership administration. For a small association with standard needs they are often fine. They are quick to set up and you pay a fixed amount per month or per member.
A custom member portal pays off if:
- your membership differs from what standard packages can handle, for example with complex rates or permissions;
- the portal is your product, as with a paid community or training programme;
- you want to connect to systems a standard package doesn't support;
- you want the portal in your own branding and on your own website;
- the per-member costs of a standard package rise steeply as you grow.
Unsure? Read our article on custom or off-the-shelf software. It sets out the trade-offs.
A hybrid is possible too. You keep your existing membership administration and build your own portal around it that fetches the data through an integration. Members then get an environment in your own style, while the administration keeps running in the package the board already knows.
Privacy and security in a member portal
A member portal contains personal data. The rules of GDPR (AVG in Dutch) apply to that. A few practical points:
- Only ask for data you really need.
- Let members choose whether they are visible in a member list.
- Only give board members and volunteers access to what they need.
- Offer two-step login, especially for administrators.
- Agree how long you keep data when someone cancels their membership.
- Put agreements with your developer and hosting provider in a data processing agreement.
For legal questions about exactly what is allowed, you can turn to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) or a lawyer.
Member portal development: the project step by step
- Take stock: which tasks take the most time now, and what do members ask most often?
- Wishes and priorities: what goes in the first version and what can come later?
- Design of the screens for members and for administrators.
- Building in stages, with interim versions to test.
- Carefully migrating existing member data from Excel or the old system.
- Testing with a small group of members.
- Launch: inviting members, explaining how it works and handling questions.
Having your member portal built by Violexa
At Violexa we build custom web applications, including private portals for members and customers. A custom web application starts from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT) per project. A more extensive member portal with payments and integrations costs more. For that you get a fixed price up front, in writing, so you know where you stand. Want to know how such a price is put together? Read what a web application costs.
Want a member portal built and to know what suits your organisation? Book a free quickscan. In 30 minutes we discuss your wishes, online or in person. Afterwards you get short written advice with a price indication, with no obligation.
Frequently asked questions
How much does member portal development cost?
That depends on the features, the number of integrations and the number of membership types. At Violexa a custom web application starts from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT). For a more extensive portal you get a fixed price up front.
What is the difference between membership administration and a member portal?
Membership administration is keeping track of member data and payments, often only by the board. A member portal gives members access themselves: they update details, pay and sign up. Often the administration is built into the portal.
Can I move my member list from Excel to a member portal?
Yes, that usually works well. It is smart to clean up the list first: remove duplicate members, fill in missing details and use consistent spellings. Then your portal starts with reliable data.
