Membership Fees Tipsheet

What is the Membership Fees Model?

The Membership Fees Model involves charging individuals or organizations a fee in return for some benefit they can receive from your organization. This model can provide a dependable revenue stream while engaging supporters that are invested in your organization's mission.

Key features of this model include:

Fees and Tiers: The amount of fees that is charged for the membership. In some cases, an organization might have different levels (e.g., general membership, special membership; individual, organizational) with varying fees.
Benefits for Members: This can be exclusive content, newsletters, invitations to events, training, or recognition on the organization’s website. It could also be access to certain services and/or products for free or subsidized price.
Member Engagement: While members are more likely to be engaged and advocate for the organization’s cause, they need to be engaged by the organization on a regular basis to keep that connection strong.

When Should Your Organization Consider This Model?

Existing Network and Supporters: You have a dedicated group of individuals or organizations that are passionate about your mission and/or already support it. This could be members of your target community, previous donors, volunteers, or other partners. Members can consist of individuals, organizations or both.
Valuable Benefits or Perks to Offer: You can provide benefits that give value to the members. They can receive access to these benefits exclusively or earlier than others (early access). While this can look different depending on your organization, examples can include exclusive or early access to-
1. Information or content (e.g. curated job board for a specific community, special stories and content that members care about)
2. Resources (e.g. a series of discounts at different local businesses, access to a physical space)
3. Networking (e.g. special events, access to an online community)
4. Services/products that you offer (e.g. discount on delivery of medication, free monthly/quarterly/annual training program)
5. Decision-making (e.g. members get to participate in some key decisions of the organization and its ability to make impact)
Network and Supporters Have the Ability to Pay: While membership fees can vary in amount, your target members should be able to afford them. Membership fees could range from low to high even within the same membership model. Consider having a tiered model with multiple member levels that could start at a very low fee to ensure inclusivity.
Capacity to Manage Memberships: You have the necessary resources (staff, technology, time) to manage memberships effectively, including processing fees, maintaining databases, and communicating regularly with members.

What Are Five Steps You Can Take to Establish This Model?

Self-Assessment: Before going further, bring together key stakeholders in your organization to discuss these four key questions to assess whether membership fees model works for your organization:
1. Do we have a strong network of community members and supporters that can become members? If not, then can we create a strong network in the future?
2. Are they able to contribute some amount of money on a regular basis?
3. What type of value could we provide to them through a membership?
4. Do we have the staff and resources to run a membership fee program?
Gauge Community Interest: The next step would be to understand of what your network (community members, partners, organizations) thinks about membership and whether they support this idea and if they can pay for it. You can do this by surveying your existing supporters to assess their interest in a membership program. Instead of assessing community interest in paying for a membership itself, you could also gauge their interest in paying for different potential benefits that you might offer through the membership (for example - access to events, newsletter, quarterly magazine subscription, access to other services and products). This will help you understand the value you can provide to them which in turn can help you gain insights on general interest in a membership program and its benefits/perks. You could do this by piloting early versions of potential benefits (prototypes) such as a pilot event or a pilot magazine edition and assess the community’s demand for these benefits and their willingness to pay for them.
Make some initial design decisions:
1. Consider different membership pricing as well as potential levels/tiers based on what you learn from your network. Think about low-cost memberships to ensure inclusivity. Membership tiers could range based on many different factors. Some of these include:
  1. The ability of some members to pay less and some to pay more
  2. Type of member – individual, family, or organization
  3. Your organization’s ability to offer different types of benefits to different members
2. Think about and describe different benefits and value that members could receive from you.
Assess Financial Feasibility & Mission Impact: Analyze the potential financial impact of running a membership program. Consider how much revenue you can generate as well as the costs of running the program. The cost of running the program could include staff time, internal systems to manage the program, as well as the cost of providing the member benefits. The goal of a membership program should be to generate a healthy amount of margin to support your programs. In some cases, it is possible that even though the membership program does not contribute a significant amount to your revenue, running it can be complementary to the impact goals of your organization by giving you regular access to a large number of stakeholders that can support other organizational activities – for example, the members receive critical health information that helps achieve your organization’s mission in some way, or members support advocacy campaigns for a policy change aligned to your organization’s mission, or members spread the word about large-scale donor drive and/or broker access to other donors to support your organization.
Finalize Design and Launch Membership Program: At this stage, if you find that potential members are willing to pay the membership fees and the program seems financially feasible, you can think through additional design details for the program and work towards launching this.
1. Develop an engagement plan to regularly communicate with the members (e.g. newsletters, events, and other updates on your work).
2. Set up systems and staff responsibilities to track memberships and process payments.
3. Create clear messaging to emphasize the benefits of membership and promote the program.

Additional Resources on Membership Fees

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Key features of this model include:

Fees and Tiers: The amount of fees that is charged for the membership. In some cases, an organization might have different levels (e.g., general membership, special membership; individual, organizational) with varying fees.

Benefits for Members: This can be exclusive content, newsletters, invitations to events, training, or recognition on the organization’s website. It could also be access to certain services and/or products for free or subsidized price.

Member Engagement: While members are more likely to be engaged and advocate for the organization’s cause, they need to be engaged by the organization on a regular basis to keep that connection strong.

When Should Your Organization Consider This Model?

Existing Network and Supporters: You have a dedicated group of individuals or organizations that are passionate about your mission and/or already support it. This could be members of your target community, previous donors, volunteers, or other partners. Members can consist of individuals, organizations or both.

Valuable Benefits or Perks to Offer: You can provide benefits that give value to the members. They can receive access to these benefits exclusively or earlier than others (early access). While this can look different depending on your organization, examples can include exclusive or early access to-

Information or content (e.g. curated job board for a specific community, special stories and content that members care about)
Resources (e.g. a series of discounts at different local businesses, access to a physical space)
Networking (e.g. special events, access to an online community)
Services/products that you offer (e.g. discount on delivery of medication, free monthly/quarterly/annual training program)
Decision-making (e.g. members get to participate in some key decisions of the organization and its ability to make impact)

Network and Supporters Have the Ability to Pay: While membership fees can vary in amount, your target members should be able to afford them. Membership fees could range from low to high even within the same membership model. Consider having a tiered model with multiple member levels that could start at a very low fee to ensure inclusivity.

Capacity to Manage Memberships: You have the necessary resources (staff, technology, time) to manage memberships effectively, including processing fees, maintaining databases, and communicating regularly with members.

What Are Five Steps You Can Take to Establish This Model?

Self-Assessment: Before going further, bring together key stakeholders in your organization to discuss these four key questions to assess whether membership fees model works for your organization:

Do we have a strong network of community members and supporters that can become members? If not, then can we create a strong network in the future?
Are they able to contribute some amount of money on a regular basis?
What type of value could we provide to them through a membership?
Do we have the staff and resources to run a membership fee program?

Gauge Community Interest: The next step would be to understand of what your network (community members, partners, organizations) thinks about membership and whether they support this idea and if they can pay for it. You can do this by surveying your existing supporters to assess their interest in a membership program. Instead of assessing community interest in paying for a membership itself, you could also gauge their interest in paying for different potential benefits that you might offer through the membership (for example - access to events, newsletter, quarterly magazine subscription, access to other services and products). This will help you understand the value you can provide to them which in turn can help you gain insights on general interest in a membership program and its benefits/perks. You could do this by piloting early versions of potential benefits (prototypes) such as a pilot event or a pilot magazine edition and assess the community’s demand for these benefits and their willingness to pay for them.

Make some initial design decisions:

Consider different membership pricing as well as potential levels/tiers based on what you learn from your network. Think about low-cost memberships to ensure inclusivity. Membership tiers could range based on many different factors. Some of these include:
1. The ability of some members to pay less and some to pay more
2. Type of member – individual, family, or organization
3. Your organization’s ability to offer different types of benefits to different members
Think about and describe different benefits and value that members could receive from you.

Assess Financial Feasibility & Mission Impact: Analyze the potential financial impact of running a membership program. Consider how much revenue you can generate as well as the costs of running the program. The cost of running the program could include staff time, internal systems to manage the program, as well as the cost of providing the member benefits. The goal of a membership program should be to generate a healthy amount of margin to support your programs. In some cases, it is possible that even though the membership program does not contribute a significant amount to your revenue, running it can be complementary to the impact goals of your organization by giving you regular access to a large number of stakeholders that can support other organizational activities – for example, the members receive critical health information that helps achieve your organization’s mission in some way, or members support advocacy campaigns for a policy change aligned to your organization’s mission, or members spread the word about large-scale donor drive and/or broker access to other donors to support your organization.

Finalize Design and Launch Membership Program: At this stage, if you find that potential members are willing to pay the membership fees and the program seems financially feasible, you can think through additional design details for the program and work towards launching this.

Develop an engagement plan to regularly communicate with the members (e.g. newsletters, events, and other updates on your work).
Set up systems and staff responsibilities to track memberships and process payments.
Create clear messaging to emphasize the benefits of membership and promote the program.

Additional Resources on Membership Fees

Alternative Funding Models Guidebook for CSOs in Africa by WACSI: This guidebook shares different pathways and funding models, including membership fees, for civil society organizations to achieve financial sustainability. .

Exploring New Funding Approaches for Civil Society by Forus: This resource is geared towards civil society networks and network organizations whose membership consists of community-based organizations. This toolkit includes a section .

Developing a Financing Strategy by CIVICUS: This toolkit is a step-by-step guide for CSOs to create a financing strategy, including membership fees. .