This blog is in the late stages of its life. That’s not to say I’ve dropped any of the issues mentioned here, just that some have moved and others are looking for new homes. For instance:
- www.aauw.org comments: moved to www.aauw.org tracking form
It’s the best way to get a personal message back from the staff on your issue. Specific volunteers have insight into what’s been reported there.
- Training wish list: some things may still be posted here, but for the most part as I find ideas that I think are applicable to AAUW, I’m tagging them with “aauwtech” at del.icio.us. See also wiki.bbvx.org for information that I’ve organized for training purposes — feel free to jump in and add to that.
- General: Items that would have been posted here have been moved to the AAUW NC blog or to my Change blog.
On the other hand, this blog may live for awhile until I have time to figure out a better home for the categories:
- TUAG: Hmm… I need to review those posts and figure out what to do with them and where they’re to live. The TUAG has had a few successes, but the discussion here was not part of that.
- Membership: Hmm…, again. Some of these issues are still open. Some could be referred to the web site tracking system. Others may need to go somewhere else.
9/19/06: Note from Christy saying this has been fixed. (more…)
The membership brochure says that branches cannot accept credit card payments. This is false in at least some cases (e.g. AAUW CA Onlne) and the wording should be clarified.
A member may transfer from one branch to another on a “no fee” basis as long as the current year dues have been paid to the first branch.
The situation is different for at-large members, though. Part of the problem is that at-large members have an expiration date based on when they first joined, while all branch memberships expire on June 30.
Over the last few years, the following conflicting statements have been declared to be policy:
- An MAL may join a branch without paying Association dues if there is at least three months left on their current at-large membership.
- An MAL who joins a branch and does not pay Association dues for another fiscal year will have their expiration date shifted to June 30 of the year in which their membership currently expires.
Consider the case of a person who pays at-large dues in November of 2005 and then joins a branch May of 2006. Under the first policy, s/he’d need to pay only branch/state dues to be a member through June 30, 2007. In the second s/he’d need to pay Association dues as well.
While we may not want to go to full pro-rated dues, whatever the policy is should be defined and documented. The current “call the helpline to find out what the dues are” is not acceptable and may very well lead to errors (we’ve had at-large members who paid state/national dues but got months cut off their Association membership) and confusion on the part of branch treasurers and membership vps. (more…)
At-large members may join through www.aauw.org. I’d think it would be possible to have a “support AAUW in your state” checkbox on that form, collect some amount of additional (which wouldn’t need to be the same as the amount the states collect from branch members) for at-large state membership, and remit a portion of that back to the states.
Could this program be rolled out with just a few participating states? Approval might be required by those state boards, but who else would need to agree?
The benefit to the Association (aside from setting the fees to more than recover their costs), would, I think, be a demo of “national dues collection.” a program that I expect we must be moving towards but which will take a good deal of “selling” to the branches.
If someone remits dues more than once in a fiscal year, their membership expiration date is extended by a year. Could this informal process be formalized? For instance
- Allow prepayment of dues for (2? 3? 5?) years at the current rate.
- Allow payment of life membership in (2? 3? 5?) installments [with later installments paid at prevailing rate?]
There are obviously technical challenges here, but I’d think that an attempt to implement either of these programs might encourage process improvements that would benefit all members. With the gradual dues increase, I’d expect that the prepayment options would not have an adverse fiscal effect.
My other membership organizations (professional/honorary societies, mostly) offer a wide range of membership “discounts”. As the new database/financial infrastructure comes online, perhaps some of these would be appropriate for consideration with the goal of increasing the number of supporters on our rolls:
- half-dues for the second (third? etc?) member at an address (with only one copy of Association publications going to that address)
- reduced dues (for a year? or two?) for those who are unemployed.
- reduced dues for those who have paid Association dues for 30? (40?) years, are retired (and are on limited incomes?).
- Add an “18-month” membership option to be effective Jan 1-Mar. 15 as an alternative to the 6-month membership. This could offer some discount for those who join through the next fiscal year (and avoid having the branch send an invoice to someone whose first check just cleared
Over the years, I’ve had several discussions on membership issues. Just like with the comments on the web site (see the www.aauw.org category), these comments seem to go into a black hole somewhere. I don’t want to nag folks by repeating these comments, but I don’t want them to get “lost” either. This category will be a repository for ideas and comments and I will also post replies so that some of these can be put to rest once and for all.
Apologies to those who think these comments should be posted at http://discuss.aauw.org. However that seems to be “too public” a venue for these comments - in this venue, which I control and for which I am responsible, I can feel free to express frustrations that might be inappropriate there.
Severity: moderate
Audience: very small
Fiscal effect: absitively - slowing down this process can make it grind to a halt
Policy question: yes
Reported: discussed, but not “reported” as a defect
There is a packet of information that describes how to form a branch. State presidents, membership vps, and the helpline should be able to help you find that information.
However, why isn’t the information online in a readily available “kit”? Let’s make sure there aren’t delays in having folks access this key info.
Same goes for satellite info (particularly student affiliate satellites).