Signup/Renewal Pages

Membership signup and renewal pages allow website visitors and existing users to manage their own membership.  Membership signup and renewal pages can be connected with a financial contribution, which means you can use CiviCRM to process membership contributions.

CiviCRM thinks of membership sign up pages as a type of Contribution Page (even if there is no associated contribution). So to create a sign up page, you need to create a contribution page.

Select Manage Contribution Pages from the CiviContribute menu in the sidebar, or click Administer CiviCRM » Manage Contribution Pages.

Manage Contribution Pages displays a list of existing contribution pages. To create a new page, click the New Contribution Page button.

In this example, we will focus on some options in the contribution page setup wizard which are most likely to be used for a typical membership signup/renewal page.

1. Title and Settings

Title and Settings is the first step in the contribution page setup wizard. An important setting affecting memberships is the Allow individuals to contribute and / or signup for membership on behalf of an organization checkbox.

People (not organizations) visit websites, so CiviCRM assumes by default that any interaction is done through an individual's contact record.  This becomes a problem if your membership categories are organization based. To address this, CiviCRM allows you to select this option and permit an individual to act on behalf of the organization they represent. The membership record will then be attached to the organization's record—not the individual's. After checking the box, you can add descriptive text and select whether the signup on behalf of an organization is optional or required.

 

2. Contribution Amounts

The second step of the wizard allows you to configure details related to the financial transactions for the contribution page. If you have configured a credit card transaction payment processor in CiviCRM, you will be able to execute real-time transactions through this wizard page.

In this example, we are building a contribution page for membership signup and renewal only, so we will uncheck the Contribution Amounts section enabled checkbox. (This hides the section which allows you to solicit extra financial contributions, in addition to the membership fee.)

In addition to executing real-time transactions, you can allow constituents to make make offline payments through the Pay later option. The pay later tool is essentially a commitment on the part of the user to become a member and pay by check or cash at a later date.

3. Memberships

The next step in the contribution page setup wizard is specifically related to memberships. Check the Membership Section Enabled checkbox to show two sets of title/introductory message fields, one for new memberships, and the other for membership renewals.

CiviCRM will display the title and introductory message for new memberships if the website visitor is not logged in. If the user is logged in and has an existing membership record, then CiviCRM will display the title and introductory message for renewals. Joining the organization creates a new membership record, while renewing membership will update the member's existing record and extend their membership end date.

Toward the bottom of the Memberships wizard page are some additional options:

• You can select which membership types are available to this signup/renewal page.
• You can make membership signup required or optional.
• If you enabled the option (in step 2 above) to solicit additional contributions, you can decide whether such payments are recorded separately from membership fee payments.
• You can decide whether the membership fees displayed on the signup/renewal page.

4. Thank-you and Receipting

After the site visitor completes the membership signup or renewal form, they will be redirected to a thank-you page and can have an email receipt generated and sent to them. This fourth step in the wizard allows you to configure those options.

5. Tell-A-Friend

Organizational growth and development is increasingly built through viral social networking mechanisms. CiviCRM allows you to add a tell-a-friend feature to the thank-you page. The page lets your members share details about your organization with their friends by emailing them a link and information.

6. Include Profiles

The concept and usage of profiles is central to much of CiviCRM's interfacing with website visitors. In short, a profile is a collection of data fields that are used to obtain information from visitors or display data to visitors. If you are not familiar with the creation and function of profile sets you should read up on this.

Profiles are critical to the effective function of membership signup and renewal pages. By default, contribution pages will only include an email field (required), in addition to the membership and contribution amount fields. Organizations almost always expect and require additional contact information to be collected as part of the membership signup process. On this sixth step of the contribution page wizard you may select an existing profile(s) for inclusion on the form.

7-9. Premiums, Campaign Widgets, Personal Campaign Pages

Premiums are thank you gifts and incentives offered to organization contributors. They are most commonly associated with tiered donation levels, though they could be created for use with memberships. Before including premiums on a contribution page, you must configure them through Administer CiviCRM » Manage Premiums. Step 7 of the contribution page wizard controls the introductory text, contact information, and other premium-related details.

Campaign widgets (Step 8) are used for displaying fundraising goals, and are not typically applicable to membership signup/renewal pages.

The final step (Personal Campaign Pages) are also geared toward fundraising efforts and are not applicable to membership pages.

Publishing your membership signup/renewal page

After completing the contribution page wizard you return to the listing of pages where you will find the page you've just created. You can now view the page, test the functionality, or return to the configuration options and make adjustments.

At this point you've completed the contribution page but have not made it visible or available to website visitors. Depending on the environment in which CiviCRM is operating, this will be accomplished in different ways.

• Joomla!: The most direct way to expose your membership signup/renewal page to the front of your website is by creating a menu item. Navigate to a menu and create a new CiviCRM item. From the list of menu options choose Contributions. In the basic parameters section, select the contribution page you would like exposed from the dropdown menu. Save the menu item and view the website to confirm the page's functionality.
• Drupal: From the contribution page listing, select "Live Page" to view the finished page. You can then copy the URL and include it in a content page or assign it to a menu item.
  
• Standalone:  From the contribution page listing, select "Live Page" to view the finished page and link to it.