GoMembers vs. WildApricot by Personify

The product was purchased four years before implementation. After having been stalled for more than a year, we were tapped to get the software setup and implemented on a tight six-month deadline. And because we hadn't been involved in the selection process and primary setup, we basically had to start from scratch. I can't say what questions were asked, since I wasn't a part of the selection process, but if you are - and beyond anything else - know upfront what your overall business objective goals and end results are before selecting a product. If the product doesn't meet your needs - with or without modification - keep moving. Research, research, research.

It is well suited to our environment, that's why I chose it. Where it might not be as successful is in operations such as gyms, where specific areas or equipment need to be scheduled.

Incentivized

• Membership management.
• Meeting management and registration.
• Accounts receivable.

• Automate member renewals and provide reminders for members with automatic renewal
• Tracking of member donations and the ability for a member to retrieve detailed donation receipt/acknowledgement for a variety fo donation types (in-kind, cash, etc)
• Provide integration between membership records and the association's website - using either the integrated CMS or code snippets
• Track member financials - open invoices, paid invoices
• Enable event management for both free and paid events

• The new customer service portal seems to be missing a lot of the product documentation/training manuals. In order to access them, I had to submit a ticket and receive a file via FTP.
• The process by which to get a quote or proposal has been sometimes challenging and lengthy. It's certainly been a point of frustration from time to time.
• The GoMembers (Association Management System) product has changed the way we do business, but some of the functionality seems to be incomplete or missing. Basic functionality of certain processes within the system are cumbersome or just don't make much sense to our technical team, or the end user.

• Query functionality could be improved to allow appropriate granularity for item selection.
• Enhancement requests take a long time. Feedback from development on enhancement requests seems to be lacking.

Incentivized

As with any company, we are always looking and interested in technology that can make our operations run smooth. I don't believe we'll be changing providers anytime soon, however if our needs grow and Aptean/GoMembers isn't capable of that functionality we will be required to look elsewhere

Some of the GoMembers CRM is intuitive, some is counter-intuitive. What might seem like common sense to me might not to another user. Having been through the setup of the product, it's easier for me to anticipate the steps needed to complete a task. For the average user, possibly not.

Support from our project manager and trainers was bar-none. They were there both before and after Go-Live, answering questions and anticipating any snags along the way.

When compared to iMIS, Wild Apricot is an order of magnitude easier to implement and use. It is also a tool that can be administered without a considerable amount of outside support and expense. Wild Apricot is also a more fully integrated system that does not require complicated module licensing and the associated costs. iMIS is also much more expense than Wild Apricot Ultimate Membership Pro (UMP) is a WordPress plugin solution for managing association memberships. Since this is an add-on software, the cost is a small faction of the expense associated with Wild Apricot. The feature set of Wild Apricot is more extensive than the capabilities of of UMP, however, Wild Apricot is easier to use and understand that UMP. Being a hosted solution, Wild Apricot is also much more stable and predictable.

• The GoMembers product has allowed us to be more efficient and effective in our front- and back-office processes. Fewer steps to making someone a member (12 steps to three), registering a member for a meeting and tracking subscription data. Increased overall employee efficiency while automating many things we formerly did manually. The integration with our website will only further reduce the manual work done within the system, freeing up staff to focus on other areas of importance within our organization.
• The implementation of the system is helping us to achieve overall business objectives and digital communications initiatives. The CRM is more robust than our former AMS, and the information we're able to track and retrieve more important than ever, allowing us to target interests, communications preferences and member activity in ways we might have never previously thought possible.
• The system is flexible, allowing us not only to anticipate new data points and change accordingly, but plan for the future.

• Has helped us track our participants' arc through our series of workshop
• Has helped us keep track of demographics of registrants to ensure we are reaching a diverse set of practitioners

Incentivized