A small veterinary society got membership software that fits how it actually works

A small society with a big society's membership rules

The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior describes itself this way: "We are a group of Veterinarians, Veterinary Technicians, and Graduate Degree level Animal Behaviorists dedicated to improving the lives of animals and people through an understanding of animal behavior."

It is a small organization, run by an executive director and a board. Its membership is anything but simple. There are veterinarians, veterinary technicians, affiliates, student chapters, and individual students, and each kind of member joins on different terms. Applicants are reviewed before they are let in. And the public uses the society's directory to find a member nearby who takes animal behavior cases.

If the membership software gets a status wrong, a veterinarian who has paid cannot sign in, or a consultant who left years ago is still the first name someone searching for help sees.

What they needed did not come in a box

Packaged membership products are built around a common case: pick a plan, pay, and you are in. AVSAB's case is different at almost every step. An application has to be looked at by a person before it becomes a membership. Individual student memberships are free, so there is no payment to trigger anything. Some members want to be charged automatically every year, and others want to pay once and decide again next year.

The directory was the sorest point. On the old site, joining the society and being listed in the directory were two separate things. A member signed up, then built a listing somewhere else, and nothing connected the listing to whether that person was still a member. Lapsed members stayed listed, and being a current member did not put anyone in it.

Bending the society's process to suit a product was one option. Paying for a large platform and using a corner of it was another. Neither made sense for an office this size.

We built the modest thing around how the office works

Application first, then a person decides. A prospective member applies and pays on the website, and the application waits in a queue. The office sees the whole application on one screen and approves or declines it. Only then does the member get access and a welcome message. The society keeps its standard for who belongs, and nobody retypes an application to enforce it.

Members choose how to pay, and can change their minds. A member can put their dues on autopay or pay once for the year. From their own dashboard, they can switch from one to the other, update a card, or renew, with Stripe handling the payment itself. A member does not have to email the office about a credit card, and the office does not have to handle one.

The directory follows membership. A current member ticks a box on their profile to be listed, and they are in the directory. When a membership lapses, the listing goes with it, without anyone remembering to remove it. Someone looking for help types a zip code, a city, or a state and sees the nearest consultants first, with the distance to each one. When the society's leadership asked for that, and for a badge showing whether a listing is a veterinarian or a technician, both were live within about a week.

Renewals look after themselves. Every day the system checks who is coming due. Members on autopay get a note before their card is charged. Members who pay yearly get three reminders before their membership runs out, and a membership that does lapse is marked that way automatically.

The office runs the society, and the software keeps up

Today the executive director reviews new applicants from one screen and gets on with the rest of the job. Members look after their own profile, their own payment method, and their own directory listing. Anyone searching the directory is looking at people who are members now.

When a member does get stuck, the executive director passes it to us. We sort out that member's account, and where the software was at fault, we fix the software, so the next member does not run into the same thing. A system built for one society is never quite finished, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. It gets a little better each time the office finds a case it had not met before.

We also host the site and keep it updated, so the membership system and the website around it are one responsibility with one team behind it.