MemberSuite

We've been using MemberSuite (MS) for at least 10+ years and we still aren't using it to its full capacity, but we're getting there. Having worked with many AMSs throughout my career, I know none are perfect and the more you customize, the more you create problems for the organization down the road. We are happy with the broad capabilities of MS. As a trade association, we have a somewhat complicated membership structure and MS reps have been extremely helpful in working with us to refine our original setup to better meet our needs (albeit through a managed services contract, not just support). Our concentration over the past 2 years has been getting more of our data into MS (minimizing the data silos as it makes sense) and tracking engagement of our organizational and individual members. The downside to doing this work is that we can't get all of the reports/data back out of MS. I have not investigated if this is a MS limitation or because of our structure. The engagement module appears to be impressive, but is a lot to digest and as a small staff, we just don't have the manpower to devote to getting it set up so we can get out the types of engagement reporting that we are looking for. They lost a key player who created the engagement module and the understanding by others is limited. We'll have to get a quote for them to set up that module for us which it would seem that we shouldn't have to go to that extra expense.

Utilizing and setting up the system are good. Reporting is where I think the system falls a bit short.

We utilize MemberSuite as a database for members of our organization. We have the bookkeeping end on our side and they have access to their Member Portal with MemberSuite. Learning the basics of MemberSuite was not challenging, but getting the hang of the more involved aspects of MemberSuite can get more convoluted and may need more practice. There are so many different pieces of MemberSuite that can be utilized that can benefit our organization, and once mastered, are extremely helpful. Thankfully, they have the Sandbox, which is an extremely helpful tool for getting repetition of movements in without actually messing with any real data. Their customer service is amazing and they have an incredible support team that is quick at answering tickets. They always ensure that they get the big picture of what is going on and even take videos of their screen to do a "walk-through" for visual aid which is extremely helpful. MemberSuite does struggle with downloading large reports and will time out if they're too big, but we've found that breaking reports up into multiple sections can be helpful. Also, being able to customize fields for each page is extremely helpful so that we can tailer our Organization 360, Individual 360, etc. to precisely what we need. This ensures that MemberSuite is extremely customizable and everyone can dial in their particular set of data collected using those fields. 

MemberSuite is overly complex and very clunky. Most of our team hates using it. Also the graphic elements are basic and difficult to customize. Our members do not like the way it assigns relationshsips within the prgram and we wind up with duplications.

Our small nonprofit's use case was that we were keeping contact information, event information, committees, and email lists in different places. We chose MemberSuite in part because we could select which modules we needed at the time, and add as needed. Another important feature was the system being cloud-based, and available to unlimited users at our organization. We ended up using MemberSuite not only for membership renewal/invoicing, but for event registration and sponsorship invoicing. Having event, communication, and engagement information in one place empowered our staff to make informed decisions about outreach. In five years using MemberSuite, the system has grown with us, and we've customized only very little and been able to use the out-of-the-box capabilities mostly.

MemberSuite has many modules that can pretty much cover any aspect an association would ever need.  The customer service is subperb, which is especially important to me as a non-tech person that is using the system all the time