How to Create an Annual Membership Form with Donorbox

Membership programs are a fantastic way to boost contributed income for your organization. Annually renewing memberships offer a sustaining source of funds that your nonprofit can count on – year after year. Read on to learn how to create an annual membership form on Donorbox to get more annual members!

5 minutes read
How to Create an Annual Membership Form with Donorbox

Membership programs are a popular way for organizations to increase their revenue. They encourage a consistent and stable income stream from supporters and often result in continuous community support and higher community engagement levels.

With a membership program, nonprofit organizations usually extend additional engagement opportunities and benefits to their members in exchange for donations in the form of membership fees. Nonprofits of all kinds, from churches and sports clubs to large development organizations, use the membership model to improve their financial planning.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the steps of creating an annual membership form using Donorbox Memberships. But before that, we’ll also give you an insight into how an annual membership program works and what Donorbox does to help.


How Does an Annual Membership Program Work?

There are different ways to go about setting up a membership model, but the most common one has donors paying their membership fees annually. Nonprofit organizations also set several different membership levels, letting their members choose one that works for them. This makes their annual membership models more inclusive.

Membership fees are an integral aspect of membership programs, so selecting the right price for membership fees or membership levels is vital. To determine the appropriate amount for your membership fee, you’ll first need to consider the following –

  • The goal of your membership program,
  • Average donation amount of various donor segments, and
  • Perks you’re able to offer to your members at different membership levels.

Choose an online membership platform that makes this process of creating a membership program and managing the membership data easy. On Donorbox, you can segment your donor database and find out the average donor amount of each donor level. Next, you can use Donorbox Memberships to create membership levels and an annual membership form to run your membership program. Look at this live example of an annual membership campaign here, created on Donorbox.

annual membership form example

Start a Membership Program on Donorbox


Donorbox Memberships – To Help Scale Your Membership Program

Now you’ve seen an example of how our nonprofit users are using Donorbox Memberships to run their membership programs. We’ll also show you how to create an annual membership form with Donorbox in the next section. But first, let’s give you a peek into this powerful Donorbox product to help you understand how it facilitates the success of your membership program.

With Donorbox Memberships, you can –

  • Offer monthly and annual memberships to your supporters.
  • Create fully customizable and unlimited membership tiers.
  • Customize the membership form and campaign page to fit your organization’s branding and needs.
  • Securely store and manage member and membership payment data in the Donorbox database.
  • Segment member data to personalize your communications.
  • Offer supporters the freedom to pay a custom amount to become members. They’ll still be tied to a tier.
  • Give members the power to log in to their accounts on Donorbox and manage their memberships.
  • Let members upgrade or cancel their membership plan at any time.

Ready to get started? We have a step-by-step guide to help make this easy for you! Or, watch this video here if you’re a quick visual learner –

Get Started With Donorbox Memberships!


How to Create an Annual Membership Form with Donorbox

Donorbox Memberships make creating an annual membership form simple for your nonprofit. It requires just a few quick steps.


Step 1 – Create an account on Donorbox and log in

Start with signing up on Donorbox. There’s no contract or signup fee – you won’t have to share any documentation either! Just fill out a form and create an account.

Next up, log in to your Donorbox account and connect with your payment processor – Stripe or PayPal. This is an important step for accepting donations and membership payments on Donorbox.

For more help with getting started with Donorbox – check out the four simple steps here.


Step 2 – Create your annual membership tiers

On the left navigation bar, you’ll find a tab called “Fundraise”. Under it, click “Memberships“.

memberships on Donorbox

Now, the page that opens will show you options to create your monthly and annual membership tiers. Just type in the name for each tier and add an amount. Next, click on the “+Add Tier” button below the created tier and add another tier. It depends on your membership program strategy.

membership tiers on Donorbox

Click “Save” and you’re done here.


Step 3 – Start creating a new membership form

Now, under the “Fundraise” tab, you will click the “Campaigns” option.

annual membership form

Select “+ New Campaign” as shown below.

new campaign on Donorbox

Click “New Membership Form” on the next page to start creating your annual membership form.

new membership form

On the next page, type your membership campaign title and select the form language. Click “Create Membership Form”.

new campaign form on Donorbox


Step 4 – Create and customize your annual membership form

Now, it’s time for you to create and customize the annual membership form.

For that, change the color of the form if you want.

Next, make any changes to the already-created annual membership tiers by clicking “Manage tiers”.

customizable membership form

You can also let your supporters pay a custom amount to become members. In this case, the donor will be tied to the tier just below the next higher-defined tier. For example, if you have 3 tiers including $100, $300, and $500 amounts, someone giving $200 will fall under the $100 membership tier.

You can enable your members to leave a comment. This comment will help you reach out to them in the future to either resolve a concern, reply to their feedback, or simply work on the relationship.

membership tiers

When you’re done, click “Create Campaign”.

That’s it – your annual membership form is now ready to go live!

Click “Preview Campaign” on the campaign dashboard to get the link and start sharing it with the world.

live annual membership form

Create an Annual Membership Form on Donorbox


Step 5 – Keep customizing the form and the campaign page

You can customize the form and the membership campaign page further. Click the “Continue Editing” button on your campaign dashboard, as shown below.

customize membership campaign on Donorbox

To learn the simple steps of customizing the campaign page, give this step-by-step guide a read. It will walk you through the entire process in detail.


Moving Forward

At this stage, your communications with your donors shouldn’t stop. A good nonprofit membership program should constantly see an increase in membership renewal and upgrades to higher membership levels.

Approach the membership program strategically. Make sure you provide valuable engagement opportunities and enticing benefits that will inspire your donors to join the program. Focus on maintaining and improving the quality of your membership program.

Donorbox Memberships will help make that happen – with its simple and powerful features! But that is not all we have to offer your nonprofit. There is a wide range of fundraising and donor management features we provide to scale your fundraising efforts. 80,000+ organizations including charities, schools and universities, churches, PTAs, sports clubs, and others have used Donorbox features to raise over $2 billion in donations. Sign up to be a part of this success journey!

Find hundreds of insightful blogs on memberships as well as other important nonprofit-related topics at the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive a collection of our best resources directly in your inbox!

Ilma Ibrisevic is a content creator and nonprofit writer. She’s passionate about meaningful work, sustainability, and social movements. If she’s not working, she’s obsessing over coffee or cooking. You can connect with her on Linkedin.

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