Membership Database Software
One record for every member, with their contact details, the profile fields your organization adds, their family, and every membership they have held. Search it, filter it to the list you need, and export it whenever you want.
- Search by name, email, phone, address or member ID
- Custom profile fields for what only your organization tracks
- Filter by membership status, plan, tag or profile field, then export
Powering 500+ community organizations
Name, email, phone or member ID
What Each Member Record Holds
A membership database starts with one record per person. Here is what a Communal member record keeps.
- Contact details
- Name, preferred name, email, phone and address. Members keep these current from their portal.
- Membership history
- Every membership they have held, with plan, expiry date and auto-renew, including the ones that lapsed.
- Family members
- Partners and children on the same account, each with a date of birth. Turn on family accounts and a family member can have a login of their own.
- Custom profile fields
- Fields you name, such as skill level or locker number, on members, family members or both.
- Tags and notes
- Tags for groups like the board or this year's volunteers, and staff notes that stay with the record.
- Activity
- Program registrations, facility bookings, donations, volunteer shifts, transactions and invoices, each on its own tab when you use that module and the staff role allows it.
Contact details and profile fields together
Member Profiles, Tab by Tab
Open a member and their details, memberships, family, tags and notes are on one screen. Staff stop asking which spreadsheet is current.
- Contact details, address and your profile fields together
- Tabs for memberships, programs, family, tags, notes and files
- Transactions and donations visible only to the roles that need them
- Member IDs issued from a number range and prefix you set
Turn on the member directory and signed-in members can look each other up by name.
The most common answers per field
Custom Profile Fields for What Only You Track
Every organization keeps something the standard fields miss. Add it as a profile field, and it shows on the record, in the member list filters and in the member export.
- Name the field yourself, like skill level or school
- Apply it to members, family members or both
- Let members fill it in from their portal, or keep editing to staff
- Show it on the screen staff see when they scan a membership card
- See the most common answers in the Profile Field Report
Filtered, tagged and ready to export
Filter to the List You Need, Then Export It
The board wants everyone whose family membership lapsed last winter. Set the membership filter to expired, pick the dates, and export that list as a CSV.
- Active or expired by membership type, or no active membership at all
- Expired between two dates, for the members to win back
- Plan, tag, role, email status and profile field filters
- Tag every selected member in one step
- CSV with contact details, plan, status, tags, family and each custom field
The same groups work as email audiences: pick memberships, plans, tags or recently expired members, and leave out anyone who should not get it.
One household, everyone listed
Households on One Account
Families join and renew together. One person holds the account, and everyone else in the household is listed under it with their own details.
- Partners and children listed under one account holder
- Each family member has a name, date of birth and profile fields
- With family accounts on, invite a family member to their own login
- Search finds the account from any family member's name or email
Month by month, by type
Reports From the Same Records
Every membership sits on a member record, so the numbers come from the same place. There is no separate count to keep.
- Active Memberships counted month by month, for any date range
- Filtered to one membership type when the board asks
- A map of where members live, built from their addresses
- A Profile Field Report for the fields you added
More on membership reporting.
Moving Your Member List In
You do not rebuild your list by hand. Our team imports it with you. Free, scoped data migration from your current system.
Send it as it is
A spreadsheet or an export from your current system. We sort out the format with you.
We map the columns
Contact details, profile fields, tags, family members and current memberships with their expiry dates each land in the right place. Notes can come across too.
Check the results, then go live
The file is validated before anything is saved, and any row that fails comes back with the reason, so you fix the row in the sheet instead of a record after the fact.
Spreadsheet or Membership Database?
A spreadsheet is a fine membership database while one person keeps it and nobody pays online. It stops working when two volunteers keep separate copies, or when dues are paid online and someone has to match each payment to a row.
The Big Apple Knitters Guild ran about 400 members on Excel files that several volunteers maintained, and matched PayPal payments to them by hand. Since the guild moved to one member database in Communal, admin time has fallen to 6 to 10 hours a month, down from 14 to 18. Read the case study.
Still on a free setup? Our guide to free membership database software for nonprofits covers where it holds up and what to track, and membership software vs spreadsheets has a decision table. If you mostly need renewals and dues off the spreadsheet, start with simple membership management software.
Membership Database Software for Nonprofits
A registered charity, a community association and a chapter-based organization need the same member record. What changes is what sits around it.
Nonprofits and charities
Members, donors and volunteers on one record, with tax receipts emailed automatically once you turn receipts on.
Nonprofit membership softwareCommunity associations
Households on one account, and plans you can limit to addresses inside a boundary you set.
Community association softwareChapters and branches
Each chapter manages its own members while the parent organization filters the whole list by chapter.
Chapter managementHow to Choose Membership Database Software
Most membership databases look alike in a feature list. The differences show up when you run your own records through them. Before you pick one, try these in a trial or a demo.
- Add a real household. Two adults, two children, one family membership. Count the screens it takes.
- Find last quarter's lapsed members. You should be able to filter by membership type and expiry date without building a spreadsheet.
- Export everything. Every member and every custom field should come out as a CSV, without a support ticket.
- Watch a renewal happen. Renew as a member from a phone, then check that the record updated on its own.
- Ask who moves your data. Find out whether the vendor maps and imports your current list, or hands you a template.
To compare vendors side by side, we reviewed 16 membership platforms on pricing, renewals and reporting.
Related Reading
Guides for moving off a spreadsheet, and the features that sit on the same member record.
Free Membership Database Software for Nonprofits
When a free tool is enough, and what to track while you are on one.
Read the guideMembership Software vs Spreadsheets
A decision table, and the signs it is time to switch.
Read the guideNonprofit CRM vs Membership Software
How the two records differ, and when you need both.
Read the guideMember Directory Software
A members-only directory of names for signed-in members.
See the featureMembership Reporting
Active memberships by month and type, and a map of where members live.
See the featureMember Portal
Where members renew, pay and update their own details.
See the featureMembership Database Software Questions
Membership database software keeps one record per member and updates it as people join, pay, renew and lapse. A spreadsheet can hold the same names, but someone has to change it by hand. In Communal the record changes when a member renews online or a payment comes in, the status turns to expired when a membership lapses, and staff can search, filter and export the list at any time.
Each membership on a record has a type, plan, expiry date and auto-renew setting, and its status changes from active to expired on its own when it lapses. Past memberships stay on the record. The member list filters on that status, so you can see who is current and who lapsed between two dates without a tracking column to maintain.
They overlap, but they are built around different records. A nonprofit CRM centres on donors and gifts. A membership database centres on memberships: types, expiry dates, renewals and households. Communal keeps both on the same person, so dues, donations and volunteer shifts sit on one record. We compare the two in nonprofit CRM vs membership management software.
Yes. Send your spreadsheet or an export from your current system as it is, and our team maps the columns with you: contact details, custom profile fields, tags, family members, and current memberships with their expiry dates. The file is validated before anything is saved, and rows that fail come back with the reason. Free, scoped data migration from your current system.
Yes. Members sign in to the member portal to change their name, email, phone and address, and to fill in any profile field you let them edit. Fields you do not make editable stay off their settings page.
Yes, whenever you want. Filter the member list and export it as a CSV. The file has contact details, plan, status, tags, family members, and one column for each custom profile field. Smaller exports download straight away, and larger ones are emailed to you when they are ready.
Only people you give a staff role. Roles such as Membership Manager, Finance Manager and Volunteer Manager decide which parts of a record each person sees, so a volunteer coordinator does not see transactions. Staff can turn on two-factor sign-in for their accounts. Members see their own record, plus other members' names if you turn on the member directory.
Communal starts at $75 per month flat for up to 250 members, and the member database comes with renewals, online dues, digital membership cards, the member portal and reporting. Pricing follows member count, and from 20,000 members it is quoted. No contracts, prorated billing, cancel any module any time. Full detail is on the pricing page.
Bring Your Member List to the Demo
Tell us how you keep members today, and we will show you that list as Communal member records, with your profile fields and households. Or start a free trial and add a few members yourself.
Free trial, no credit card.