CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hey there, fellow CiviCrm'ers -

I have been tasked to set up online membership management for our organization, but I am not quite sure on how to attack the structure.

We have several levels

National
 - State
   -Chapter

I represent the State, and need to collect membership information from all chapters, which we then have to turn in to Nationals (My hope is, once they see this, they will want to do the same)

Anyhow - Another requirement I have, is that Membership VP's from the chapter are able to administer their members. As far as I can tell, I should be able to do this, by creating groups?

But, how would I use the organizations? Would I only create the state as an organization? - That's the way I am headed, anyways - but would love to be stopped, if that's not quite the way to do this!

Also - I also thought about using the organisation, to split the membership fees - you see, our dues are split

For example:

Local Chapter....... $25
State............... $25
Nationals........... $10
International....... $ 5

Once you are a member of a chapter, all other memberships are automatic.

We also have the $5 initial fee issue (http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,4427.0.html and http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,4938.0.html)

An other issue, is that once you have been a chapter president, the chapter gives you a lifetime membership, but the chapter still has to pay the state (and nationals and International) their dues.

Lastly, we just launched our new website, using joomla, and even though civvicrm is technically joomla-ready, I think I might be better off, doing a stand-alone installation, on a sub-domain?

Again - what are your thoughs  --  How do YOU use CiviMember - I would LOVE to hear from y'all

/Henrik Helgesen,
California Jaycees [JCI:California]