Discussion: Save a Stamp - Join Orienteering USA On-line

All,

I am happy to announce that OUSA has set up a new service to allow orienteers to join (or renew their membership to) Orienteering USA on-line. This program was developed at the request of orienteers to give them the choice of mailing their membership in or renewing it on-line. This is similar to what other clubs and organizations have been doing for years.

All you have to do is:
- Visit www.orienteeringusa.org
- Clink on the "Join Orienteering USA" icon in the big box in the middle of the home page
- Fill out the form and send

Membership rates are still the same, but as an added value to members, Orienteering USA will pick up the processing charges for the Individual, Family, Student and Junior memberships.

Of course if you still want to mail your membership in you can do that as well.

Thanks to all that made this happen, especially Greg Lennon, Janet Tryson and Robin Shannonhouse.

Have a good day.

Glen
Executive Director
Orienteering USA

Awesome!!

Thanks to all who made this happen. But I would willingly pay the processing charges because I now no longer have the postage costs.

wilburdeb,

Thanks for the offer. The costs are nominal, so it was a fair benefit to offer.

Have a good day.

Glen

How about allowing club membership renewals through the same service? It sure would be beneficial to have the two synchronized.

... and while we're at it, we would appreciate a published interface that an event organizer can query for membership discount eligibility. No need to divulge the data proper, just the ability to handle yes/no queries on 6-digit numbers.

(There is a wishlist along these lines, such as querying SportIdent numbers etc., but it was all covered in some recent threads).

My impression - so far - has been that too few clubs will actually agree to have Orienteering USA process their memberships, which might also mean at least some standardization of membership features, to make it worth the trouble to bring about and to maintain.

The larger issue surrounding this is the establishment of an integrated membership database and event registration system. Before we move on to that, though, it would be great to get feedback from club members - and club leadership - on the desirability of having Orienteering USA process club memberships (in addition to OUSA memberships), so give it some thought and speak up here or in other forums.

I'd also strongly recommend that all US clubs implementing their own online membership system include a query akin to, "Would you like to receive information about Orienteering USA, our national organization devoted to orienteering in the US?" Even in a relatively large and active club, many orienteers just aren't aware of OUSA.

So far, we find that between 25 - 33% of folks joining or renewing online are responding "yes" to this question. We pass their contact information on to OUSA, so they can then be mailed (and/or emailed) whatever promotional material OUSA deems best.

This is good info about wufoo/Google forms/paypal as a payment system--sounds like it may work well for local registration. But before clubs go down the complex path of integrating local membership systems with the OUSA membership system, I have to ask a fundamental question:

Are we sure that's the right model?

From a user perspective, we're making requests for two levels of membership, which helps make our sport more complex---a barrier to entry. The primary interaction with the local club is a free website, and the primary interaction nationally is a paid magazine. Only one of these requires memberships to function. Hypothetically, what would happen if clubs transitioned to a model of selling only OUSA memberships, with a corresponding shift in how dues & fees are collected nationally?

The primary interaction nationally is arguably insurance. All club members reap this benefit, whether or not they are members of Orienteering USA. Monies for insurance are collected by clubs and passed along to Orienteering USA; an inefficient system. Maybe indeed it should be the other way round; monies are collected by Orienteering USA, and clubs then get a cut to run events and programs?

At the club level, yes--the insurance interaction happens with Orienteering USA for every meet. But even though all individuals benefit, few recognize the interaction. ONA remains the main face of Orienteering USA to most indivduals.

I can't speak to insurance payments, but what if membership were handled the way Tundra describes for insurance?

Instead of clubs collecting for local memberships, passing a share of that to OUSA, and then trying to sell those same members on an OUSA membership as well, we could go with a simpler approach. Local clubs could simply act as affiliates for OUSA, selling OUSA memberships and getting a share of each of those. That way, clubs still get some membership revenue, ONA gets out more widely, and we eliminate the dueling memberships issue.

Just a thought.

It sounds like an entirely reasonable proposal. Perhaps right now is the time to consider it?

There's no possible (financial) downside I can see for Orienteering USA, but there is a downside for the clubs if the (certainly) increased cost of the bundled membership will yield a loss of members and revenue (latter doesn't follow from the former, though).

Why would everyone who is a club member want to be an OUSA member? The only advantages to having and OUSA membership are the $4 savings per start at an A meet, and ONA. For me, we already get ONA because Alex is a member, and I don't have enough A meet starts to make it worth it.
OUSA would have to actually provide me with something useful before I would want to give up the club membership system for a national membership system.

It does. Orienteering USA provides you with insurance, without which your club can't get a permit, and you won't be able to participate. Should each club be forced to purchase insurance on the open market, it would add about $2 to each start's cost (not including the indirect cost of volunteer time that each club would be forced to expend looking for an underwriter, and negotiating coverage). Orienteering USA provides this service as a benefit to clubs, and it is kind enough to have negotiated a clause with the underwriter that event participants need not be Orienteering USA members, or even club members.

Should Orienteering USA see an overall win to its operating model, It can choose to withhold this benefit, and require instead that everyone who uses the insurance be its direct member. Other NGBs operate in this exact way.

Back to the original item on this thread, I figured I might as well try it for renewing as our membership will be up soon.

Comments:

1. I pay most of my bills online. It's easier and quicker. This was no different, easier and quicker. And now it's done, and Robin doesn't have to send me a reminder card (and if that's needed in the future, I hope it will be a reminder e-mail), and I don't have to write out a check and mail it.

2. Most things when you pay on line, there is a step in the process where, having entered the needed info, you hit "Continue" or some such button, and then it displays what you've entered, giving you a chance to correct it if needed. The OUSA process seems to leave this out, sending you right to the payment window. Something to add?

3. At the very end, it says it will return you to the OUSA webpage, but it doesn't, it just sends you to a nice page thanking you for joining or renewing, which is fine, but then no link or transfer from them back to the home page.

This is still a nice step forward. And the e-mail confirmation came immediately. Thanks!

So suppose the extra charge to be an Orienteering USA member is zero. Orienteering USA collects membership dues and gives the club back the exact amount that the club presently charges its members. Then what Dan is saying becomes obviously false. From the club's and the member's point of view, you get back the existing model, with extra free benefits for club members who formerly weren't Orienteering USA members (for Orienteering USA, however, there is zero money to pay for these benefits). It would be stupid for a club to leave Orienteering USA in this case, since they'd be taking a hit of $2 per start on insurance, whereas they currently pay Orienteering USA $1 per start.

Consider the other extreme; the extra charge is the existing membership charge of $35, so people who are currently members of a club that charges $20/year would have to pay $55. (The total charge need not be flexible like this depending on the club, it can be a set amount nationwide; I am just giving examples for the sake of the discussion.) Orienteering USA collects $55 and gives the club back $20 per member. In this case, there will be a serious hit to the membership, since a lot of club members will cease to be such and will just pay for each event (presumably a one-day "license" fee will be instituted in this case to cover the insurance). In this case Dan's scenario rings true.

So the solution to do what Bob proposes lies somewhere between these two ends. The exact fee shouldn't be the sum of the current fee and the former club membership fee, but a smaller amount. Just about any point within this range, except for the first scenario, brings an increase to Orienteering USA membership, which is the stated goal. The first scenario makes the revenue of Orienteering USA zero. As you go along this line from the first scenario to the second and increase the total membership price, revenue starts to rise, and at some point it may start to fall, either due to memberships starting to fall or to defecting clubs. The question is whether this maximum-revenue point yields a greater revenue total for Orienteering USA than the present model.

Moreover, this point may maximize the benefit to Orienteering USA, but not to the clubs. It isn't certain that clubs would/should get back what they currently charge. Indications are they should get more per person, since the total membership base will be smaller. I'm sure there are cleverer mathematicians/economists out there than me, but it seems that there isn't a priori an indication that there cannot be a happy situation in which, at this new equilibrium point, there is more revenue for everyone.

Example (my numbers are off the top of my head; feel free to play with better numbers):

Present: 1400 Orienteering USA members @$35, 5000 club members @$20: total $49k to Orienteering USA, $100k to clubs.

Hypothetical: 4000 members @$40. Total $59k to Orienteering USA and $101k to clubs. A win not even counting the license fees the left-out 1000 people will have to pay!

Of course this doesn't address the question of whether the extra $10k gets anywhere close to the cost of providing the benefits to the 2600 new members. Maybe the incremental costs of printing the magazine are really low, maybe not. That's what we pay big bucks to the paid Orienteering USA staff to figure out, no?

The pilot program is my Scenario One above (free-to-end-user only for incremental memberships, not for standing ones). Funded by a gift.

>> I might ask your (NEOC's) web team. They use the same system.

PG is CSU these days, not NEOC.