Spreadsheets, event sites and membership software

A general guide to each kind of tool, not a review of any particular product. Many of them do their own job very well, which is exactly why organisers end up running three at once.

A spreadsheet and a WhatsApp group

This is how nearly every group starts, and it works for longer than people expect. A spreadsheet is free, it bends to whatever you want, and everybody can already use one. WhatsApp gets a message to the room in seconds.

What it costs you, once the group is more than about thirty people:

• Nobody knows which copy is right. Two organisers, two versions, and a renewal list that quietly disagrees with the bank statement.
• Visitors are remembered by whoever met them. The person who brought them gets no credit unless somebody writes it down, and they rarely do months later when that visitor finally joins.
• Renewals are chased from memory. The ones that lapse are usually the quiet members nobody noticed had gone quiet.
• The WhatsApp group fills with adverts. Members mute it, then miss the thing that actually mattered.
• Everybody has everybody’s phone number. Fine until somebody uses the list for something you would not have agreed to.

If you run one group of twenty friendly people, a spreadsheet is genuinely fine. The sums change when there are two groups, or when somebody other than you has to be able to pick it up.

An event or ticketing site

Event sites are built to sell tickets to strangers, and they are good at it: a page, a payment, a barcode. Several networking groups use one to handle meeting bookings.

Where it stops fitting:

• It thinks in events, not in members. There is no membership, no renewal date, and no way to see that somebody has been to four meetings this year and paid for none of them.
• It usually takes a cut. A percentage of money your members are paying you to be part of the thing you run.
• Your guests are its audience. Their details sit in somebody else’s product, sometimes marketed to.
• There is no group life between meetings. No directory, no introductions, no referrals, no one to ones.

For the meetings people do pay for, NetworkingBadger works with TicketOtter, from the same team, for 40p plus VAT a ticket. Put the event’s link on the meeting and members get a Book on TicketOtter button; making the event from the meeting in one click, with the buyers coming back to it, is being switched on now.

General membership software

Association and membership platforms are the closest fit on paper. They handle members, renewals and often a member area, and the good ones are solid.

What networking organisations tend to run into:

• They are built for one body with many members, not many groups that meet weekly. Several groups usually means several accounts, several bills, and adding the totals up by hand.
• Visitors are an afterthought. A networking group lives or dies on guests, who brought them, and what happened afterwards. That funnel is rarely there.
• Referrals and one to ones are not a concept. They are the whole point of a referral group and the reason members can see what their fee bought.
• The member app, if there is one, wears the vendor’s name. Your members join your group, not a product.
• Payments are often tied to their processor, which means a percentage, and it means your members money running through somebody else’s system.

Where NetworkingBadger fits

It is the specialised option: built for organisations whose members meet regularly, bring visitors and pass each other work. Several groups are normal rather than an upgrade, the visitor funnel and the inviter credit are part of the model, referrals and one to ones are first class, and the member app carries your name, logo and colours, and works in any browser with nothing for members to download.

We never touch your members’ money. There is no percentage, no processing and no mandate: you record what people have paid you, and we chase the renewals. Everything is priced as one licence on active members, which you can work out exactly on the pricing page.

Where it is the wrong answer, so you do not waste a fortnight finding out:

• You want the platform to collect members’ fees for you. We deliberately do not, and never will.
• You sell tickets to public events as your main business. An event site is the right tool.
• You are a professional body with certification, CPD records and committees. General membership software fits better.
• You have one group of fifteen people and enjoy your spreadsheet. Keep it, honestly.

What switching actually involves

Your member list comes across as a CSV export from whatever you use now, or straight from the spreadsheet. Barry sets the organisation, the groups and the meeting pattern up with you in a few minutes. Members get one invitation link each, choose a password and are in. There is no setup fee for doing that yourself. If you would rather we moved several groups across for you, that is quoted before any of it starts.