If you've built your nonprofit's website on Springly, creating a members-only area — also known as an intranet — can be a great addition. This private space offers a number of benefits, which we'll walk you through below.
Benefits of a members-only area
Giving your members a dedicated space on your nonprofit's website benefits both you and them. Among other things, it lets you:
- add value to membership by giving members access to exclusive content — resource articles, how-to guides, volunteer-only documents, and more;
- protect your community's personal information by keeping sensitive elements like the Directory behind a login;
- share internal updates with ease: instead of sending emails, post the latest news directly on your website. Save it once, and it's instantly live in the members area!
- let members update their own profile information — new address, updated phone number, etc. — so your member database stays current without any manual effort on your end.
Creating a members-only area from your platform
To create a members-only area from your platform, simply create a new menu on your website by following the standard process.
Then, simply update the privacy settings for that menu and its associated pages to restrict access to specific members.
To do this, go to Website > Menus and pages, then click the "…" icon next to the menu you want to restrict to your members.
Next, set the privacy settings by clicking "Menu name and visibility".
You'll have several options to choose from:
- "Community" limits menu visibility to people in your contact database. They must be logged in to access pages such as the Directory;
- "Administrators" restricts access to administrators of your platform;
- "Specific groups" limits visibility to one or more of your Groups;
- "Members" and "Donors" let you restrict the space to contacts identified as Members or Donors, respectively, in your database.
By default, all pages within the members area inherit the same privacy settings as the menu. However, you can customize access for individual pages by clicking the "..." icon, then "Page name and visibility".
You can then customize the access settings for that page, and choose how it behaves for users who don't have access:
- show that the page exists, but deny access to it;
- hide the page entirely from users who don't have access.
Once your members area is set up, you can create a login / sign-up page and add a login button to your website. For details, check out the dedicated article.
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