Like many nonprofits, you may find yourself dealing with members who don't pay their membership on time — or who simply don't renew.
Managing your follow-ups well helps you shorten the average payment cycle, collect memberships in an organized and timely manner, and keep your cash flow on track.
This article covers how to organize your follow-ups effectively:
When should you follow up with members?
Overdue payments
You may encounter members who haven't paid their membership on time.
In that case, you'll need to follow up with them to collect the outstanding payments.
Membership not renewed for the coming year
Former members from previous years
These are members from previous years who did not renew their membership.
Something may have prevented them from rejoining last year, but they could be ready to come back this year.
In that case, it's worth reaching out to remind them you're here.
Current active members
Staying connected with your active members and encouraging renewals is key to retaining them.
How well your renewal outreach performs will largely determine your renewal rate.
How to follow up with members in Springly
Following up to encourage renewals
You can pull up a list of former or active members from Community > Contacts using the "Filter by" option. For example, to get active members, simply filter by "Members in June 2022":
To reach out to them, select the contacts by checking the box next to "Name", then click the "Contact" button. A small window will appear, letting you create an email campaign or send a quick message.
If you have more than 50 contacts, check the box next to "Name" and click "Select all xx rows" that appears above the table. This lets you select all your contacts at once.
Automating renewal reminders via email campaign
Schedule an automatic reminder to notify members when their renewal is coming up.
Segment your contact database
To do this, segment your database using dynamic groups. For example, from Community > Contacts, filter by "Members in June 2022" to get your list of active members. Select the contacts, then click "Add to a group".
You can add them to an existing group or create a new one.
For more information on creating a simple group, check out this article.
Creating an email campaign for membership renewal follow-ups
From Emailing > Campaigns, create your email campaign.
Select "Active Members 2022" as the recipients.
Click "Continue", select your preferred email template, and write your content.
On the confirmation page, schedule the send date — for example, 15 days before the renewal deadline.
The send is fully automated — no need to wait for the current membership to expire before prompting members to renew.
Re-engaging former members
From Community > Contacts, filter by "Former Members".
Link this segment to a dynamic group and follow the steps in the "Creating an email campaign" section. You can send a first message explaining why their membership matters to your nonprofit and highlighting the causes you support.
A simple way to encourage former members to rejoin is to offer them a discounted rate. You can limit this discount to the "Former Members" group only. Whatever incentive you choose, there's no harm in offering one — as long as it aligns with your finances and bylaws!
Anyone who has already renewed will be automatically removed from this group.
For those still in the group, you can send a second follow-up email letting them know it's the final reminder and, if applicable, including any membership deadline.
For those who still haven't renewed, consider sending a short poll to find out why they disengaged. Their feedback could be invaluable for improving member retention this year!
If you offer online sign-up, include a direct link to the renewal form in your email along with clear instructions to encourage members to renew right away.
This article walks you through how to create and send a great email campaign.
Following up on outstanding membership payments
From your Membership Campaign
From the member list, use the "Payment status: no payment, partial payment, payment received" filter to sort your members.
This lets you identify and follow up with anyone who hasn't paid yet — simply filter, select them, and click "Send a message".
From your Community
You can also follow up with members directly from your Community.
Go to Community > Contacts, click "Refine" and check "Pending payment" under the Membership Payment section. This is especially useful if you have multiple membership campaigns (for example, one for new members and another for renewals).
You can do the same for donations. Check "Donation payment" and select "Pending payment".
Everyone with an outstanding payment will appear in this list. Simply select them to get in touch.
Amounts due are not shown in the table, and it's not possible to see which item they relate to. To get this information, you'll need to manually check the "purchases, memberships and donations" tabs on each contact record.
From Accounts Payable & Receivable in accounting
Go to Accounting > Dashboard for a full overview of your cash flow. Click "View" under the Receivables section to see your received and pending payments.
Scrolling further down the dashboard, you'll find a section dedicated to payables and receivables. You can also access your receivables from this summary by clicking "View payables/receivables".
This takes you to the Payables & Receivables page, where you can refine your search to identify outstanding payments.
You'll see all pending payments — click the eye icon on the right to view the details of any individual line.
From the Payables & Receivables page, you can reach out to anyone with an outstanding payment. Just check the boxes next to their names and click "Contact selected persons".
Automatic follow-up reminders are not available in the platform. All messages must be sent manually through each module as described in this article.
Best practices
For renewals
Personalize your follow-up message
Your message should communicate the value of being part of your nonprofit and reinforce members' sense of belonging.
Start with a warm greeting and a compelling reminder of the benefits of membership. Close with a clear call to action asking them to renew today.
Make the next step crystal clear. Use a prominent button that links directly to your Membership Campaign.
Make your membership page easy to find on your website
Make sure your membership links and calls to action are clearly visible, especially on your Home page.
The renewal page should be clean and straightforward so members can navigate it with ease.
Offer the right payment methods
Checks and cash come with real drawbacks — manual follow-ups, lack of traceability, and security risks.
With online payment by credit card or installments, you receive payments immediately and get real-time visibility into the amounts collected.
You'll save valuable time that you can put toward other meaningful work for your organization.
Sometimes members need a little more flexibility to pay their membership. To accommodate this, you can offer installment payments with longer intervals between each payment — for example, splitting the membership fee into 2 payments, 3 months apart.
For each member using installment payments, you have access to a payment schedule showing amounts already received and upcoming payments — making it easy to stay on top of your cash flow. Learn more about how installments work in this article.
For payment follow-ups
Record offline payments promptly
Log payments received by check, cash, or other offline methods in real time to keep your list of outstanding payers up to date.
This way, you won't accidentally follow up with someone who has already paid — which could reflect poorly on your nonprofit.
Include the expiration date in the confirmation email
You can include the membership expiration date in the confirmation email your member receives after signing up.
To set this up, go to your Membership Campaign and check the box "Customize the message in the membership confirmation email" under section 6 — Payment and confirmation.
Learn more:
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