In recent months, we have received an influx of questions from member-based organizations about how to make the easiest and most cost-effective transition to digital. As mentioned in an earlier blog, cobbling together applications that weren’t made for nonprofits (or a lot of times each other) leads to confusion, information loss, and efficiency nightmares.
Boardable manages board and committee operations in its entirety, but that’s not the full picture for member-based organizations. Through a customer study we held recently, it was found that almost all of the needs of member associations can be managed through 2 different software types: board management platform and association management system.
What is an association management system (AMS)?
An AMS is an ecosystem of tools designed to provide everything you need to effectively manage your members. AMS solutions provide any number of the following features: event management, learning management, online community, marketing, membership payments, and a member database. But, the best AMS takes the organization’s mission and brings it to life through the members it serves.
Why do you need an AMS and board management platform?
That’s simple. Board management platforms like Boardable focus on bringing executive leaders, board members, and full-time employees together to communicate more efficiently, increase goal completion, and streamline governance at scale. If a member association has a board that is looking to leverage an intuitive tool to ensure that they are running as effectively as possible, that is where Boardable steps in. Said another way, AMS solutions focus on organizing the members, whereas board management platforms focus on organizing leadership. Bringing together an AMS and board management platform is a complete solution for association management.
What AMS would you recommend?
When we were vetting AMS solutions to recommend to our customers, we found a few clear winners. Glue Up is one of the most comprehensive solutions on the market, fairly priced, and intuitive for the first-time user. That seems to be the magic combo for member-based organizations. Glue Up helps you build and grow your membership community through events, email marketing, payments, memberships, and other key digital tools. So much so that we decided to partner with them to round out what Boardable has to offer.
In summary, where Boardable digitizes your board operations for better governance, collaboration, and continuity, an association management system like Glue Up streamlines membership operations to ensure those members find the most value in the organization.
Partner Insider is a series that focuses on product integrations and software recommendations to address the real pain points of our customers. The collaborative relationships with our users enable us to provide impactful, valuable solutions, which ultimately benefit their mission-driven organizations.
