Outstanding comprehensive association management system

I have used Star Chapter since 2012 for multiple associations I manage. Of all the association management systems currently available, I found Star Chapter to be the most comprehensive and cost effective online software on the market.

Pros

Star Chapter is user friendly for both members and administrators. Customer support is great and highly responsive to questions or problems. Training and resources for administrators and Board members are excellent. One of my groups consists of a senior chapter, a young professionals chapter and a non-profit 501(c)3 education foundation. They wanted one website for all three organizations with capability to manage each of them. The Star Chapter tech team was wonderful in working with our volunteer Board and communications committee to develop a website "skin" that would function on Star Chapter's system.

Cons

I have some Board members that find it cumbersome to RSVP for a meeting when responding to an email invitation. They would prefer a one click method to indicate if they will attend or not, rather than the multiple steps Star Chapter's system requires to login as a member and register to attend a Board or committee meeting that doesn't require a payment. I have asked Star Chapter to consider changing the system to allow for a "yes" or "no" response when members are responding to a system generated event invitation. We had this with Cvent and it worked extremely well.

Membership management software that covers all bases!

StarChapter appears to be a very professional software company that has provided a great solution for organization membership management.

Pros

StarChapter set everything up The training they provided was comprehensive The support is excellent. I had a few questions and received a response back within hours or even minutes. Once you get the hang of how it works, it is easy to make changes The price is incredible! We are a very small non-profit with a limited budget. Our users love the software. The admins really like the back end and the information it provides. Our members love the website and how easy it is to renew membership, sign up for classes and events.

Cons

Reporting is a little weak: I can find everything I need but it isn't as easy as I think it could be. (That said it could be that I haven't figured everything out yet.) I can get a list of new members, members that have renewed, and members that have not renewed BUT it does not produce a very attractive output. This would definitely not stop me from recommending this software.

Good Product

StarChapter has been a good software for our smaller sized clients. The new website layouts are much nicer than the old ones.

Pros

I like the ease of use of the backend along with the price of the product.

Cons

The reporting options could be better and the registration process is a little clunky for our customers.

Small Texas Association

There are some features of the software that are excellent. I really like the email communication interface. Our biggest concern is that there is very little ability to customize to your association needs. Customization of the site is not an option and work around options are complicated, confusing & time consuming for the board. Communication between the front and admin end can be mismatched. If you are ok with small things like application field names not matching profile field names and back end names, but being similar it's fine. If you are ok with having drop down menus on your application, but not on your individual profile editors, which results in somewhat of a mismatch of information, you will be fine. For our Association, it's all small things that you will encounter with the software, scrolling down pages of data, the overall display of profile editors, etc... that will make things difficult for the board and for membership. It's very important to understand that these items can't be changed even with a work order and in our eyes this is a major limitation of Capterra. Overall, the system functions, but it isn't the easiest software to manage and it will take a MAJOR commitment on the part of the associations board to make this system work as best as it can for your association. If your Association is small and doesn't need much in the way of tracking and display, CME, spreadsheet export, and more, Capterra will be a good solution. I will say compared to a fully customized website development it is more economical for all involved, despite the commitment it requires.

Pros

The email communicating system.

Cons

The mismatch of options on the front end, individual profile end, and admin end of the site. The inability to set standard views for daily use (defaults for individual members) The complicated way the profile editor is displayed. The inability to have custom drop downs made (similar to the State drop-down) for large comprehensive lists - these need to be on both the front end - application and member profile editor as well as the admin member manager area.

Honest Review

Overall it has served us very well. There are many "work arounds". From the perspective of someone who has done some software design, the navigation of star chapter is built on the concept the administrators don't want to see or understand the logic behind the scenes. This leads to a lot of confusion and as more and more people are forced to learn computers and programming type of understanding, it makes many navigational tabs very clunky, unnecessary, and confusing. For example, there is a very nice section for "Board Transition" which is somewhat of a hand holding to set up new profiles for board/leadership members and remove old or outdated members. It would be much easier to just have a section that says "Email Routing" where you can see the logic that "Treasurer@abcorg.com" routes to "JohnDoe@abccorp.com". Instead it is a clunky process similar to a turbo tax style of question and answer that is not as easily understood.

Pros

This is great for organizations and non profit that need something simple to get them going. We use this to manage members, as well as host our e-commerce type transactions for events.

Cons

It is a bit clunky and not as intuitive when wanting to do more advanced level organizational management. For example, if a member has not renewed their membership there is a grace period and then the member gets moved to a different list. If that member wants to renew- they have to create a whole new login which adds to confusion when the user expects to just to be able to login and renew their membership. Since starchapter has membership level built into their pricing, it makes it very hard for organizations to keep a seemless record of "active" and "inactive" members. This makes a big difference when doing complex registration or selling of items on the e-commerce site. For example a member may get a certain discount versuses a non member. It is very clunky if a user wants to pay for a membership and get membership pricing of an event registration all at the same time. It is very limited in that logic.