Thanks, everyone, for your work, especially your focus on simplification. Chris and I have reviewed the latest draft and your many comments.
We do like the "Member Name or Organization" simplification.
However, for organizations, we like to have an "Organizational Contact" (name) to make sure subsequent renewal notices get paid, to contact in event of problem.
We MUST get a phone number and email address if they have one. This needs to be on the form for many reasons, including not limiting how quickly we can communicate with the new member.
Concerned that "Supporting" and "Patron" memberships still sound like something with extra benefits (that cost & have to be administered). Did the group decide not to go with plant names? "Orchid Society" may be confusing as there are in fact many Orchid Societies in Florida. Just "Orchid" might be better.
Kathryn is correct that mailing in credit card information is a security risk, but people continue to do it and FNPS' merchant account does allow for it. People do mail us cc payments, very few people fax us. However, we are now at a stage where a minority of the credit card payments made are being made by mail. Most of them are now being made online. So this might be a good time to "switch" and remove that part of the application form to use the space for something else. At events, people can go online with their smartphone to join. FYI, the majority of payments overall are still being made by checks mailed in.
The society needs to have some additional definition around "Sustaining Members." We have found that some recurring members stop being recurring for whatever reason. What happens then? How is their membership affected? Not sure technically how we will implement this - definitely we can do recurring donations, just not sure how it will integrate with membership - this is now a to-research item for us.
Whatever we can do on the form to urge people to give to their maximum capability is good. Perhaps this is a philosophical issue for the society to yet decide, but we liked Kellie's perspective that we should position ourselves as a great charitable cause, worthy of as much as you can give, rather than a club with benefits and fees.
RE: libraries - we would respectfully suggest that this category go away, and chapters take it upon themselves to gift their libraries with a membership. More $, simplification.
