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Renewal Rate

Updated
The Goal: Work out your Renewal Rate — the percentage of members who renew their membership over a given period.

Before You Begin:

  • You need permission to run reports, so that you can run the Membership Report. You will run it twice, with different filters each time.
  • Decide the cut-off date for the period you are measuring before you start, and use the same date in both runs.
  • NOTE: The criteria described below give an overall Renewal Rate for all time rather than a rate for one specific year. Use it to judge whether you are moving in the right direction each time you run it.

How Renewal Rate is calculated

Calculation: # of Renewals ÷ Eligible Members = Renewal Rate

Step-by-Step Instructions

First: run the Membership Report with the following criteria to find the # of Renewals.

  1. Go to Reports, click All Reports, then click Membership Report.
  2. Set Membership Status to Active and Courtesy.
  3. Under Additional Criteria / Filters, click the plus sign, select Membership Start Date, set the operator to Before, and enter the first date of your search period. For a renewal rate through 1/1/2026, set the date to 1/1/2026.
    Membership Report filters with Membership Status set to Active and Courtesy boxed in red, and the Membership Start Date Before criteria row boxed in red
  4. Click the Run Report button. The Results count above the grid is your # of Renewals.

Second: run the Membership Report again with the following criteria to find Eligible Members.

  1. Set Membership Status to Active, Courtesy, Dropped and Expired. Do not include Non Member or the other statuses — those were never up for renewal, so they are not part of your eligible members.
    Membership Report filters with Membership Status set to Active, Courtesy, Dropped and Expired boxed in red, and the same Membership Start Date Before criteria still in place
  2. Leave the Membership Start Date Before criteria exactly as you set it the first time.
  3. Click the Run Report button. The Results count is your Eligible Members.

Example

In this example the first run returned 205 renewals and the second returned 280 eligible members.

205 ÷ 280 = 0.73

Renewal Rate = 73%

Common Pitfalls

  • Different dates in the two runs: Both runs must use the same Membership Start Date Before value, or the two counts describe different populations.
  • Including statuses that were never up for renewal: Adding Non Member, Lead, Prospect or Pending approval to the second run inflates the eligible count and understates your renewal rate.
  • Forgetting to run the report: Changing a filter does not refresh the results. Click the Run Report button again after every change.

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