The Goal: Retire an outdated membership type by migrating current members to a new type and then deactivating the old one—so your records, reporting, and invoicing stay intact.
Before You Begin:
- You need staff permissions to manage membership types and to perform upgrades/downgrades.
- Decide on the new membership type (and its fee item) that current members will be migrated to.
- Never delete a membership type. Deleting in GrowthZone removes all history, which impacts data, reporting, and invoicing. Deactivate instead. Migrating members first keeps clean records on the Retention report, keeps open invoices connected to the customer, and keeps revenue correct for reporting.
Microlearning Overview
[Video TBD]
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Add a new Fee Item and add a new Membership Type.
- Communicate with customers that the change is occurring and why it is happening. This will affect the name of the membership type they see when viewing their membership in the Info Hub.
- Change current members to the new type using one of these three techniques. This will create a Note on the contact record. (A note is not an email to the customer. It is an internal label marking activity performed in the database.)
- Manually change them through an upgrade/downgrade.
- Use the Membership Level Conversion tool to change them in bulk. (This will only work if the new membership type has levels.)
- Contact Support for assistance.
- Deactivate the old membership type. Do not delete it.
Common Pitfalls
- Deleting instead of deactivating: Deleting a membership type removes all history and breaks reporting and invoicing. Always deactivate the retired type after members are migrated.
- Deactivating before migrating members: Move every current member to the new type first—otherwise you leave members stranded on a type that is no longer active.