Managing Multiple Member Chapters Within One Site

One of the primary goals for Echelon was to give each chapter the ability to share unique content in a sophisticated and accessible way while keeping the Salvation Army branding consistent throughout. It was important to make website changes simple for chapter members who have minimal technical experience.

In addition, each chapter website needed to perform a variety of tasks, including:

• track memberships,
• send out e-newsletters to members or donors,
• set up events and discount codes,
• recruit, schedule and track volunteers, and
• show a calendar of events, meetings and volunteer opportunities.

One of the main challenges was to give each chapter full control over their local membership information. Skvare’s developers created groups and modified the ACL’s (Access Control Lists) to segment the access, editing, and deletion of chapter-specific contacts. Read more about this below.

When Echelon approached Skvare about retooling their website, they were already using CiviCRM. CiviCRM and Drupal are the tools of choice for Skvare, so it was a good fit to adapt their original site to the growing needs of their organization.

Permissions Set for Success

A challenge that many membership-based organizations face is to set up chapter contacts in a way that one chapter administrator can only edit local contacts and not send out a newsletter to the wrong group of contacts or delete members from other chapters. Skvare used the power of CiviCRM and Drupal to set detailed roles and permissions, grouped contacts based on chapter membership and refactored the ACL’s (Access Control Lists) to segment the access, editing, and deletion of chapter-specific contacts. The chapter administrators have limited technical training, and this solution was the first step to allowing access and ownership for each chapter’s data.

Special Events and Discount Codes

Another challenge Skvare addressed was to provide members a discount with event registration. That functionality already exists within the CiviDiscount extension, however, the local chapter members do not have passwords or accounts set up on the site. The standard option is to provide an event registration link with a discounted ticket price, or force the members to go through an account setup process. Skvare delivered a custom solution using Drupal’s CiviCRM Webform integration that allows members to input their name and email into a short form prior to registration. After membership is verified, the user is automatically re-directed to a pre-filled event registration page with the member discount applied – all in one simple step for the registering members, while providing options to join for the non-members.

Reports

Each Salvation Army Echelon chapter can select from a collection of standard reports that are available to all the chapters. Though the queries are shared, the reports are configured to only display results for the local chapter. The permissions set allow each chapter administrator access to summaries and granular data of their membership, event registrations and donations. This protects member data from other locations but provides a predictable, repeatable process across chapters, saving time and overhead costs.