Getting started: set up memberships for your organization

By the end of this guide, you’ll have a published membership level that prospects can find and apply for, an application form with the fields you need, and renewal reminders configured so members know when to renew. It takes about 20 minutes.

What you’ll need

An admin account for your organization
Your membership pricing decided (you can change it later)

Step 1 — Create your first membership level

Your first task is to describe the membership you’re offering — its name, price, and how renewals work.

Before you set pricing: If you plan to collect dues online, connect your payment processor first so members can pay at checkout. Connect Stripe — it takes about five minutes. You can set a price now and connect Stripe later, but members won’t be able to pay online until Stripe is connected.

Go to Memberships > Levels in the admin sidebar.
Select Add level at the top of the page. (If this is your first level, you’ll also see three ready-made levels. To use one as it is, select Use this as a starting point on it, then Save — the level is created straight away, so skip to the end of this step; you can edit it later.)
On the level form, fill in the Name and Price.
Choose a Billing period — most organizations start with Annual.
Under Renewal, leave the default Rolling setting. This anchors each member’s renewal to the day they join, which is the simplest option.
Under Visibility, leave Public so prospects can find this level on your sign-up page.
Select Save.

You should now see your new level in the Levels list with an “Active” status and a “Public” badge.

Step 2 — Configure the application form

Next, choose what information you collect from people when they apply.

Select your new level from the Levels list.
On the level detail page, select Application form.
To ask applicants an extra question, select Add field under Application fields and type the question in Field label. Each one appears on the form as an optional text box.
If your organization requires members to accept terms, select Publish a versioned waiver instead (shown when no waiver applies yet) and publish your terms there. This page has no inline terms checkbox.
Select Save form. Saving replaces the form’s questions with the ones you entered on this visit.

You should now see a “Form updated” confirmation. There’s no preview on this page.

Step 3 — Set up renewal reminders

Finally, configure when MapleGather sends members a heads-up before their membership expires.

Go to Memberships > Settings > Auto-renewal.
Under Org-default reminder cadence, review the default offsets (for example, “−30 days before renewal” and “On the renewal date”).
To add or change a reminder, select + Add reminder offset and choose your timing.
Select Save.

You should now see a “Settings saved” confirmation.

What you’ve set up

You now have a live membership level that prospects can apply for, a form that collects the information you need, and renewal reminders that go out automatically. Next, you might want to:

Build your membership application form — add questions to the form
Configure auto-renewal, reminders, and catch-up — fine-tune your reminder cadence or retry schedule
Set up a family or household level — add a second level for families