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Sponsored – MemberHub.com Aims High with Member Collaboration and Management App

Posted by John Saddington on Jan 30, 2009

logoThis is a Sponsored Post. We never take sponsorship from anyone that we can’t endorse or that conflicts with the interest of this community.

I’ll be honest: I’m extremely skeptical when it comes to seeing “new” platforms that function a) extremely similarly to applications and software that are either already out there, b) that “cost” something, and c) that suggest “innovation” but really don’t do much of that at all.

memberhub_main_homeMemberHub, from the front-side, could easily fall into all three categories quickly. But that’s if you didn’t know any better and didn’t look beyond the orange-peel’d color logo and some of your typical industry buzzwords.

When asked to review it and provide some valuable feedback I was “hungry” to jump right in. I was looking to quickly take note of deficiences and possible “letdowns” but honestly, after walking through their online demo, I came away refreshed and very pleased with their product.

From their website:memberhub_home

MemberHub was designed specifically to help churches provide and manage private, online homes for each of their sub-groups.

Members can easily communicate privately with other members from the group in which they are involved such as small groups, Sunday school class or leadership council.

MemberHub provides a single, centralized solution conveniently available online. Your church can enjoy an interactive online community to:

  • Help groups stay organized and build community
  • Instantly communicate changes and cancelations with text messaging
  • Share important files such as sermons, pictures, documents, etc.
  • Organize member information, status, interests, skills and involvement
  • Manage community and group events and schedules such as pastoral care
  • Enhance member relations with contact information and member photos

memberhub_other_profileSo what did I see from my perspective?

MemberHub essentially offers a simple and easy to use web-based social application to help your community, church, or organization manage, communicate, and collaborate with each other. The goal is to provide a tool that will make you more effective at what you’re already doing.

What’s nice is that they’ve canned any “half-baked” attempts to provide a so-called innovative solution “just because” and they’ve instead decided to provide a robust solution that just does a good job of doing what they’ve claimed it’s supposed to do.

You see, many businesses and software development shops add “cool” gizmos and gadgets just so they can carry a title of innovation while others just do a good job of providing effective services and functionality without any bloatware. I think MemberHub does the latter.

memberhub_announcementsI think this is, perhaps, it’s strongest suit (and perhaps what makes it truly innovative…!), not to mention that it’s got an extremely good looking GUI and user interface and design. I like it when it’s apparent they’ve spent a few dollars on usability studies and analysis.

Subtle and light-toned colors were easy on the eyes and tons of strategic white space made the app feel big yet manageable and small.

The result was a refreshing experience of managing members, adding events, communicating announcements, and generally managment of the organization.

memberhub_calendar_instanceYou know what’s also pretty funny? I did my initial review before browsing their provided fact sheets and marketing material and found that Matt, one of the founders, had actually mentioned in one of the provided documents this quote:

“One of the major reasons we’re doing this is that we’re passionate about making great software: software that’s easy to use, that looks good and serves a purpose,” says Matt. “We want people to feel that when they use MemberHub. We also want them to feel like part of the team.”

memberhub_settingsHe wasn’t kidding. Easy to use, looks good, and serves it’s purpose. Right on.

Some other nice advantages is that it’s not built on Flash or any other platforms that may slow down performance of the users end experience or require additional downloads to work.

If you’re in the market to leverage some web technology to provide better communication, management, and documents/files, etc… this would be a good place to start.

Their free trial will more than give you a taste of what you’d experience and they’ve personally guaranteed this community a price point of $.10/person/month. Yes, 10 cents:

For ChurchCrunch readers, on the MemberHub signup page you may enter the coupon code: churchcrunch0129. This coupon code will work through March 31, 2009 and will lock you in on the introductory rate of 10 cents per member per month for 12 months.

MemberHub says their pricing will soon change to 12 cents per member per month.

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John Saddington

John is the Chief Editor @ The 8BIT Network and Senior Blog Junkie here at ChurchCrunch.He enjoys Triple-Tall Americanos, developing Wordpress Themes, and a few other Random Things.

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13 Responses to “Sponsored – MemberHub.com Aims High with Member Collaboration and Management App”

  1. Ben Cotten
    Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 5:26 am

    Without doing a whole other post, how do you think this compares to Unifyer?

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 1:30 pm

      I think it's a whole lot prettier.

      :) and cheaper, right? if i remember correctly. i certainly like how it's not based on flash.

      Reply
  2. Matt Harrell
    Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 5:59 pm

    Hey Ben. I've yet to check out Unifyer in great detail, but I'd like to take a moment to address your question. Besides John's comments, which are dead on, one of the more significant differences is the membership management in addition to the group communications that MemberHub gives you. For example, an organization in MemberHub will see a combined view of all the people across all their groups. You can then manage custom information about those people, tag them and then sort based on that information. Even export the list to a spreadsheet and print the records out. You'll also see a full listing of all the hubs (groups) under you organization. Then you can put people in hubs and invite them into hubs, etc. We are also working on registrations and form building for organizations followed by dues, donations and pledges. This will allow administrators to collect registration fees, dues and donations. MemberHub will ultimately be the simple, affordable solution to membership management and group collaboration. It's this combination that makes MemberHub unique. Then there is the whole member experience where they can see hubs across all the organizations that are using MemberHub as well as create free hubs for themselves. I could go on…obviously ;-) . We would love the opportunity to give you a demo of the system in it's entirety if you're at all interested.

    Reply
  3. Member Management
    Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 8:45 pm

    Memberhub – Nice looking application. Compete-At has a mature product out of beta that is comparably priced. I'm a bit confused as to what makes Memberhub so focused on "Churches". What is the functionality that is unique to that market segment?

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Friday, February 6, 2009 at 1:00 am

      It apparently is one vertical and industry that they are targeting, but certainly the application can be used for a host of others as well.

      Reply
  4. Matt Harrell
    Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 9:31 pm

    Great question. I would love to talk to you offline about MemberHub and why we're initially targeting churches and non-profits. Our goal is to help churches, ministries and small groups enhance communication. You can learn more here http://memberhub.com/organizations/churches/.And you can reach me at matt.harrell@memberhub.com. Thanks for checking us out!!!!

    Reply
  5. Daniel_Berman
    Friday, March 6, 2009 at 4:39 am

    I just signed up for a small group hub on MemberHub. While I am impressed at the focus on Churches I am curious as to how people's experience has stacked with MemberHub compared to something like Ning?

    Reply
    • Ben Cotten
      Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 8:18 pm

      I've been tempted by Ning, but I'm not sure I want to create a "Facebook for Christians" social network for my church. Maybe there's some value to that, but I'm hesitant because I'd much rather my church deeply engage the world on Facebook (or, I suppose, MySpace).

      What attracts me to MemberHub is that it solves some problems for me in regards to how to organize my small groups and facilitate new members getting connected without creating a huge social network. I haven't pulled the trigger on MemberHub, but I'm checking it out seriously. If we decide to go with it, I'll come back with my thoughts on it.

      Reply
      • Matt Harrell
        Monday, March 9, 2009 at 1:13 am

        We certainly do appreciate it! I was just formulating my response:
        I tend to agree that we as Christians don't need or want a Christian social network. In fact, there are so many instances where churches are looking to use social networking for communications, logistics, planning, etc. when that's not at all what social networking is intended for. It's intended to "network".
        But when you're in a church and are involved in various ministries and groups you don't need to network with these folks, you need take care of the business of being a member. You need to plan, share a calendar, get reminders, have discussions and generally be accessible to each other. Technology and the internet is perfect for that! MemberHub is not about social networking. It's about giving the groups in your church and other organizations a place for them to connect, share information, share ideas, plan, and again, be accessible to each other in a private environment. This takes the burden off the administrators of the organization, by empowering the groups to connect and get things done on their own accord!

        Thanks Ben. Please contact us if you'd like a demo or I can connect you with another customer. And you to Daniel. Thanks guys!

        Reply
  6. human3rror
    Monday, March 9, 2009 at 1:02 am

    ben,

    thanks for sharing this. i'm sure they appreciate it!

    Reply

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