Leaders Guide to Launching Online Membership for your Association
Congratulations PTA Leaders! You are just a few steps away from the ability to accept online memberships. This new capability provides many advantages for your association:
BENEFITS FOR ASSOCIATIONS
- Easily-promotable online membership signup page
- Automatic direct deposits to association bank accounts
- Automatic remittance to council, district, and state
- Instantly-updated membership roster & email list
- Simpler and more accurate accounting
- Auto-renewing memberships so you can focus on growth
BENEFITS FOR MEMBERS
- Secure, online signup with Credit Card or Mobile Pay
- Smartphone Membership Cards
- Self-management of communication and payment preferences
- Downloadable end-of-year tax documents
More: Video Overview of TOTEM for PTA (no audio)
Launching Online Membership
We have made it easy to activate your associations' online membership site. The entire process can be completed in under 10 minutes.
- Invite/Activate Leaders
- Add & Verify a Bank Account
- Customize Membership Signup
- Launch Online Membership
- Promote Online Membership
Five Easy Steps to Launch Online Membership
Please login to the portal:
https://jointotem.com/dashboard
1. Invite/Activate Leaders
One or more leaders from your associations will receive an email invitation to begin managing your association. The email will come from TOTEM on behalf of your parent association PTA. You may want to check your spam folder if you've been sent an invite, but have not received it.
When the invited leaders click the link, they will register and accept their leadership position, at which point they will have the ability to view and manage settings for the association.
To complete this step:
- Ensure the President has activated their account
- Ensure the Treasurer has activated their account
- Invite a third leader and ensure they have activated their account
More: How to Invite Leaders | How to Manage Leaders
2. Add and Verify a Bank Account
Connecting a bank account enables new memberships and donations to be directly deposited into your association's bank account. Your bank account information is entered and managed securely via our payment partner. This process includes two-factor authentication and double account verification for added fraud protection.
Q: Can our association use an existing bank account or do we need a new account?
A: Your association can use an existing account for this process. It is not necessary to create an additional checking account to receive directly-deposited funds from online membership.
To complete this step:
- The Treasurer (or President) must connect the existing bank account
- The President (or Treasurer) must verify the bank account number
More: How to Connect a Bank Account
3. Customize Membership Signup
Your association has 3 primary views that will be seen by members and can be customized for your organization: the Online Membership Signup Form, Welcome Email, and the Membership Details page. The settings for your association including the Common Name of your association, About Us content, and social links are automatically displayed on these views.
To customize these settings, go to your Dashboard, then click Settings...Profile.
After you have verified all of your association settings, you can preview and further customize each of the views.
To complete this step:
- Verify the correct price for a membership (this is the fee documented in your association Bylaws)
- Set your suggested donation amount, donation callout, or turn off the donation option
- Customize and verify the About Us, Website URL and Social Links
- Set Display In Profile to On for any leaders that should be listed for members
More: HOWTO: Customize Association Branding
4. Launch Online Membership
Once the prior steps are completed, our team will be notified and we will verify your settings to activate your account. Once verified, your leadership team will receive an email that Online Membership is live and instructions for next steps.
To complete this step:
- Complete the prior steps (TOTEM handles the final step)
5. Promote Online Membership
To complete this step:
As a user who purchased a membership for a unit, please follow these steps to locate promoting online membership : login-->memberships-->click on unit (view membership details)-->tell the world you joined
As a leader of a unit, please follow these steps to locate promoting membership online: login-->settings-->applets-->promote
- Link your new Online Membership page to your existing website
- Share your Online Membership page with your school's Principal, Ed Foundation, and other partners so they may link to it
- Add your Online Membership link to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest pages
- Send an Email Blast to your prior year members to announce Online Membership
More: Association Promotion Checklist