Report new Wild Apricot members by month

The Members widget on the Wild Apricot Dashboard counts New members for the current month with the Member since date. Use the same field for a monthly board report. Then your spreadsheet and the Dashboard follow one rule.

Know what Member since means

Wild Apricot describes Member since as the date the contact became a member. An administrator can set this date when they import members. If an import does not include a Member since column, Wild Apricot sets the value to the import date (importing contacts and members). Thus, one large import can make one month look like a peak of new members. Look for this before you report a spike.

A Pending - New membership is not yet activated. It waits for administrator approval or for payment (member and contact statuses). Decide whether your report counts these applications, and write the rule down.

Export the fields

Go to Members, then Summary. Click Export all, or filter the list and click Export (exporting members). Select these columns:

• User ID
• Membership level
• Membership status
• Membership enabled
• Member since
• Archived

In an export, a suspended member has Membership enabled set to No. For full steps, see how to export Wild Apricot members.

Build the monthly count

In a spreadsheet:

1. Remove rows with a blank Membership level. These are contacts, not members.
2. Remove archived records, unless your report rule includes them.
3. Remove rows where Membership enabled is No, unless your report rule includes suspended members.
4. Apply your rule for Pending - New rows.
5. Add a column with the month of Member since.
6. Count User ID for each month.

A pivot table gives the clearest result. Put the month in rows, Membership level in columns and the count of User ID in values.

The report tool does the same count in your browser. It counts a member as new in the month of their Member since date. It removes rows with no Membership level. It also removes archived and suspended records, unless you select the settings to include them. Its data-quality panel shows how many Pending - New applications the export holds. The monthly table also shows the export month, so you can see new members to date. See how the tool calculates each metric.

Compare the current month with the Dashboard

The Dashboard New count uses Member since for the current month. If your spreadsheet total is different, check these items:

• The export date. Make the export on the day that you read the Dashboard.
• Archived and suspended records in your working table.
• Your rule for Pending - New rows.
• Member since values that an import set.
• Duplicate User IDs from copied or merged files.

Give the count context

Show new members beside lapsed members and active members. A month with many new members can still end with fewer active members if more members lapsed. For the lapsed side, see find lapsed members.

Write campaign or season notes next to the table, not in the raw export. Put the export date and your filter rules in the board packet. Save each monthly table with its reporting period in the file name. For a full routine, use the monthly membership reporting checklist.