Need help setting up Scheduled Reminders

Question

I want to use the Scheduled reminders to send emails to all members who are not already members for the upcoming membership cycle. We have a fixed membership cycle that begins on September 1 each year. But we accept memberships starting on June 1 for the new cycle since we don't want people paying for only 1/4 year worth of membership. Anyone joining on June 1 or after will be listed as a member for September 1, 2016 - August 31, 2017.

On August 1 I want a scheduled reminder to go out to members who are not yet paid for 2016/17. Not sure what settings to use. I also want to send another message on September 1, October 1 and December 1 throughout the membership enroll season.

Anyone willing to help me with this? I'm not a programmer. I am just a board member who unfortunately agreed to be Treasurer and in charge of memberships. Ugh! I have one Scheduled reminder set up but not sure at all that the settings are correct.

Thanks if you can help me with this.

Answer 1

That depends on how you record your renewals. The "correct" way to renew a membership doesn't create a second membership, but changes the end date on your original membership. However, that's not workable for many organizations for a variety of reasons.

However, if you do renewals the "correct" way, then you could set your August 1st scheduled reminder to go out 1 month before the membership end date. See screenshot. October 1st can be one month after membership end date, and so on.

Answer 2

You could use CiviMail rather than scheduled reminders.

Create a smart group of existing members and another smart group of those who have paid membership fees since 1 June.

In Civimail the recipients list should include the group of existing members and exclude the group who have already paid for next year.

You then create your email and run it on 1 August.

Reuse it on 1 September and 1 October etc.