How to digitise your association's member directory

Choose the details people will actually search

Old registers tend to collect everything. A good directory collects what is needed and shows less than it collects. Sort the details you hold into three groups.

• Details the office needs: membership number, plan, join date, expiry date, documents and payment history. These are never shown to other members.
• Details members search by: name, organisation, city, trade or profession, and for alumni, batch and course. Keep these short and consistent.
• Details members choose to share: phone, email, website, products and services. Let each member decide what is public.

Decide visibility and get consent

A member directory is personal data, and members trust the association with it. Tell members what the directory is for, what will be visible and to whom, and give them a way to change their details. Collect only what you need for that purpose.

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 sets out duties for organisations that process personal data, including having a clear purpose and a valid basis such as consent. How it applies depends on your organisation, so take advice if you are unsure. In any case, a short consent line on the registration form and a clear privacy note are good practice and cost little.

Clean the list you already have

Do not move a messy list and hope to fix it later. Cleaning before the move takes a few days; cleaning afterwards, while members are already looking, takes months and damages trust.

• Remove duplicates. The same member often appears twice with a different spelling or an old phone number.
• Write phone numbers with the country code, for example +91 followed by the ten-digit number, so messages reach them.
• Use one spelling for each city and one name for each company.
• Split full names and addresses into separate parts if your new system expects them.
• Mark records you could not verify, rather than guessing.

Separate the person from the business

For chambers and trade associations, the member is often a firm represented by a person. Keep company details, such as the firm name, trade category and registration number, separately from the representative's own details. When the representative changes, you update one person without losing the firm's history.

Let members maintain their own profiles

The office should not be the only one updating the directory. Give each member their own account and ask them to check their profile. People correct their own details far more readily than they reply to an office email asking for corrections.

Make updating part of renewal. When members renew, ask them to confirm their details at the same time. Over one renewal cycle, most of the directory refreshes itself.

Verify before you publish

If your directory signals that someone is a genuine member, guard it. New registrations should go through an approval step, and where membership depends on documents, such as a registration certificate or a professional qualification, check them before the profile goes live. A directory with fake or unverified entries is worse than no directory.

Launch in stages

A staged launch catches problems while they are small. It also gives you early profiles to show everyone else as examples.

1. 1Start with the committee and office staff. Ask them to complete their profiles and report anything confusing.
2. 2Invite a small group of active members next, and fix what they find.
3. 3Then invite everyone, in batches if your list is large, with a short message explaining what the directory is for and how to join.
4. 4Follow up with members who have not completed their profile after a couple of weeks, by phone if needed.

Make the directory worth opening

A directory members only open once is a filing cabinet. Give them reasons to return: a page for each member's business with their products and services, a way to send an enquiry to another member's business, and a link from event and circular messages back to the directory. The more useful it is, the more members keep their own entry current.

Mistakes to avoid

• Publishing every detail you hold. Phone numbers and addresses should be visible only where the member has agreed.
• Treating the move as a one-off data entry job. A directory needs an owner in the office after launch, not only before it.
• Asking every member to fill in twenty questions on day one. Ask for the essentials first and invite them to add more later.
• Keeping the old spreadsheet running in parallel. Once the digital directory is live, retire the spreadsheet so there is one version of the truth.
• Sending the launch message only by email. Many members will see a WhatsApp message first, so use both.
• Forgetting members who are not comfortable online. Offer to update their profile for them over the phone.

What to do with the printed directory

Many associations still print a directory for the annual meeting, and some members value it. You do not have to stop. Once your records are digital, the printed version is taken from the live records rather than retyped by someone every year.

Pick a cut-off date, take the current list with only the details members agreed to publish, and print from that. The printed copy is then a snapshot of the live directory, and corrections go into the live records, where they will be right next year as well.

How Etribes handles this

In Etribes, new members register online and wait for approval, so you decide who joins. You choose which documents members must upload, and you check them before approving. You can add your own questions to the member and company forms, so the directory holds the details your organisation needs, and each member's status shows whether they are active, pending approval, pending documents or expired.

Approved members appear in a member directory with search and full profiles, including business profiles. Members can publish a public company page to show their work, share a digital visiting card by link, and list their products and services on Vocal4Local, where other members send enquiries straight to them. When a business changes hands, ownership of its profile can be transferred.