In early 2022, the Iowa Bicycle Coalition began moving from a memberships-and-donations model to a donations-only model. This has been for several reasons, but the good news is that it will not impact your benefits in any way. You’ll still get discounts on event registrations, receive our insider’s newsletter, and have inside access to the Coalition’s work. Member benefits and donor benefits have always been the same and will continue to be the same. Thus far, the shift has been largely unintrusive, but if you have been an automatically recurring member this next change needs your attention.
Almost all membership renewals were processed as donations this last year, so any expected “membership” receipts in your account dashboard will instead be found under donations, however, we are not able to reassign automatic membership renewals as donations and so they continue to be processed as memberships.
If you have an active recurring membership plan, it will automatically renew until you stop the renewal or your payment method expires. We are making some changes to the logged-in account dashboard that will no longer show you your current membership status (because no one will be a “member”). However, those contributions will still be automatically attributed as “membership renewals” and not donations. Logging in to get your membership receipts will no longer be a one-click option, and your donations page will not show the membership renewal amounts. For this reason we STRONGLY DO NOT RECOMMEND creating a new membership within your account or through any form on the website.
For the best experience, our recommendation is to stop any automatic renewal of your membership and start a new automatic donation instead. You can do this through your account before the end of the year. If you don’t want to make the change, you will need to contact will@iowabike.org for receipts or to make changes. We will be happy to help, and we will still send you an end-of-year receipt that lists your membership amount for tax purposes.
We hope that this decision makes sense and is not frustrating. Again, if you choose not to make the change, no problem, your membership will still be paid and we’ll still use your contribution for bicycle advocacy, you just won’t be able to see or adjust the settings without contacting me or telling your bank to stop making payment after December 31, 2022.
By making this change we hope to simplify messaging, fix redundant alerts to supporters, and eliminate confusion for new supporters. 🚲
Please direct any questions to will@iowabike.org.
