Software a volunteer committee can hand over
An association budget is the dues that came in this year, and every recurring cost has to be listed in the accounts and approved at the AGM by people who will not be on the committee in two years. AlumDeck is one payment for the whole thing: directory, committee pages, dues and donations, events and newsletters.
Installs on an ordinary shared hosting account bought in the association's own name, in about ten minutes.
per installation
- Member directory, searchable by batch, city and profession
- Committee and office bearer pages
- Giving pages for dues, appeals and memorial funds
- Events with RSVPs and capacity limits
- News, newsletters and email campaigns
- Unlimited members, admins and committee accounts
Includes twelve months of updates and email support. After that the software carries on running exactly as installed.
What the subscription platforms ask for, every year
Published prices from vendor pricing pages, shown as a yearly figure. Associations are usually quoted the same rates as institutions with paid staff.
For an association, the problem with a subscription is not the money
A platform at $30 a month is $360 a year, and most associations could find $360. The damage a recurring cost does to a volunteer organisation is a different kind of damage.
It has to appear in the accounts, be explained at the annual general meeting, and be re-approved by a committee that has partly turned over since the last one. Every year it is a decision, and every year it competes with the reunion deposit.
It also has to be paid by somebody, and that is usually a card belonging to whoever was treasurer when you signed up. When they step down the card is cancelled, the renewal fails, and the association finds out when the site goes dark.
One payment, and a handover file that fits on a page
AlumDeck removes the recurring decision. One payment, once, for the installation. Buy the hosting in the association's name rather than a member's, put the hosting login, database name and admin account into the handover file the secretary passes on, and the continuity plan is finished.
What still needs a named owner
Self-hosting does not remove the need for a person. Somebody has to hold the hosting account, apply updates and notice when the site is down. That job should be attached to a post - webmaster, or the secretary's remit - and written into the role description, not left with whoever was enthusiastic in the year you launched.
The things a committee is actually asked to do
All included in the one licence, with nothing sold separately later. Turn off whatever your committee will not maintain.
A directory members keep current
Searchable by name, batch year, city, country, profession and employer. Members edit their own details and choose what is public, which is the only way a directory stays accurate without a volunteer retyping it.
Verification before anyone appears
Every registration waits for a committee member to approve it. Where membership carries dues or voting rights, that check is the point rather than a nicety.
Committee and office bearers
A proper page for the current president, secretary and treasurer, with photos and terms of office, plus a timeline for the association's own history.
Dues, appeals and memorial funds
Branded giving pages and campaign tracking on your own site. No platform percentage is taken out of what you raise, because there is no platform sitting in the middle.
Reunions and chapter meets
Events with RSVPs and capacity limits, so the hall booking matches the numbers and the list closes itself. Attendance can be exported for the door.
Newsletters without a second tool
Write the story once, publish it to the site and email it to members from the same admin panel, instead of keeping a mailing list somewhere else and pasting between the two.
The reunion page should be findable by someone who lost touch in 1994
Alumni who drifted away will not create an account to find out whether a reunion exists. AlumDeck publishes events, news, galleries and the giving page publicly, and keeps the directory, profiles and member details behind the login where they belong.
Every screenshot here is a running AlumDeck install, configured as a college alumni association, with real content in it.
See the screenshot tour
The handover file, written in advance
In the association's name
- The domain registration
- The hosting account and its billing contact
- The email address the accounts are opened under
- The AlumDeck licence key
- One administrator account per committee post
Written down for the next committee
- Hosting control panel login
- Database name and user
- Where the backups are and how to restore one
- Who applies updates, and when they check
- Which modules you deliberately switched off
What you never have to do
- Transfer a subscription between two people's cards
- Email a vendor to change the account holder
- Re-approve a renewal at every AGM
- Request an export of your own member list
When an association should not buy AlumDeck
There are associations for whom this is the wrong purchase, and we would rather say it here than take $49 from a committee that will abandon the site by August.
Your association is a group chat and a reunion every five years
If that is genuinely all you do, a free group on a social network is doing the job. Do not buy software for a problem you do not have. Move when you need to verify who is a member, hold dues, keep an accurate list you own, or reach people who are not on that network.
Nobody will hold the hosting account
This is the failure mode for volunteer bodies. Self-hosted software with no owner becomes an unpatched site holding your members' personal details. If no committee member will take the role, a hosted platform where patching is somebody's paid job is safer, even at a subscription price.
You need it launched by someone else, this month
There is no setup service, no migration project and no onboarding call. Support is email, included for a year. If the committee needs a supplier who will do the work for them, that supplier is not us. Hiring a local developer for an afternoon on top of the $49 is often the sensible middle path.
What committees ask
We already have a Facebook group. Why pay for anything?
A social network group is free and everybody is already on it. That is a real advantage and we will not pretend otherwise.
Associations move for ownership and control: you cannot export a member list you do not own, verify that a member is genuinely an alumnus, collect dues properly, or survive the day one personal account disappears. If none of that troubles your committee, stay where you are.
Can the whole committee have logins?
Yes. There is no seat charge and no user limit, so the secretary, the treasurer, the events convenor and each chapter lead can have their own account rather than sharing one password.
How does a one-time licence appear in the accounts?
As a single software purchase in the year you buy it. The only recurring lines are hosting, from roughly $3 a month, and the domain renewal. For a treasurer that is an easier item to present than a subscription that grows with membership.
Can members pay their subscriptions through the site?
AlumDeck gives you branded giving and donation pages with campaign tracking on your own site, and takes no percentage of what you receive. Payment providers vary a great deal by country, so email hello@alumdeck.com and confirm what your association needs is supported before you buy.
What happens at the handover to a new committee?
You change the administrator passwords and pass on the file described above. There is no vendor to notify, no account holder to transfer and no subscription to move between cards. The thing that outlives the committee is the hosting account, not one member's payment method.
What if we ignore it for a year?
The site keeps running. Nothing expires, nothing switches off and your data stays in your database.
The honest caveat is that an unmaintained site holding member data is a liability rather than an asset. If a year of neglect is a realistic prediction, plan for who wakes it up before you launch it.
Give the association something the next committee can inherit
$49 once, unlimited members and committee logins, and a year of updates and support while you get it launched.
Checkout is opening shortly. Email hello@alumdeck.com to be told when, or to ask whether it fits your committee first.