Membership in INHA

8/12/2015

Dear Staff and Frontliners,

It’s time to renew and reiterate our Membership Program guidelines. Enclosed you will find everything you need and need to know to sell a membership with Intermountain Natural History Association.

When you sell a membership with INHA, you are giving the visitor a chance to support a place that they care about… the money from membership sales is used to help fund agency projects.

To sell a membership, do the following:

1. Explain the program and the membership levels to the visitor.
2. Get the visitors contact information
   1. If using Quickbooks POS, go to the “Customer Name or Phone” entry area, click the drop-down arrow and click “Add New Customer”. Fill in the name, address, phone #, email address, membership card #, the expiration date (last day of the month 1 year away i.e. April 30, 2013), Membership Level, Free Sojourns (“Y” or “N”)[This is only for those who buy the $50 and up memberships.] and Customer Type (from drop-down list).
   2. If you use a regular cash register, fill out the Membership Register form with all of the applicable info.
3. Fill out a membership card (make sure the number is recorded in the POS program or on the Membership Register Form) and give the new member a copy of the “Dear New Member” letter.
4. Ring up the membership in the POS program or on the cash register and apply the Membership pricing to the purchases they are making.
   1. In the POS program, ring up everything as normal (Type in “Mem” to find the right level of membership). Click the green “I Want To…” button, scroll down and click “Change Price Level”, click “Member/Teacher”. You will automatically go back to the “Make a Sale” screen and all pricing will be correct for a member. Any item that we sell that is priced under $1 will purposely not be discounted, the membership itself will not be discounted, postage stamps will not be discounted and other things that may already be discounted for clearance or special package pricing will not be discounted further. It’s all set up in our main office as we program it and you normally won’t need to change anything.
   2. With a normal cash register, follow the written instructions that pertain to that cash register, or you can use a calculator and figure the individual prices of each item by multiplying the price by .85 (15% discount). Please note the items listed in the paragraph above that do not receive the membership discount.
5. If you have them in stock, the new member may take a Sojourns magazine if they are at the $50 level or above. Ring it up but charge them $0.00 for it. You will have to manually change that price in the POS system.

To renew a membership for someone who has a current (or recently expired) membership with INHA, follow all of the same steps as above except edit their information in the POS, don’t “Add New Customer”, and issue them a new Membership Card.

1. In the POS, you should be able to look up the existing membership. Just click their name from the drop-down list and edit any appropriate fields… especially the membership card # and the expiration date. Verify that all of the other information that we have is correct.
2. Again, if you have them in stock, the renewing member may take a (any) Sojourns magazine if they are at the $50 level or above. Ring it up but charge them $0.00 for it. You will have to manually change that price in the POS system.

Most Cooperating Associations like INHA that operate in national parks, national recreation areas and other types of visitor centers honor our 15% discount, as we honor theirs if a visitor has a membership with another association, i.e. Grand Canyon Association or Yellowstone Association. If a visitor presents a membership card from another association, please give them the normal “Member” discount as you would one of our members. You do not need to take all of their information… only if they are purchasing a membership from us. Only memberships with “co-operating associations” like INHA will get them a discount—no other cards, like military ID, Disability cards or Park Passes will get them a discount. The only exception is school teachers if they are buying for their classes—they will usually ask for the discount and don’t usually have a problem producing some type of ID to show that they are a teacher.

 The website at this link: http://www.appl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3384 explains the “Reciprocal Discount” programs that are in place and lists all of the currently co-operating associations and their discount. You’ll notice that it’s not the same everywhere—that’s up to each individual organization to decide. INHA offers a 15% reciprocal discount.

ONE OTHER ITEM ON DISCOUNTS—THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HAS REGULATIONS IN THEIR “DIRECTOR’S ORDERS” ABOUT PARK SERVICE PERSONNEL RECEIVING DISCOUNTS—THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO RECEIVE A DISCOUNT BECAUSE THEY WORK FOR THE PARK SERVICE. THAT IS NOT INHA’S RULE—IT’S A PARK SERVICE RULE. IF A PARK SERVICE EMPLOYEE PURCHASES A MEMBERSHIP, THEY GET THE SAME DISCOUNTS AS ANY MEMBER. THE “EMPLOYEE” DISCOUNT IN THE QUICKBOOKS POS SYSTEM IS FOR INHA EMPLOYEES, NOT PARK SERVICE EMPLOYEES. YOU MAY ENCOURAGE THEM TO CALCULATE THEIR SAVINGS AFTER BUYING A MEMBERSHIP TO SEE HOW MUCH THEY WOULD NEED TO PURCHASE TO JUSTIFY THE $25 BASIC MEMBER COST. WE LOVE OUR PARK SERVICE CO-WORKERS—WE JUST DON’T WANT SOMEBODY GETTING IN TROUBLE BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE WE’RE SEEKING FAVORS.

MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM

Purpose of Our Program

 Intermountain Natural History Association is a not-for-profit organization that supports educational and interpretive activities at Dinosaur and Fossil Butte national monuments, Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, the Ashley and Uinta-Wasatch-Cache national forests, and the John Jarvie Historic Property.

This support primarily takes the form of funds donated at the request of the agencies for specific activities or projects. This may include the production and printing of visitor orientation materials and interpretive signs, staffing of information desks and the purchase of supplies in support of environmental education programs. The INHA membership program was developed as a way to supplement bookstore sales income and increase our effectiveness in helping to protect the resources of our partner agencies.

PDF of the above info