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I’ll be honest: I’m extremely skeptical when it comes to seeing “new” platforms that function a) extremely similarly to applications and software that are either already out there, b) that “cost” something, and c) that suggest “innovation” but really don’t do much of that at all.
MemberHub, from the front-side, could easily fall into all three categories quickly. But that’s if you didn’t know any better and didn’t look beyond the orange-peel’d color logo and some of your typical industry buzzwords.
When asked to review it and provide some valuable feedback I was “hungry” to jump right in. I was looking to quickly take note of deficiences and possible “letdowns” but honestly, after walking through their online demo, I came away refreshed and very pleased with their product.
From their website:
MemberHub was designed specifically to help churches provide and manage private, online homes for each of their sub-groups.
Members can easily communicate privately with other members from the group in which they are involved such as small groups, Sunday school class or leadership council.
MemberHub provides a single, centralized solution conveniently available online. Your church can enjoy an interactive online community to:
- Help groups stay organized and build community
- Instantly communicate changes and cancelations with text messaging
- Share important files such as sermons, pictures, documents, etc.
- Organize member information, status, interests, skills and involvement
- Manage community and group events and schedules such as pastoral care
- Enhance member relations with contact information and member photos
So what did I see from my perspective?
MemberHub essentially offers a simple and easy to use web-based social application to help your community, church, or organization manage, communicate, and collaborate with each other. The goal is to provide a tool that will make you more effective at what you’re already doing.
What’s nice is that they’ve canned any “half-baked” attempts to provide a so-called innovative solution “just because” and they’ve instead decided to provide a robust solution that just does a good job of doing what they’ve claimed it’s supposed to do.
You see, many businesses and software development shops add “cool” gizmos and gadgets just so they can carry a title of innovation while others just do a good job of providing effective services and functionality without any bloatware. I think MemberHub does the latter.
I think this is, perhaps, it’s strongest suit (and perhaps what makes it truly innovative…!), not to mention that it’s got an extremely good looking GUI and user interface and design. I like it when it’s apparent they’ve spent a few dollars on usability studies and analysis.
Subtle and light-toned colors were easy on the eyes and tons of strategic white space made the app feel big yet manageable and small.
The result was a refreshing experience of managing members, adding events, communicating announcements, and generally managment of the organization.
You know what’s also pretty funny? I did my initial review before browsing their provided fact sheets and marketing material and found that Matt, one of the founders, had actually mentioned in one of the provided documents this quote:
“One of the major reasons we’re doing this is that we’re passionate about making great software: software that’s easy to use, that looks good and serves a purpose,” says Matt. “We want people to feel that when they use MemberHub. We also want them to feel like part of the team.”
He wasn’t kidding. Easy to use, looks good, and serves it’s purpose. Right on.
Some other nice advantages is that it’s not built on Flash or any other platforms that may slow down performance of the users end experience or require additional downloads to work.
If you’re in the market to leverage some web technology to provide better communication, management, and documents/files, etc… this would be a good place to start.
Their free trial will more than give you a taste of what you’d experience and they’ve personally guaranteed this community a price point of $.10/person/month. Yes, 10 cents:
For ChurchCrunch readers, on the MemberHub signup page you may enter the coupon code: churchcrunch0129. This coupon code will work through March 31, 2009 and will lock you in on the introductory rate of 10 cents per member per month for 12 months.
MemberHub says their pricing will soon change to 12 cents per member per month.
Tell them ChurchCrunch sent you!
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This passed my desk just after I decided to split town and take a break from the insanity that is “online.”
Apologies.
There is so much great stuff out there in regards to plugins for 
And it’s not that I don’t love you guys… 
