Try it yourself
What happens when someone joins
- They choose a level and pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Zeffy asks for an optional contribution to itself, pre-selected at 17%; choosing “Other” and leaving the box empty sets it to zero.
- A confirmation email arrives at once with their membership card and Apple/Google Wallet passes — shown below.
- The administrator is notified, and the member appears in the register with their level, payment and expiry date.
- Cards can be printed: each member can download their own card from the confirmation email, and the administrator can download any member’s card from their record in the register, or export the whole register to a spreadsheet.
- Thirty days before expiry, Zeffy sends each member a renewal notice or an expiry reminder.
The email a new member receives
NB: until the Society’s bank account is connected and verified, Zeffy sends a plainer default version of this email — no first name, and the order line reads “1× Ticket” rather than the membership name. The personalised version takes over once verification completes.
About Zeffy
Zeffy is a Canadian fundraising platform, free for charities: it is funded by optional contributions from supporters rather than fees. This demonstration uses its membership and donation tools — join forms, secure card payment, the membership register, digital cards and renewal reminders. The same platform also offers concert ticketing, supporter emails and newsletters, and in-person tap-to-pay, all of which could serve the Society later.
Zeffy offers its own guided tour at zeffy.com/en-gb/home/demo.
Questions and answers
- Does it replicate everything on the current application form?
- Very nearly. Choosing a tier, the personal details, and the optional further donation are all part of the online form (the further donation becomes an optional add-on at checkout). Cheque and bank-transfer payers simply carry on with the paper form as now. The one part not replicated is the signed Gift Aid declaration: on Zeffy, Gift Aid runs through a service called Swiftaid for add-on donations, and whether membership payments themselves qualify is a question for the accountant, exactly as it is on paper.
- Can it capture all the data on the current form?
- Yes. Name, postal address, postcode, email and telephone are standard fields, and anything else — the second member of a Couple membership, titles, or any future question — is added as a custom question. Membership numbers are assigned automatically.
- What payment options does it offer?
- Online: debit or credit card, Apple Pay and Google Pay. There is no Direct Debit. Cheques and bank transfers continue exactly as today and can be recorded manually in Zeffy, so offline payers still appear in the same register.
- How does the administrator hear about a new member, and how they paid?
- An email notification for each new membership, and the full detail — who, which tier, how they paid, when it expires — in the register.
- Where is the data stored, and whose is it?
- Zeffy runs on Amazon Web Services in Canada (the Montreal region) and states compliance with UK GDPR. The member data belongs to the organisation whose Zeffy account runs the form, not to Zeffy. Whether that account is held by WSO or WSS — and therefore who is data controller — is a decision for the two committees; for that reason this demonstration contains dummy data only. Full segregation is available simply by WSS holding its own free Zeffy account.
- Can the policies be edited to be WSS’s own?
- Everything member-facing is ours to write: the form wording, the data-protection statement, and the links, which already point to the Society’s own privacy policy. Zeffy’s platform privacy policy governs the platform itself and is not editable, as with any provider.
- In what format does the data arrive?
- Notification emails as they happen; the register on screen; a spreadsheet (Excel/CSV) export at any time — the same export that would drive card printing.
- When will the data be deleted?
- Zeffy retains data only while the account and purpose require it, and UK GDPR rights (access, correction, erasure, portability) apply. Practically, the administrator can delete any member record at any time, so WSS’s own retention rule can be applied by the Society. The dummy data in this demonstration will be wiped on request.
- Can a member be added manually?
- Yes. A membership can be recorded by hand with an offline payment (cheque or standing order), which adds the member to the register just like an online joiner, and an existing membership list can be imported from a spreadsheet in bulk.
- Could Sponsor a Chair have a price per chair?
- Yes. A Sponsor a Chair page can be built the same way as the membership page: each chair listed with its own name, price and description — the Leader’s chair at one price, principal chairs at another, rank-and-file at another — grouped into sections and chosen from the list before payment. The donation page in this demonstration shows the simpler version, where the giver chooses Sponsor a Chair as a destination and gives any amount.
- How does the free Under 26 year work when year two arrives?
- The free join takes no card details, so nothing is ever charged automatically. Thirty days before the year ends, Zeffy emails the member automatically; to continue they simply join again at the ordinary rate. The register shows who is expiring or lapsed, so the administrator can follow up anyone who doesn’t. It is a prompted re-join rather than an automatic conversion, and the ongoing management is essentially nil.
- What does this cost the Society?
- Nothing. Zeffy charges no fees and takes no percentage, so 100% of each membership arrives. The platform is funded by the optional contribution it asks of the joiner at checkout, which the joiner can set to zero as described above.
- How do renewals behave?
- Automatic renewal is offered at checkout and can be unticked. Those who chose it get a renewal notice 30 days before expiry; everyone else gets an expiry reminder instead. If a card has failed or expired, the membership simply ends — nobody is charged without having agreed to it. Members who pay by cheque or standing order renew exactly as they do now.
- Can our existing members be brought in?
- Yes — the current membership list can be imported from a spreadsheet, including members who pay offline, so the register would show everyone in one place. This has deliberately not been done in the demonstration: no real member data goes into any system until the data-ownership question is settled.
- Who can administer it?
- A Zeffy account has one main login, and a collaborator can be invited to a specific campaign. There are no granular staff roles of the kind larger paid systems offer, which is worth weighing if several people need access.
- Are card details safe?
- Card details are entered directly into the secure fields of Stripe, one of the world’s largest payment processors. Neither the Society nor its volunteers ever see or hold a card number.
- Are we locked in?
- No. There is no contract and no fee, the register exports to a spreadsheet at any time, and Zeffy deletes data on request — so the Society could move to another platform with its records intact.