Search the internet for charity management software and hundreds of choices will crop up. Some will focus on CRM functions for fund-raising teams, others on donation management, and most will include a form of subscription management. These packages will range from those big enough to run an Oxfam or a British Heart Foundation down to a local school PTA or a sports team. 

A search for association management software will produce a much more limited list. Trade associations, professional bodies, and clubs differ from charities in a few key ways. Firstly, they are much more likely to be event orientated, running meetings, excursions, training courses, AGMs and conferences. Secondly, part of the membership proposition may include access to useful articles, academic papers or how-to guides listed in a members-only area on the website. They may also run training classes and certifications, and these will almost certainly carry a member's discount. 

Thirdly, and this is a real differentiator between charities and associations, even though there is only one paid membership, member privileges may well extend to other employees, colleagues or family members. This "one membership:multiple members" is a tricky problem to solve in a simple way. It can be considered as a bundle of memberships, or as multiple contacts within a single member organization. Either way, there is generally a main contact or bundle administrator who takes care of paying the membership. They provide the ongoing point of contact, pulling together the additional people within the group, family or organization who will also have web logins and will share member benefits.

And here is the crunch. Managing multiple contact profiles per membership subscription is a huge administrative overhead for the association. These days, users and members are used to maintaining their own profiles in a self-service way, but providing that capability for a bundle administrator or main contact to list their local team or group, and maintain it online themselves, is a huge differentiator between charity software and association software - and it saves a huge amount of form-filling, data-keying and updating. Even then, some of the longest established heavyweight AMS systems still don't have this basic functionality sorted out, and for others it requires technical integration between the website and the members database.

Even with self-service for multiple memberships, and individual logins, there is the problem of one email address used for more than one individual or family member...but that's an issue for another day!