Alongside your donate page, GoodBooks gives membership organizations a
public page at https://YOUR-SUBDOMAIN.goodbooks.app/membership where
people can join or renew by card or bank account — no invoice, no check,
no data entry on your side.
Requirements: a plan with membership (Foundation and up), a connected Stripe account (online giving setup), and at least one tier enabled for online renewal.
Putting a tier online
Open the tier under Settings → Membership Settings and switch on "Available on the public membership page." Two prerequisites, enforced by the form:
- The tier has a Fund and Revenue Account — online payments post straight to your books, so GoodBooks has to know where.
- The tier is active.
Once at least one tier is online, the Membership Settings page shows your live link: "Your public membership page is live at …"
What visitors see
Your branding and intro copy, then "Choose a Membership" — one card per
online tier showing the name and price with its period ($100/yr,
$25/qtr, $50 lifetime). Amounts are fixed by the tier. If the tier has
additional charges, the card price already includes
the required ones, and picking the card reveals what's included ("Includes:
District dues ($45.00)") plus a checkbox for each optional add-on that
raises the total when ticked. They enter their contact info, choose Pay
With card or bank account (the bank option appears when you've turned it
on under Settings → Online Payments), optionally check "Yes, I'll cover
the processing fee," and pay.
A footer link ("Looking to make a general donation instead?") sends non-members to your donate page.
What happens on your side
Nothing — that's the point:
- A new person gets a contact record, a member record on the tier they chose, and the welcome email.
- An existing member is matched by email and renewed: status back to active, renewal date advanced exactly one period. Renewing early keeps their remaining time; a lifetime tier sets them to never expire.
- The payment settles through a deposit batch when Stripe pays out, posting to the tier's fund and revenue account, with each additional charge credited to its own account.
- The renewal appears in the member's history like any other, marked as an online renewal.
- Bank-account payments take a few days to clear. Until then the renewal shows as ACH Pending in the member's history and nothing changes on the member: the term doesn't advance, a new member's welcome email waits, and reminders pause. When it clears, everything above happens. If the bank returns the payment, the row is marked failed; an existing member keeps their old term, and a brand-new member who never paid is cancelled.
Good to know
- Online payment covers one period per payment — there's no card-on-file subscription. Pair the page with renewal reminder emails (which go out automatically) so members know when to come back, or use automatic renewal invoicing and let the emailed invoice's pay link do the same job.
- Members are matched by email address — a member who renews online with a different email will create a duplicate contact. Easy to merge awareness: encourage members to use the email you have on file.
- Turning a tier's online switch off removes it from the page immediately; existing members of that tier are unaffected.
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