Custom Membership Software: Rebuilding a System for 115K+ Members and Saving Staff 30% Time

SUMMARY: This case study explains when membership organizations should consider custom software development instead of off-the-shelf solutions. We rebuilt a legacy membership management system for a 115,000+ member international organization, transforming a 40+ year old failing Visual Basic application into a modern platform. The organization was unknowingly one power outage away from losing 40 years of member data—their database hadn't been backed up in 3 years and was configured to erase all data if the server shut down. After migration to a custom system, tasks that took 8-10 hours now take 15 minutes, employees save 30% of their time daily (18 days post-launch), and the organization can finally manage members, clubs, certifications, and physical operations in one integrated system. This guide covers the decision criteria for custom membership software: when you have legacy systems with irreplaceable data, unique workflows that off-the-shelf platforms can't handle, or complex requirements like managing both individual members and affiliated clubs.

Written by Jake Haynes, CEO of Pilot West Studios, based on a real 10-month project with the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS).

In November 2024, Misty Ebersole, CEO of the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS), reached out to us with what seemed like a straightforward request:

"We need to rebuild our membership software. The system is outdated and our employees waste hours every day on workarounds."

But when we started digging into their existing system, we discovered something terrifying.

Their database—containing 40 years of member data for over 115,000 members internationally—hadn't been backed up in more than three years.

Worse, there was a setting in their Intersystems Cache database configured to erase all data if the virtual machine ever shut down.

One power outage. One server crash. One accidental reboot.

And four decades of membership records, club affiliations, certifications, and organizational history would vanish forever.

Misty had no idea. Her team had no idea. The previous owner who built the system was long gone.

They were running an international organization with 115,000+ members on a ticking time bomb.

The Cost of Almost Losing Everything

If that database had been lost, SASS would have faced a catastrophic setback.

They would have needed to:

• Locate paper files going back years (if they even existed)

• Manually reconstruct member records from renewal letters and event registrations

• Re-enter potentially thousands of data points

• Spend thousands of hours rebuilding what was lost

Conservative estimate: Years of recovery time and massive financial losses in productivity.

And this wasn't some rare edge case. This is what happens when membership organizations outgrow their systems but don't know where to turn.

Why Off-the-Shelf Membership Software Wasn't the Answer

Before we dive into what we built, let's address the obvious question:

"Why not just use an existing membership platform like Wild Apricot, MemberPress, or Chamber Master?"

Fair question. Off-the-shelf membership software works great for many organizations.

But SASS had three critical requirements that made off-the-shelf impossible:

1. They weren't managing just members—they were managing clubs AND members

SASS has 115,000+ individual members across hundreds of affiliated clubs worldwide.

Each club has:

• Its own point of contact

• Separate insurance requirements

• Unique certifications to track

• Independent event scheduling

This is a nested membership structure that most platforms can't handle. You're not just managing a flat list of members—you're managing relationships between members, clubs, regional directors, and international affiliates.

2. They had 40 years of irreplaceable legacy data

Their member database contained:

• Four decades of membership history

• Competition results and rankings

• Certification records

• Purchase history for products and merchandise

• Club affiliations and leadership changes

This wasn't data you could just "import via CSV." It required careful migration from an outdated Visual Basic application and an Intersystems Cache database that most developers have never touched.

3. They had unique physical operational workflows

Unlike purely digital membership platforms, SASS runs physical operations:

• Printing and mailing renewal letters to thousands of members (they're a traditional organization)

• Generating membership cards

• Producing certificates for honors and achievements

• Managing merchandise and product fulfillment

They needed custom workflows that could batch-generate letters, format them for industrial printers, and integrate with their existing mailing processes.

No off-the-shelf platform was built for this.

The Breaking Point: What Daily Life Looked Like Before

Let me paint a picture of what Misty's team dealt with every single day.

The 8-Hour Report That Broke Them

Every quarter, SASS needed to generate a report for their affiliated clubs.

The old process:

1. Export data from the Visual Basic application

2. Import into Crystal Reports (a legacy reporting tool from the 1990s)

3. Manually format and clean the data

4. Cross-reference with other systems to fill in missing information

5. Generate the final report

6. Hope nothing crashed in the middle

Time required: 8-10 hours.

And this wasn't a "set it and forget it" process. Someone had to babysit it the entire time because the system was so fragile.

After we built the new system?

Same report, same data, same output: 15 minutes.

That's a 97% reduction in time for a single report. Multiply that across dozens of reports they run monthly, and you start to see the real cost of outdated membership software.

The Copy-Paste Nightmare

Here's another example of the workarounds they dealt with:

When a new member signed up, staff had to:

1. Enter their information in the main database

2. Copy/paste the same data into 3 other places (from ordering, to accounting, etc.)

Same data. Four different places. All manual.

Why? Because their old system wasn't actually one system—it was a patchwork of tools held together with duct tape and prayers. It's nothing against the person who developed it prior, it was just a few decades behind to how SASS did business in the 21st century.

After our rebuild, everything lives in one unified system. Enter member data once, and it flows everywhere it needs to go automatically.

The Member Search That Shouldn't Have Been Hard

Want to search for a member by email? Couldn't do it.

By phone number? Nope.

By their alias (members in SASS use Old West-style names like "Whiskey Kid" or "Prairie Rose")? Also no.

The only reliable way to find a member was to know their exact member ID number.

Imagine running customer service for 115,000 people and not being able to search by the most basic criteria.

After the rebuild, full-text search across every field. Lightning fast. Exactly what you'd expect from modern software.

The Hidden Complexity: What Makes Membership Software Hard

If you're leading a membership organization and considering custom software, you need to understand why this is more complex than it looks.

It's Not Just a Database

At its core, membership software seems simple:

• Store member information

• Track renewals

• Generate reports

Easy, right?

Wrong.

Here's what SASS actually needed to manage:

Member Management:

• Individual member profiles with 40+ years of history

• Family memberships (multiple people under one account)

• International members across multiple countries

• Member status tracking (active, lapsed, lifetime, honorary)

• Alias verification (no duplicates, no profanity—it's a family-friendly organization)

Club Management:

• Hundreds of affiliated clubs with their own contact information

• Club certifications and insurance requirements

• Club-level event scheduling

• Regional and territorial organization structure

Certifications & Honors:

• Multiple certification levels members can earn

• Tracking who's certified for what

• Expiration dates and renewal requirements

Events & Competitions:

• Sanctioned events across the country

• Competition results and rankings

• Points systems and leaderboards

Physical Operations:

• Batch printing membership cards

• Generating renewal letters for mailing

• Producing certificates

• Coordinating with fulfillment for products

E-Commerce Integration:

• Membership dues processing

• Merchandise sales

• Event registration fees

Now add in 115,000+ members, and every query needs to be fast. Every report needs to be accurate. Every workflow needs to be bulletproof.

This is why off-the-shelf doesn't work. Your workflows aren't generic.

How We Built It: The Custom Membership Software Process

Phase 1: Data Rescue (Months 1-2)

Before we could build anything, we had to secure the data.

The challenge: Misty didn't have access to the original codebase. The previous owner had built the system decades ago, and documentation was non-existent.

Most development firms would have asked Misty to "figure it out" and provide the database credentials.

We didn't. We proactively chased down every contact, tracked down server access, and worked directly with their hosting provider to get what we needed.

Why? Because our job isn't just to write code—it's to solve business problems. If getting database access is blocking the project, we handle it.

When we finally got into the database, we discovered:

• No backups in 3+ years

• The "erase on shutdown" setting

• Data inconsistencies from decades of workarounds

• Schema that had been modified dozens of times with no documentation

We immediately:

1. Backed up everything (multiple redundant copies)

2. Fixed the dangerous database settings

3. Documented the schema

4. Began cleaning and normalizing the data

Timeline: 2 months of data archeology before we wrote a single line of new code.

Most agencies would have skipped this step. We made it Priority #1.

Phase 2: Understanding the Workflows (Months 2-4)

Here's where we diverge from traditional software development.

We didn't just ask: "What features did your old system have?"

We asked: "What are you actually trying to accomplish?"

We spent dozens—maybe hundreds—of hours talking to:

• Misty (CEO) about strategic needs

• Office staff about daily workflows

We documented every process:

• How members join and renew

• How clubs get certified

• How events are scheduled

• How reports are generated

• How mailings are prepared

Then we looked for what could be improved, not just replicated.

Example: The Duplicate Detection Problem

In the old system, when creating a new member, staff had to manually check:

• Is this a duplicate of an existing member?

• Is this alias too similar to someone else's?

• Is this name profane or inappropriate? (Remember, family-friendly organization)

They were doing this by eye. Searching through records. Guessing.

We built an AI-powered tool that:

• Shows the likelihood percentage of potential duplicates

• Flags profanity automatically

• Suggests similar existing members

Result: What used to take 5-10 minutes per new member now takes 30 seconds, with better accuracy.

This is the difference between rebuilding what you had and building what you actually need.

Phase 3: Building & Testing (Months 4-9)

With data secured and workflows documented, we built the system from scratch.

Technology choices:

• Modern cloud architecture (scalable, reliable, secure)

• Database designed for performance at 115K+ member scale

• Mobile-responsive interface (works on desktop, tablet, phone)

• API architecture for future integrations

• Automated backup systems (never again)

But here's what mattered more than technology:

We built in weekly feedback loops.

Every Friday:

• Demo of new features

• Walkthrough of workflows

• Discussion of tradeoffs

• Adjustments based on real use

We didn't disappear for 9 months and come back with a finished product. We built it with them, not for them.

Phase 4: Launch & Optimization (Month 10+)

We launched in September 2025.

The results after just 18 days:

• ✅ Employees saving an average of 30% of their time each day

• ✅ Reports that took 8-10 hours now take 15 minutes

• ✅ All workflows consolidated into one system (no more copy/paste)

• ✅ Zero data loss (40 years of history preserved and accessible)

• ✅ Modern, intuitive interface that staff actually enjoy using

And we're not done. We're still meeting regularly, tweaking, improving, and preparing for Phase 2.

This is what a partnership looks like, not just a vendor relationship.

The Decision Framework: Should You Build Custom Membership Software?

If you're a membership organization leader trying to decide between off-the-shelf and custom, here's your framework:

Build Custom If:

✅ You have legacy data that's irreplaceable
(Like SASS's 40 years of member history)

✅ Your workflows are unique to your organization
(Managing clubs AND members, physical operations, certification tracking)

✅ Off-the-shelf platforms require too many workarounds
(If you're spending hours on manual processes because the software doesn't fit)

✅ You're over 10,000+ members with complex needs
(Scale + complexity = custom makes financial sense)

✅ Your current system is costing you massive amounts of time
(Like 8-hour reports or copy/paste across 4 systems)

Stick with Off-the-Shelf If:

✅ Your membership structure is straightforward (just members, no clubs/chapters)
✅ You're under 5,000 members with simple needs (or under $1M in revenue)
✅ Existing platforms cover 90%+ of your requirements
✅ You don't have critical legacy data to migrate
✅ Budget is extremely tight

The tipping point? When the cost of workarounds exceeds the cost of building custom.

For SASS, those 8-hour quarterly reports alone justified the investment. Multiply that by all the other inefficiencies, and custom software paid for itself in the first year.

Why Most Custom Membership Software Projects Fail (And How to Avoid It)

Let's be honest: Custom software has a bad reputation.

Projects run over budget. Timelines slip. The final product doesn't do what you need.

Here's why—and how to avoid it:

Mistake #1: The Agency Just Rebuilds What You Had

What most agencies do:

• "Tell us what features your old system had"

• Copy those features exactly

• Deliver a modern version of your broken workflows

Result: You get prettier software that still doesn't solve your problems.

What we did differently:
We spent months understanding SASS's actual workflows before writing code. We asked "why" constantly. We identified improvements, not just replications.

That AI duplicate detection tool? That wasn't in the old system. We saw the pain point and solved it.

Mistake #2: Developers Don't Include Your Team

What most agencies do:

• Disappear for months

• Build in isolation

• Come back with something you didn't expect

Result: Software that's technically correct but doesn't fit how your team actually works.

What we did differently:
Weekly demos. Constant feedback. Staff involvement in every decision.

We explained technical tradeoffs in plain English so Misty's team could make informed decisions without needing to know how to code.

Mistake #3: No One Takes Ownership of the Hard Parts

What most agencies do:

• "Just send us the database credentials"

• "Get us access to the codebase"

• "You need to coordinate with your IT department"

Result: Projects stall because no one wants to do the unglamorous work.

What we did differently:
We proactively chased down the data access. We dealt with hosting providers. We handled the messy parts.

Because if data migration is blocking the project, it's our job to unblock it.

The Real Difference: Consultants First, Developers Second

Here's what Misty said in her review:

"They were extremely knowledgeable, educated, and efficient—not just in coding and software development, but in people and the business world as well. They made us feel valued and respected with the intention of building a lasting partnership rather than just collecting a paycheck."

This is the heart of why the project succeeded.

We're not a code factory. We're business consultants who happen to write excellent code.

We care about:

• Your actual business outcomes (not just "shipping features")

• Minimizing disruption to your operations

• Empowering your team to make decisions

• Building something that grows with you

That's why SASS is already planning Phase 2 with us. They trust us because we proved we're invested in their success, not just the project.

What's Next for SASS (Phase 2)

The system is live and saving massive amounts of time. But we're not done.

Phase 2 will include:

• Member-facing portal (self-service renewals, profile updates)

• Enhanced event management tools

• Taking payments at events into a consolidated payment processor

• Integration into their membership forums

• Integrations with third-party tools

Why phase it? Because we believe in quick wins and iterative improvement.

Get something valuable into production fast, then build on it. Don't wait 18 months for perfection.

Case Study Summary: By the Numbers

Organization: Single Action Shooting Society (SASS)
Challenge: Replace failing 40-year-old Visual Basic system managing 115K+ members and affiliated clubs
Timeline: November 2024 - September 2025 (10 months to launch)

Results (18 days post-launch):

• ✅ 30% average time savings per employee per day

• ✅ 97% reduction in report generation time (8-10 hours → 15 minutes)

• ✅ 40 years of legacy data preserved and migrated

• ✅ All workflows consolidated into one system

• ✅ Zero data loss

• ✅ AI-powered duplicate detection and profanity filtering

• ✅ Modern, scalable architecture

• ✅ 5.0/5.0 client rating across all categories

Quote from CEO:

"Tasks that used to take hours now take minutes. They were driven, communicative, and extremely well-organized. They delivered on time and made us feel like our project was a priority. There was nothing they could have done better."

Should Your Membership Organization Build Custom Software?

If you're reading this because you're frustrated with your current membership software, ask yourself:

Three Questions:

1. How much time are your employees wasting on workarounds?
   (Calculate hours per week × 52 weeks × hourly cost)

2. What would happen if your current system failed tomorrow?
   (Could you recover your data? How long would it take?)

3. Are you turning down opportunities because your software can't handle them?
   (New membership types? Better reporting? Integrations you need?)

If the cost of these problems exceeds $50K-100K annually, custom software pays for itself.

If you're managing 10,000+ members with unique workflows, you've likely already hit that threshold.

Want Help Evaluating Your Membership Software Situation?

We offer a free 60-minute consultation for membership organization leaders.

On the call, we'll:

• Review your current system and pain points

• Identify your biggest bottlenecks

• Discuss whether custom, off-the-shelf, or hybrid makes sense

• Provide a rough timeline and budget (no obligation)

• Share lessons from the SASS project that apply to your situation

No sales pitch. No pressure. Just strategic advice from people who've done this before.

Sometimes organizations realize they don't need custom software—they need to optimize what they have. We'll tell you the truth either way.

[SCHEDULE YOUR FREE CONSULTATION →]

Free Resource: The Membership Software Decision Framework

Not ready to talk yet? Download our free guide.

Includes:

• ✅ Decision tree: Custom vs. Off-the-Shelf vs. Hybrid

• ✅ Cost calculator for software inefficiencies

• ✅ Vendor evaluation checklist

• ✅ Questions to ask before starting any software project

[DOWNLOAD FREE FRAMEWORK →]

About Pilot West Studios

We're consultants first, developers second. We specialize in custom membership software and legacy system modernization for organizations managing 10,000+ members.

Our approach:

• Understand your business before writing code

• Build in iterative phases (quick wins, not 18-month projects)

• Proactively handle the messy parts (data migration, legacy systems)

• Explain everything in plain English (no technical jargon)

• Build partnerships, not just vendor relationships

Industries we serve:

• Membership organizations & associations

• Shooting sports & competitive leagues

• Transportation & logistics

• Subscription-based businesses

Based in: Columbia, Tennessee (outside of Nashville, TN)
Experience: 17+ years in custom software development