What this helps you do
DirectToMembers is a communication channel, not a membership record. It needs an email address, a name, and the audiences a person belongs to or chose. It does not need, and should not be used to hold, membership status, member or member-company IDs, dues balances, paid-through, renewal or join dates, billing or payment details, voting or governance eligibility, attendance, credential or designation records, or private membership notes.
When to use it
Read this before your first import, before you write a staff note, and before you write any message about one member rather than an audience.
How to do it
- Prepare a communication-only export from your membership system: email, name and an audiences column. The Hub discards every other column and every other webhook field before anything is saved, but don't send them in the first place.
- If a class or designation should decide who hears something, make it a named audience; the Hub keeps the audience assignment, not the field it came from.
- Keep messages about the organization and its parts, never about one member's dues, standing or eligibility.
- Keep staff notes to what communication needs. Never record dues, payments, status, disciplinary matters or eligibility there.
- Don't import birthdays or membership dates. The preferences page doesn't ask for them either.
Example
The membership coordinator starts to upload the full member export, with member IDs, paid-through dates and dues balances. The preview shows those columns as not stored, and the coordinator re-exports just email, name and audiences instead.
Good to know
- Discarding columns is how the import works for membership organizations. It is not a scan for sensitive data and makes no compliance claim; what you export is still your organization's decision.
- Connecting on Blasts is the member's own choice, on a device they choose. The organization sees that a person is connected, never their device, their location or their notification settings.