Membership type groups are an important part of the rules engine, guiding who can apply for a membership of any given type. Membership type groups enforce two simple rules: how many memberships a member may hold concurrently, and any dependencies between tiered memberships. Most organizations only need to define one membership type group for companies, and if this is an individual-based or mixed organization, one for individual members. These groups will be used to make sure members only get a single membership at a time. A more complex organization may require many membership type groups to implement its intricate membership structure.

Membership type groups are only directly exposed in the Super Admin configuration interface of Kavi Members. Once they are defined, you won't see or need to think about membership type groups to complete day-to-day membership management tasks. The membership type groups do, however, influence which memberships can be selected when a member is applying for a new membership or is renewing existing memberships. This makes it worthwhile to understand the basic concepts behind membership type groups, your organization's membership rules, and how membership type groups are implemented for your organization.

Figure 12.1. Uses for Membership Type Groups

Each membership type group can contain one or membership types. The 'Maximum in Group' rule sets how many memberships within the group a member can have at once. Most organizations define one membership type group to contain all of their membership types, with a 'Maximum in Group' limit of one. This translates to a typical membership scenario in which each membership applicant applies for a single membership at a time; a member is either a 'Board' member or a 'Contributor' member, but never both at once.

Some organizations have a tiered membership structure, allowing full members to acquire additional memberships to increase their access to membership benefits. For example, an organization may choose to offer membership in select committees separately from regular membership. They may also decide that this committee membership is only available to certain kinds of regular members, such as only to 'Board' and 'Steering' level members. The membership type group's dependency rules control to whom secondary memberships are available by identifying any prerequisite memberships that must be acquired first.