The Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association (SORBA) is preparing to manage its own membership software directly. With 47 chapters spread across seven states and over 10,000 members, SORBA has unique membership management needs that have chronically gone unmet by the software provided by the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA), according to the group.
IMBA’s membership management system hasn’t appreciably changed since 2011, according to Philip Darden, Executive Director of SORBA. SORBA has been asking for an updated membership management system for years, and that request hasn’t been fulfilled.
“Within the current IMBA system, SORBA doesn’t have the ability to go in and on a landing page, see how many people are in SORBA, see if there are people that we need to reach out to that need to renew their membership. We just don’t have that option,” said Darden. “The only thing I can do is I can email a few different groups, but in order to figure out how many members SORBA has as a region, I have to log into each chapter’s individual landing page, see what their membership is, put it in a spreadsheet to calculate the total of what SORBA’s membership is.
“It’s a 30-minute process when really, I should just be able to log into a website,” Darden shared.
“IMBA will admit that they are not a technology expert, they’re not a tech company,” Darden continued. “They’re a trail advocacy company.”
IMBA claims that a new membership management system is coming, but according to Darden, the new system was originally supposed to roll out in early 2025. Now, IMBA’s system isn’t anticipated to roll out until mid-2026… at the earliest.
And SORBA can’t wait that long.
The regional SORBA organization is run by paid full-time staff, and many of their chapters are working to hire staff. Currently, four chapters have paid staff, including executive directors and trail crews. “And then we’ve got multiple organizations right now that are in various stages of either […] hiring somebody or trying to figure out, functionally, how they can hire full-time people,” said Darden.
Darden anticipates that within just a couple of years, they may have up to 12 chapters with paid staff — a 300% increase over the present. This echoes a trend sweeping the nation that Singletracks has observed of formerly volunteer-run organizations becoming more professional by hiring staff to get the work done. The job of SORBA’s regional leadership is to make it easier for their chapters to do the important work, and IMBA’s current software isn’t sufficient.
Money matters
Membership dues funneled into SORBA are split 40-40-20. 40% goes to SORBA regional, 40% to the local SORBA chapter, and 20% to IMBA to pay for their membership management system. 20% of all membership dues is a hefty price tag for a membership management system that doesn’t actually meet SORBA’s need.
In a recently-published FAQ about the new changes, SORBA emphasizes how lean of an organization they are. “Our highest paid employee makes $66,000 a year, which isn’t even our largest expense, and an annual budget under $250,000,” SORBA writes. “When compared to our peers of similar organizations, SORBA is well below the industry standard. If you take a look at our programs page, it’s amazing what we provide. We are passionate about our mission and work within a tight budget to achieve that goal.”
Along with being a lean non-profit, SORBA’s goal is to return as much money to the local chapters as possible, and they view this new membership management system as a significant step in making that happen.
After the transition to their own management system, the 20% revenue split will continue to fund the new management system for three years. “Then after three years, we go to a 50/50 split, where SORBA and chapters are splitting funds 50/50,” said Darden. At that time, SORBA regional will be raising enough funds to cover the cost of the management system and continue providing that service for their chapters. This will result in a net 10% increase of funds going to chapters.
But they don’t plan to stop there. “My long-term goal would be like a 20/80 split with chapters retaining 80% and SORBA keeping 20%,” said Darden. “I think that there will always need to be some sort of monetary buy-in on it, because we do pay for liability insurance and a bunch of services, and I think that people will still need to pay for that in some way. But if we can minimize that as much as possible, it’d be an incredible improvement to local organizations.”
In addition to membership management and liability insurance, SORBA will also take on HR management tasks, such as payroll, for its regional employees and employees at local chapters. Currently, that is outsourced to IMBA.
Start-up costs and fundraising
SORBA plans to roll out the new membership program on April 1, 2025. In order to launch this new program, they’re working to raise $125,000 for start-up costs. This amount includes the first year of salary for “a new staff person, and any of the information transition costs that might be associated with moving to a new platform.” Once the first year has passed, the 20% split will sustain the program for the following three years.
SORBA isn’t levying any fees against its local chapters to fund this new membership management program. Instead, they’re actively working to fundraise the $125,000 amount through donations and possible grant funding. However, some of the larger chapters have already said that they’re willing to donate to the project.
In fact, fundraising is a big priority for Darden moving forward. “Historically, SORBA hasn’t been the best at raising our own funds,” said Darden. “We’ve functioned primarily off of membership dues. That’s not long-term sustainable. It’s not long-term sustainable for SORBA or for our chapters.”
“We want to get to a point where SORBA is raising enough money to pay for all of these amenities so that we can see ourselves as something that alleviates a burden off of our chapters rather than […] our chapters are a funding mechanism for SORBA,” Darden continued.
Continued collaboration with IMBA
Even though IMBA’s membership management software doesn’t work for SORBA, Darden was adamant that SORBA will continue to partner with IMBA moving forward.
“The thing that I definitely want to get across is that we don’t hate IMBA. We’re not leaving IMBA. We’re not getting rid of IMBA. We still think that there is a lot of importance to being a part of IMBA. We just feel like we’ll do a better job of managing our own membership.”
Darden went on to say that SORBA “totally aligns with IMBA’s policies and feels that it’s important to maintain a national-level partnership.”
When pressed on whether or not SORBA will continue to be an IMBA Local organization following the April 1 transition, Darden hedged, saying that he’s not entirely sure due to transitions that may be taking place behind the scenes at IMBA.
Whether or not SORBA will technically be an IMBA Local organization, “we will make a donation of sorts to IMBA on an annual basis to make sure that there’s still a strong organization. We will work with them on national efforts and be a good partner like we’ve always been,” said Darden.
What does this mean for individual members?
Individual members shouldn’t experience much change, but they will eventually need to switch their payment method over to the new system. Credit card numbers and other payment methods are not stored to protect members’ privacy and so they cannot be transferred over. However, exactly when each member will need to update their payment method depends on the date they originally registered their membership.
Darden emphasized how important it is to move your membership over to the new system. “When it comes time for [members] to renew their membership they’ll get an email to renew in the new system, said Darden.
SORBA anticipates a drop in membership due to potential communication difficulties, which is why they’ve announced this change a full six months in advance .
If there’s one message that Darden wants to get out to the individual SORBA members, it’s to please renew your membership when the time comes!
For more information on these changes at SORBA, refer to their “2025 Membership Changes” page.
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