Let people buy membership as a gift

You can use the Proxy membership plan type to let people buy membership as a gift. But it does need a bit of manual admin. Assuming that the buyer only wants to pay for the first period you will need to 'transfer' the ownership of the membership to the recipient so that they become responsible for paying for any future periods.

Offer gift membership

• Create a Proxy membership plan
• Customise the form to collect the information you need about the buyer and the recipient
• Customise the welcome email with anything else you need to explain. For example, you could say that you will transfer the ownership of the membership to the recipient and that the buyer will not be charged when the subscription renews.

Note that the welcome email will go to the buyer, not the recipient

Transfer the membership

After the initial payment has been collected from the buyer you can transfer the membership to the recipient.

• Go to the recipient's contact record
• Add a new subscription to an individual plan (not a proxy plan) and set the renewal date to match the proxy one owned by the buyer
• Go to the buyer's contact record and cancel the proxy subscription that they own
• You can also unlink the buyer's Direct Debit if that's how they paid
• Optionally, go back to the recipient's contact record and invite them to set up a Direct Debit mandate for paying future fees. This isn't essential as they will be prompted to do this anyway when their subscription renews.