MemberHub provides places for group members to connect and communicate, as well as tools for managing those members. It offers more features than such services as Convos and Tgethr, which we’ve looked at in the past.

Its core features are focused on easily sharing information and working collaboratively within groups, whether working online or via email. It is built around discussions and messaging, integrated file management and calendar functionality.

MemberHub is not a project management system, but it has functions not found in other group communication systems, like the ability to send out text messages from the app. This could be tremendously useful for both reminders and emergency notifications.

Thanks to the recent upgrade, administrators can now add members to a group without users needing to pre-register.

For larger groups, the process of managing members and hubs (or groups) within a business or organization has been simplified. Improvements to this area make working with the product much easier. MemberHub can manage members individually and as a part of multiple groups, which is one of the key differences between MemberHub and other collaboration tools I have seen.

As a user, I can now add multiple email addresses to my profile, to better facilitate being a part of multiple hubs or groups. Administrators can add members to the larger organization, and assign them later to individual sub-groups like Finance or Membership. Administrators can create subdomains with custom branding for each hub.

An organization of any size should see many benefits from implementing MemberHub. In my first review, I was impressed with its functionality as a communication platform. I still think that MemberHub is a great option for businesses, schools, non-profits, and churches. It’s now an even better option for larger groups.

MemberHub remains one of my favorite and most-recommended web services. I’m not aware of any other service that combines member management and online communications features as well.

MemberHub offers a free single-hub plan, and paid options ranging from $5 per month for 3 hubs and 30 people, to $149 per month for 1,000 people and unlimited hubs.

How are you keeping your group connected?

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For example, since I last reviewed group collaboration service MemberHub back in April, it has already added some nifty functionality, including Photo Albums and Whiteboards, and has also revamped its pricing model.

The new features bring the same thoughtful implementation but no-nonsense feel that I liked my first go-round. Photos can be grouped together logically, and the upload process allows for multiple file uploads. The albums maintain the same permission-based access that is a big part of the entire product.

I’ve always been a fan of shared document or whiteboard collaboration, so I was glad to see this introduced. While it lacks the powerful comparison features of the whiteboards included with Basecamp or Backpack, it does have versioning functionality and an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor.

In addition to the new features, MemberHub now offers a tiered pricing model based on number of hubs and unique members. For most groups, I imagine the changes will make MemberHub a more cost-effective option. A free starter hub is still an option to get started or to give things a test run.

I was impressed with MemberHub back in April; these new features make it an even more compelling option.

How do you collaborate with your group?

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I met MemberHub co-founder Matt Harrell through the weekly #sbbuzz Twitter chats and was immediately intrigued by his descriptions of the app.

I saw value in the tools offered but I kept getting stuck at the terms “membership” and “organization.” The groups I participate in are usually small and informal, not the large-scale entities I associate with those terms.

But in chatting further with Matt, I realized that while MemberHub is billed as a tool for churches and non-profits, there is a lot of value here for a group of any sort (or any size) that needs a place to communicate and collaborate.

The key component of the MemberHub concept is the actual hub. A hub is a central “room” of sorts dedicated to a specific group.

If you’re a member of multiple hubs, a dashboard does a good job of presenting all of them, even across organizations. So while each hub is a unique and private entity, there is value in maintaining multiple hubs on the service.

A Hub comprises the following functionality:

Home Page: A dashboard of sorts for the hub, which lists recent announcements and other information about the group.

Announcements: Messages that can be sent via email or text message. It’s quite convenient to publish the message here and know that it will reach all the members depending upon their preferred settings. MemberHub handles the distribution for you.

Calendar: Quickly create events and send reminders. Each calendar has a feed so you can also view it in your calendar app of choice.

Discussions: These can be used as a message board or mailing list and as such provide similar functionality to a Google Group. New discussions can be started by sending an email to a customized address assigned to each area.

Files: A repository for shared documents or photos for use by your hub members.

Member Listing: A listing of all members associated with that group or hub. Each user can control and update their own information so contacting folks through the member list is straightforward.

MemberHub is a strong product with nice functionality and a clean and easy-to-use interface. Features are plentiful and the service is quite affordable. A short demo video goes through these features in more detail.

The tools are generic enough to be used for any sort of planning session or group communication or collaboration. While not really advertised as a project management tool, I can certainly see it being used as such as well. The interface is clean and potentially a lot less intimidating for casual web users than some of the dedicated project management tools.

For single groups, one hub is free. For larger groups, you’ll want an “Organization,” which lets you create and manage multiple hubs. For organizations, MemberHub is priced at 10 cents per person per month, purchased in blocks of 100.

Do you work with a group or organization that could use MemberHub?

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