Retention is cheaper than recruitment
Fellow FS here. Every council pours energy into bringing new members in — and quietly loses members out the back door because dues lapsed and nobody followed up in time. Keeping a member you already have is far less work than replacing him, and the Order built a formal process specifically so councils don't lose Brothers to a missed payment.
That process is the Intent to Retain, and it's the step most councils handle badly — either skipping it (and losing the member) or misunderstanding it (and suspending someone they could have kept).
When a member falls far enough behind on dues that suspension is on the table, the Financial Secretary doesn't just drop him. The council moves him to Intent to Retain status and generates a Notice of Intent to Retain — formally signaling it wants to keep the member and is working to collect. It's a deliberate pause that protects the member's standing while you make contact.
Where retention fits in the dues timeline
Suspension for non-payment is the last step, not the first. By the time a member is at risk, several notices should already have gone out:
Dues are due. Most members pay here. No drama.
Still unpaid after the first cycle. A firmer reminder, same easy way to pay.
The member is now meaningfully delinquent. This notice makes clear that continued non-payment puts membership at risk.
Rather than let the member lapse, the FS moves him from Knight Alert to Intent to Retain (the Update Status screen in Supreme's Member Management) and generates a Notice of Intent to Retain from the Print Center — then the council actively works to keep him: a personal call, a payment plan, or a waiver if warranted.
See dues notices & delinquency for the full escalation and timing.
The three ways an Intent to Retain resolves
Once you've filed the intent and made contact, the case closes one of three ways:
You reached him, he paid (or set up a plan), and he stays a member in good standing. This is the win — and the whole point of the process.
He's moved or wants to belong elsewhere. You help him affiliate with another council rather than lose him from the Order entirely.
Despite genuine effort, there's no contact and no payment. Suspension proceeds — but only after the council has documented that it tried.
A member suspended without a real retention effort is a member you'll likely never get back. A member you called — even one who ends up suspended — often comes back the next year. The process exists to force that call.
Common mistakes
A brand-new member who hasn't paid yet is current, not delinquent. Don't drop new members into the retention pipeline on day one — they haven't missed anything.
The notices are the paper trail; the phone call is what actually retains. A member who gets four form letters and zero conversations hears "we don't care."
Some members shouldn't be billed the full amount — first-year waivers, honorary, and honorary life members. Billing them a delinquency notice is a fast way to offend a Brother. Check the member's class before you escalate.
When the year rolls over, an unpaid balance should carry forward, not reset to zero. Otherwise the council quietly writes off real money every July.
How DuesSync handles this
DuesSync runs the whole escalation for you — 1st Notice, 2nd Notice, and Knight Alert send on a schedule, and a member who lands in retention surfaces as "Intent to Retain" with a clear decision waiting: retain, affiliate, or suspend. New members start as current (never delinquent), waived classes are skipped automatically, and an unpaid balance carries forward at year-end instead of disappearing. The moment a member pays, he drops out of retention by construction — no "paid but still flagged delinquent" limbo.
The point isn't the automation for its own sake — it's that the system surfaces the members worth a phone call before they're gone. See the platform overview for how the dunning pipeline fits the rest of council operations.
Built by a Financial Secretary
Stop running this by hand.
DuesSync runs your council's dues collection end to end — online payments, automatic notices, reconciliation, and the audit trail.
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