--- title: Denise Washington — Executive Director · Mojave Dental Hygienists' Society — MemberPress.ai — Meet the Community description: 'A professional association: annual dues, a member directory, local chapters, and events.' image: https://memberpress.ai/og/personas-denise-washington.png url: https://memberpress.ai/personas/denise-washington/ --- [← All personas](https://memberpress.ai/personas/) ![Illustrated portrait of Denise Washington](https://memberpress.ai/images/personas/denise-washington.webp) # Denise Washington Executive Director · Mojave Dental Hygienists' Society ## Who they are A professional association: annual dues, a member directory, local chapters, and events. Denise ran dues, the directory, and events through an all-in-one association system, and it did those jobs. The real question was never the software. It was who sets it up and who keeps it running when renewal season hits and the board wants a report. Before MemberPress.ai, she ran it on Wild Apricot. ## How they got back to their members MemberPress.ai sets up a starting set of membership levels on Denise’s own WordPress site and drafts its join, checkout, login and account pages. The dues categories, the chapter pages and what each member can open she shapes from there in MemberPress. The directory and event registration still run in the tools built for them. When the renewal reminders need checking, she asks instead of calling a developer, and when the board asks how renewals are going, she gets the answer from the site’s own records. ## Watch Denise ### Denise Washington on who keeps the website running [Watch Denise's interview (video)](https://memberpress.ai/videos/personas/denise-washington-interview.mp4) Denise is the executive director of the Mojave Dental Hygienists' Society. Read the transcript Hi, I'm Opal from MemberPress.ai. And this is Denise Washington. She's the executive director of the Mojave Dental Hygienists' Society. Who sets it up? Who keeps it running? We pay $400 a month for our website. And I still call the web guy for everything. That's what I'm for. I set up and run MemberPress for you. Tell me how your association works, and I'll build it. Three dues levels, a directory, four chapters, and the fall conference. That's it? That was easy! When renewal season comes, members like Jamal, a hygienist in Reno, just renew. It runs on its own. I finally stopped calling the web guy. ## Switching from Wild Apricot ### Denise Washington on who keeps it running Wild Apricot did the job. Denise needed the association on its own site, in a system her staff can work in without calling her first. Read the transcript Hi, I'm Opal. This is Denise. She runs the Mojave Dental Hygienists' Society. Wild Apricot ran her back office for years. Every month, like clockwork. Dues, a directory, chapter pages, event registration. It did the job. So what was hard? Not the price. The maintenance. Every renewal season, I'm the one who remembers how the chapter pages work, because nobody else on staff has had to touch it in 11 months. What's a week look like for you? Fielding "how do I update my chapter" emails. Pulling a directory export for the board. Making sure dues reminders actually went out. And a year running it? 1,200 members, a staff of three, and it was always me who kept it running. That's the line I keep coming back to. Who sets it up, and who keeps it running? What's different on MemberPress? It's on our own site, not a separate portal. Jamal's dues just renew on their own. I didn't build that. I just turned it on. Would you go back to Wild Apricot? It's not a bad tool for a small chapter just starting out. We outgrew it. I needed our site, our data, and a system my staff can actually touch without calling me first. Denise Washington, executive director, formerly of Wild Apricot. Thank you. Thank you for giving me my Tuesdays back. [Watch this episode on YouTube](https://youtu.be/wmFhMm8aIlg) ## Their member ### [Jamal Carter](https://memberpress.ai/personas/jamal-carter/) His annual dues renew on their own. Ready to get your own membership to its first paying member? Connect your site and tell Opal what you sell. [Connect a site→](https://memberpress.ai/connect/)