NZSAE: From a Templated Member Portal to a Branded Digital Home—Drupal 11 + Wild Apricot

The New Zealand Society of Association Executives (NZSAE) is the peak body for the people who run associations across New Zealand. Its members expect it to model what a well-run association looks like—yet the digital experience told a different story. Membership, renewals and payments ran on Wild Apricot, but the member-facing area was Wild Apricot's out-of-the-box portal: functional, generic, and unmistakably a templated SaaS product rather than NZSAE.

We kept Wild Apricot as the system of record and rebuilt everything members see as a branded, flexible, extendable platform on Drupal 11—a single build that powers both the public site and a member dashboard people actually want to log in to.

Key outcomes: A member experience that finally looks and feels like NZSAE, the public site and member portal unified into one owned platform, Wild Apricot retained as the membership system of record, and an open, extendable foundation NZSAE controls rather than rents.

The Challenge

NZSAE's platform worked, but it boxed the association in:

• Off-brand by default - The member area was Wild Apricot's standard template. It carried the platform's identity, not NZSAE's, undercutting the credibility of an organisation whose whole purpose is helping associations present themselves well.
• A rigid SaaS ceiling - Layout, content structure and member workflows were constrained to what the platform allowed out of the box. Anything beyond the template meant fighting the tool.
• A fragmented experience - The public marketing site and the logged-in member portal felt like two different products. Members crossed a visible seam every time they signed in.
• A portal nobody loved - Membership details, renewals and personal data were all there, but presented as plain forms and link lists. There was no personalisation, no surfacing of what mattered to each member, no reason to come back between renewals.
• Boxed-in, not owned - The experience lived inside a proprietary platform. Extending it, reshaping it around members' real workflows, or evolving it over time was limited by someone else's roadmap.

The brief wasn't to replace Wild Apricot—it does the membership job well. It was to stop letting a templated front end define how NZSAE shows up to its members.

The Approach

We separated the system of record from the experience: Wild Apricot keeps doing what it's good at, and Drupal 11 owns everything members and visitors actually see.

Wild Apricot Stays the System of Record

Wild Apricot remains the source of truth for memberships, renewals and payments. We integrated it with Drupal 11 through its API so member data flows into the new experience without duplication:

• Single sign-on via Wild Apricot - Members authenticate against their existing Wild Apricot accounts. No second login, no parallel password to manage.
• Membership levels mapped to access - Wild Apricot membership levels and statuses map to Drupal roles and permissions, so what a member can see and do follows directly from their membership—organisational, individual, or otherwise.
• Data stays in sync - Profile details, membership status, renewals and invoices are read from Wild Apricot, so the dashboard always reflects the real state of a member's account.

Wild Apricot does the membership administration. Drupal does the experience. Neither has to compromise.

A Branded Member Portal in Drupal 11

We rebuilt the logged-in experience as a personalised, on-brand dashboard. Instead of a wall of forms and links, members land on a home that surfaces what's relevant to them:

• A personalised dashboard - A branded "welcome back" home with clear navigation across Dashboard, Profile, Events, Invoices, Resources, CPD and Community.
• Live membership data - Membership level, status, renewals and invoices pulled from Wild Apricot and presented in NZSAE's own design language.
• Events and registrations - Upcoming events and a member's own registrations surfaced front and centre, not buried in a sub-menu.
• CPD tracking - Continuing professional development presented as a first-class part of the experience, fitting the needs of executives who run associations for a living.
• Resources, suppliers and community - Member-only resource libraries, supplier directories and community content with access governed by membership level.

The portal is shaped around how NZSAE members actually work, not around what a template happened to offer.

One Platform for Public and Member Experience

The same Drupal 11 build powers the public marketing site and the member portal. The seam between "browsing the site" and "being a member" disappears—it's one cohesive, consistently branded experience from first visit through to daily member use. Content, design and navigation are managed in one place instead of split across a website and a separate SaaS portal.

Built to Own and Extend

Drupal 11 is open source and fully extensible, which changes NZSAE's position from renting an experience to owning one:

• No template ceiling - New content types, member workflows and features can be built as needs emerge, rather than waiting on a third-party platform's roadmap.
• Modular foundation - The integration and portal are built from composable parts, so future capability slots into the existing architecture instead of bolting on around it.
• Theirs to keep - The site, its content and its design belong to NZSAE outright—aligned with how an association should hold its own digital home.

The Results

A digital experience that finally represents NZSAE—on brand, flexible, and built to grow.

• On brand at last - The member experience looks and feels like NZSAE, not like a templated SaaS product. The organisation now models the standard it advocates for its members.
• One unified platform - Public site and member portal are a single, cohesive experience. Members no longer cross a visible seam when they sign in.
• Member-first, not form-first - A personalised dashboard surfaces events, invoices, CPD and resources, giving members a reason to engage between renewals.
• Wild Apricot retained, not replaced - Membership administration keeps running on the platform NZSAE already trusts, while the experience is no longer limited by it.
• Flexible and extendable - An open Drupal 11 foundation NZSAE owns and can evolve, free of a proprietary template ceiling.

The project shows the pattern we build for associations: keep the membership platform that works, but never let it dictate how you show up to your members. The system of record and the experience are different problems—solve each with the right tool.