Last month I discussed earning and reporting PDU's. This topic was timely because my PMP certification is up for renewal in May. I also needed to renew my PMI membership in February. I have auto-renewal turned on, so it processed to my credit card without my intervention or remembering to do so.
I am a big fan of automation, where I can implement it. I do it on my projects when it comes to status reports and following up on assigned tasks. Most of my monthly recurring bills are automated as well. So I turned on autorenewal with PMI as soon as they added it as an option. It is easy to forget that once-a-year payment.
I take inquiries from members every month who don't understand why they can't register for an event to find out their membership expired. Auto-Renewal is the best way to prevent that from happening.
Here are the main reasons a lot of people take advantage of auto-renewal:
- It's convenient
- You don't have to remember the due date of your renewal
- You don't have to visit the website to make the payment
- You don't risk forgetting to make the payment
Auto-Renewal is not on by default. To enable it, you need to turn it on. You can do that by going to PMI.org and in your profile click on membership and then click on manage membership. You can turn it on for both your PMI and Chapter membership.
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If you don't use auto-renewal, then I recommend setting up some calendar alerts for your PMI membership and Certification Renewal, so they don't lapse.
I would also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that every three years when you renew your certification, you will need to pay a renewal fee. You cannot pay the certification fee by auto-renewal. I strongly recommend setting up a calendar reminder for that.