Provisional membership
A probationary stage with real obligations but not the full stake, during which either side may still stop without anyone having failed.
Membership vocabulary varies more between communities than almost any other, so never accept a stage name at face value. Ask what a person at that stage may decide, what they pay, and what they would get back if they withdrew. If the community cannot answer for each stage, the stages are labels rather than a process.
Provisional membership — associate, candidate, trial member, the names vary — is the stage between visiting and belonging. It lasts months rather than weeks, carries real obligations and usually a financial commitment, and is explicitly reversible by either side.
It is the most informative stage of the whole process, and the one people rush.
What makes it worth having
Anyone can be pleasant for three weeks. Provisional membership is long enough to include a disagreement, a rota you resented, a meeting that ran late, and a week when you were unwell. That is the material both sides actually need.
It also protects the joiner. Withdrawing at this stage is the process working, not a failure — which is exactly why the terms of withdrawal matter.
The questions that reveal the design
What may a provisional member decide? The answer describes how the community thinks about power in one sentence. Full voice and no vote is a coherent position; so is a vote on everything except membership and money. No stated position is not.
What have you paid in, and what would you get back? Ask before you need to know. A provisional stage requiring a substantial non-refundable payment is a decision dressed as a trial.
How does it end? A stated review date and a named decision-maker, or a vague sense that it will become permanent when it feels right. The second is how somebody spends three years as a provisional member.
Sources & further reading
- 1 Membership: getting in, and getting out — the stages, and what a fair membership agreement contains
Written by EcoHubs members, with AI assistance for drafting and editing, and reviewed by a person before publication. Facts are checked against the sources listed; anything we could not verify is marked. How this is written
Related terms
A defined stay during which a prospective member lives roughly as a member does. Where most of the mutual assessment actually happens.
The document setting out what a member pays, contributes, may decide, and receives on leaving. The eight things a good one covers are checkable.
The written rules a community has consented to. Distinct from values: agreements say what happens, and what follows when it does not.