Associations
AWS for Trade Associations, Chambers and Federations in Colombia
The member base lives in a spreadsheet, the portal on hosting nobody updates, and certificates are made by hand. CloudTing builds a serverless member portal on AWS: you pay for what gets used, not for machines left running, and your members' information stays encrypted and backed up.
What we solve
- A serverless member portal: sign-up, dues, events and downloads
- Sign-in for each member, with optional MFA
- Membership and attendance certificates generated automatically
- Newsletters and reminders by email only to people who opted in
- An encrypted member base, with daily backups in a separate account
- Low, predictable cost, with alerts if it goes off plan
Who it is for
- Associations and federations managing members in spreadsheets
- Chambers of commerce and associations with service portals for members
- Professional associations that run events and issue certificates
- Non-profit organizations with a limited IT budget
What applies in Colombia
- The member base holds personal data: Law 1581 of 2012 requires authorization to process it and to send newsletters, and a published data policy.
- Chambers of commerce keep public registries. Decree 767 of 2022 (Digital Government Policy) covers private parties that perform administrative functions; your legal team should check whether it applies to you.
If your organization is a non-profit
- AWS runs a credit program for non-profits, up to USD 5,000 a year, handled through TechSoup and its partner network.
- TechSoup confirms eligibility for each organization; we help you check before we design anything.
What we do not do
We do not give legal advice or certify compliance. We put the technical controls in place and leave the evidence (logs, configurations, recovery tests) so your legal team, compliance officer or auditor can confirm what applies to you.
Reference architecture
A typical pattern for a member portal: the public site is served from S3 through CloudFront with AWS WAF, portal actions go through API Gateway and Lambda, Cognito handles sign-in, the member base lives in encrypted DynamoDB, certificates in S3 and newsletters go out through SES. There are no servers to maintain or pay for when nobody logs in.
How we start
- 1Free review: we look at access, encryption, backups, cost and what evidence exists today
- 2Report with prioritized risks and a proposed AWS architecture
- 3Migration or fixes in stages, without stopping operations
- 4A real recovery test, with RPO and RTO measured
- 5Ongoing operations and support, if you need it
Frequently asked questions
What does "serverless" mean?
That there are no machines running while waiting for visitors. The code runs on AWS Lambda only when a member does something, and AWS charges for those runs. For a portal with peaks around assemblies and events and little traffic the rest of the month, it usually costs far less than a server.
Can members pay dues through the portal?
Yes. The portal connects to the payment gateway you already use and records the payment in the member base. Card data is handled by the gateway, not by your portal.
What about the member base we keep in Excel?
We clean it up and load it into the new base, and from then on each member can update their own details. Before that we check you have the data processing authorization Law 1581 requires.
How much does it cost to run?
It depends on the number of members and how much they use it, but a serverless portal usually costs little each month. We estimate it with your numbers in the free review and set spending alerts from day one.
Next step
AWS for Trade Associations, Chambers and Federations in Colombia