Phase 1 is your “Honda Accord” fixed-scope launch. Level 2 items are the features that quietly turn a $5,500 website into an ongoing software product (with support, security, and governance responsibilities).

Here’s what that means in practical terms.

1) Budget protection: $6,000 buys a great site, not a custom portal

Phase 1 is priced like a website project: pages, resource library, member area, training, launch.

Level 2 items (accounts, roles, verification, audits, secure workflows) are priced like a membership system. They add:

• more setup

• more testing

• more edge cases

• more “what if” scenarios

• more change requests

If Level 2 sneaks into Phase 1, one of two things happens:

• you work unpaid hours, or

• you deliver something half-baked that frustrates them and makes you look bad

Neither is good.

2) Timeline protection: “4–5 months” is reasonable only if Phase 1 stays simple

A site with password-protected pages and a well-organized resource library is straightforward.

But once you add “true portal” expectations, timelines slip because you’re no longer just building pages—you’re designing rules:

• Who qualifies as a member?

• Who approves them?

• What happens when someone leaves?

• What about personal emails vs work emails?

• Officers change—who is admin now?

• Who gets steward-only access?

• What if someone can’t log in the night before a meeting?

That decision-making alone can eat weeks.

3) Risk management: Level 2 features create security + privacy obligations

The moment you do things like:

• individual accounts

• storing member data

• intake forms for sensitive issues

• file uploads from members

• “track who downloaded what”

…you increase the consequences of a mistake.

A Phase 1 “shared password + downloads” site is relatively low-risk.
A Level 2 portal can create real risk if mishandled:

• personal/confidential information stored in the site

• permissions accidentally mis-set

• unwanted access to sensitive docs

• data retention questions (“how long do we keep submissions?”)

Keeping that out of Phase 1 is not you being difficult—it’s you being responsible.

4) Support burden: Level 2 turns you into tech support

This is the biggest practical reason.

Phase 1 (shared password)

Support is minimal:

• “What’s the password?” → handled by their union inbox

• password leak → rotate password

Level 2 (individual accounts)

Support becomes ongoing:

• “I forgot my password”

• “I never got the verification email”

• “My account was approved but I still can’t log in”

• “I changed my email”

• “I’m locked out”

• “Can you delete my account?”

• “New officers—who has admin?”

Unless you’re explicitly selling a maintenance/support plan, Level 2 features create an implicit expectation that you’ll help forever.

5) Governance reality: unions have turnover and committees

With unions, people rotate roles. Committees disagree. That’s normal.

A simple Phase 1 site is resilient to that.

A complex portal requires policies and ownership:

• who administers accounts

• who decides who gets access

• who responds to requests

• how you handle disputes

If those aren’t defined up front, you end up stuck in the middle.

6) “Definition of done”: you need a clean finish line to get to launch and get paid

For a fixed-fee Phase 1, you want a clear deliverable checklist:

• pages built

• members area works

• resources uploaded and searchable

• training delivered

• site launched

Level 2 items don’t have clean finish lines because they invite follow-up expectations:

• “Can it also do X?”

• “Can we add one more role?”

• “Can we change the approval process?”

• “Can we make it like MAPE?”

That’s exactly how projects drift and payments get delayed.

7) Client happiness: a strong, simple launch beats a complex “almost”

If you try to do advanced portal features inside a small budget, you risk shipping something that:

• looks incomplete

• confuses members

• breaks under real use

• generates complaints

It’s often better to launch a fast, clean Phase 1 that members love, then add complexity only if it’s truly needed.

How to explain this to RCSA

Here’s language that lands well:

“For Phase 1, I want to get you a clean, reliable members site that you can run without me. Individual accounts, verification, and secure workflow forms are totally doable, but they’re a different class of project—more like a portal system than a website. To keep your $6k budget and 4–5 month timeline intact, I recommend we launch with a shared-password members area and a well-organized resource library. Then we can evaluate Level 2 upgrades after members are using it.”

A quick rule of thumb

If a feature requires answering “who gets access, how do we verify them, and who supports it?”
…it’s a Level 2 item.