Some thoughts on non-profits... Topic is solved

[vavroom]

Hello,

To give a bit of background, I worked in the non-profit world for a bit over a decade.  9 of those years were in the disability rights/services field.  A few more years working in an umbrella organisation to assist non-profits functioning better.

One thing I've seen is that "non-profit", "charity", "charitable", "voluntary", "not for profit", and other like terms seem to evoke many different meanings in different people.  For example, a "voluntary organisation" is often perceived as an organisation run by volunteers only, while in fact there are quite a few people in voluntary organisation who make a living from it (they get paid, albeit not necessarily a whole lot).

The concept of "non-profit" is also sometimes misleading.  The Red Cross is a non-profit.  So is the Salvation Army.  Yet they have revenue in the multi-millions.  This is rather far from the usual perception of the non-profit as a grass-root, very low budget/low resources organisation.  I think it might be important to note which level of non-profit we are discussing (obviously it'll vary depending on the thread/discussion).

Another thing to consider is that a bunch of grass-root non-profits tend to not have much trust in technology.  We had a membership of over 100 non-profits, of which only about 15% had a website, the others never accepted the value of having a site.  Most of them didn't have computers to run their business with (not necessarily because they couldn't have one, but because they wouldn't have one). 

Just food for thoughts

[bluesaze]

Mmm nice read Clears up a few things .... wow redcross gets multi-millions ...... what about joomla hows it surviving you guys dont even have ads on your pages......... I was reading somewhere .... that mambo managed to survive on the Googleads ......

[AlexT]

Joomla! survives by a lot of people donating a lot of time, resources & hardware.

Its the people that make the community what it is with their giving!

Makes you all warm and fuzzy inside doesn't it!

[cozimek]

Hey Nic,

Thanks for your insight, especially with your background in the NPO community.  I think it's definitely going to be critical to be clear when posting here the situation of the NPO in question.  You're right, there's large and small NPOs, and the goal here is to smash through the stereotypes, and really get down to the matters at hand that are unique to the NPO community.

Above all, to build a community of NPO developers and users is great project in and of itself.

Looking forward to watching this grow.

Best,
Ryan

[vavroom]

You're right, there's large and small NPOs, and the goal here is to smash through the stereotypes, and really get down to the matters at hand that are unique to the NPO community.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that there are very few matters unique to NPO's in common between large NPO's and smaller ones.

That said, I *am* excited about this board, I think that much good can come out of it.

I've long wanted to really market this CMS to the non-profit circles I've worked in, but due to lack of accessibility compliance, haven't been really able to do so.

Same with governmental agencies.  Many of them could benefit from using Joomla, but can't yet (but we're changing that, aren't we?)

[lester]

Businesses have profits or losses. Charities have surpluses or losses. Both need to cover operating costs.

I run a web site for churches. Churches are non-profit. My business is a limited company, not a registered charity but operating in the non-profit sector margins are so slim that I've not managed to take a full year's salary in the 7 years I've been going.

Coversely, there are charities with seriously large (generous) funding, as mentioned, and some of their top jobs earn salaries that equate with their position in the business world rather than the non-profit sector.

[hotnuts21]

Yes the term non profit, charity etc can apply to a lot of different organisations the needs of those organsations are very very varied. I dont think you can put down a list of requirements that will fit everyone. Its a lot like business, each business has its needs and its different to what another one needs. I think Joomla works well because it provides a framework to build that up from. If you need anything extra then the components are there for you to utilise.

i have built a number of sites for small charitys/NPO's using Joomla and it works well.

Incidently the charity I am heavily involved with costs 110 Million a year to run and all our money comes from the public donations, fundraising and legacies. It is run mainly by vounteers with a core paid staff.

[newart]

I've long wanted to really market this CMS to the non-profit circles I've worked in, but due to lack of accessibility compliance, haven't been really able to do so.

Same with governmental agencies.  Many of them could benefit from using Joomla, but can't yet (but we're changing that, aren't we?)

This is the real point to start... I agree, there is a lot of hard work to do... Brave joomla! 

[toddtomlinson]

"over 100 non-profits, of which only about 15% had a website, the others never accepted the value of having a site.  "

Very true here in Portland -- although what I am finding is that a majority are starting to view the web as a means towards sustainability.      In addition to my day job -- I am a professor at a local university and posted an offer on a local NPO message board "Looking for web projects that I can assign to my students".    I had 60 organizations reply with requests to either build their first web site or redo their existing site. 

My challenge -- how to convert those to paying customers.

[newart]

My challenge -- how to convert those to paying customers.

yes, this is another particular issue, a well known one.  But I think that a "perfect" CMS might be the difference...

[Rafa3x]

Those are great opening remarks regarding non-profits. Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but promotion, marketing and advertisement are shortfall of grassroots-level non-profits, as well. Many of these organizations do some incredible work but fail to get the membership or attendance they deserve only because of budget restrictions. These are some of the issues we're looking to tackle -- as much from a 'brick-and-mortar' aspect as on the Internet.

Fast and simple image galleries, listserves and other email management components, and flexible events calendars are very frequent features I get requests for when helping these organizations with their sites. Those features are seen as key to resolving their public relations and promotion needs online.

Rafael

[alan-s]

Fantastic forum to have.

As a website manager for an International Development Charity I was really keen to use Mambo - now reads use Joomla - for our website rebuild. The things that really held me back were these;

• accessibility compliance
• tree level section/category implementation
• accessibility compliance
• accessibility compliance

I have a legal obligation (albeit abit fuzzy)  to fulfill re making sites accessible which is an important part of my remit and Joomla just isn't there. I freelance a bit too and have moved to Joomla as my main tool but just recently I am hesitating when suggesting it to prospective clients becasue it isn't standards and accessibility compliant enough. I am moving to a position of this is the best (read my favourite) CMS to work with  but I just dont wanna build sites that don't output accessible versions of pages.  The sections and categories thing is really insignificant to this issue for me.

However, the real world demands web sites and until we see one lawsuit for every 10 non compliant public/voluntary/NGO/NPO sites I am hoping that I can get along with an upgrade and template redesign in 12 months time! So one secion of the charity that i work for uses Mambo 4.5.2.3 for their events team. This works well using just standard article blog format for event presentation and manual ordering of items. We are considering using mosListmessenger for their mailing requirements.

I think size of NP/charity/voluntary organisation may affect what needs they have but I don't see any major differences in terms of charity size and CMS requirements as on offer from Joomla. To my mind there are three things that I would consider relevant - irrespective of size - for these organisations that they all need to do online;

1. Communicating - dissemination of information about work being done
2. Brand awareness - communicating and building the organisations brand
3. Donors/supporters relationship building - recruiting, retaining, and relating to donors/supporters of the organisation

Some NPO/charities etc do not have a clear brand / image or communication strategy. For these clients their websites brings this point in to sharp focus. For others the CMS just has to be capabale of expressing their brand (eg templating features flexible for design elements). The last point no 3 is probably where Joomla needs to work for the NPO sector. A few things come to mind. Accessibility - more accessible the better the relationship with the website visitor - whoever they are  can be. Recruiting supporters becomes apparent here too. If Joomla had an email list collecting method that was integrated or workable with a mass emailing program then building contacts could begin in earnest. Ok there is user registration which gives you an email address but this needs developing. The system needs to have more granular group permissions and for email lists to be built and assigned to different groups. This way one can segment visitors and offer them relevant content through email and / or website logins to specific content geared towards preferences set by the supporter and donor. This is more advanced marketing strategy but this is the kind of support I would like to see developing in Joomla. Emailing is a big issue for Joomla to tackle and so it might be more reasonable to expect a simple export into another database to begin with.

Gosh - I think i have a sudden case of verbal diarrohea...........

fly on Joomla!


alan-s

[lester]

Gosh - I think i have a sudden case of verbal diarrohea...........

I think you've just expressed what many of us have before us: the challenge to produce business-quality web sites which cater for every conceivable need (ie. accessibility) and within the constraints of minimal costs and minimal room for error!

I think this is a great forum (or sub-forum) that I will be frequenting frequently! 

[vavroom]

@ Rafael - I used to think our group was the best kept secret in Savannah.   Getting the word out is difficult when the majority of your efforts/resources go towards providing services.  Then there's the fact that most folks working in the third sector (1-business, 2- government, 3- NPO) don't have knowledge or experience in marketting, and can't afford an outside consultant.  Of course, sometimes you can manage to get a firm to donate their time, and that's cool.  But then you fall into the next trap. 

Most of the time, you're struggling as it is to provide the services you are providing.  Marketting and getting better known means you'll get more consumers/clients/customers/whatever-you-wanna-call-them.  Which would stretch you even more.

@ Alan - regarding accessibility.  I agree, there's a legal responsbility there, which is clear enough in most countries.  What isn't following though is the enforcement.  To my knowledge, only one legal case was won over a non-accessible website (some really bad decisions from some US courts in that area, FWIW).  There's a bit of moral obligation, I think, but that's a tough one to sell   Of course, until users with disabilities start complaining to webmasters that their site is notusable, nothing much is going to change. 

Except of course that Joomla! is committed to improving access.  Have you seen our accessibility statement?  http://help.joomla.org/content/view/805/125/

[dmcole]

Here's something I ran across that pertains to this conversation ...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0787945153/ref=sib_fs_top/102-1770847-8196901?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00G&checkSum=UcH6Y%2FnrTOOTicrVxzQwDvX5ObdPWnw62L7T7JOoG5k%3D#reader-link

\dmc

[dsecareanu]

Greetings all,

I also have about 5 years experience in working with NGO's and I have to say that I have learned a lot these years... in many aspects of my life. I've been experimenting and using Linux and OSS for a few years now, and Mambo/Joomla has been the CMS of choice for the past year or so. I'm using it across board on all websites/portals I build because it offers me for free what otherwise would cost these NGO's a whole lot more money than simply my services. And on top of this, with a bit of proper training, usage of Mambo/Joomla empowers these people and gives them the ability to change the content on their portal and change the portal in itself to better suit their needs. And when you think that most of these NGO's rely on money coming from donors, it's a huge relief to be able to spare some cash in this area by using FOSS.

Daniel

[Zwitschi]

[...]

The concept of "non-profit" is also sometimes misleading.  The Red Cross is a non-profit.  So is the Salvation Army.  Yet they have revenue in the multi-millions.  This is rather far from the usual perception of the non-profit as a grass-root, very low budget/low resources organisation.

[...]

Just food for thoughts

You mention the Red Cross.
For testing purposes I made a mambo-website (OK, main work was to make a template!) with the global/corporal German Red Cross DRK (Deutsches Rotes Kreuz) Design for a single emergency station near Munich, Bavaria (Rettungswache Sauerlach).
In fact the official webmaster liked my work and decided the change. Now I had much problems to find components and modules that fitted the specifications/functionality needed by the Red Cross.
Because of the lack of experienced programmers/coders for the development of new specialized components or the adaption of released ones the scheduled site-reload was cancelled and the project was paused (until the joomla! release).

Now you ask for hints on new features for joomla! to support so called charity and non-profit organizations but do you really want to exclude the ones like the Red Cross? Or am I just not getting it? Of course they have their own webmasterS and many many branches. But if somebody starts to switch... look at the spreading of Firefox in some major German car companies...

Thanks for this Forum (and for trying to understand my weird English... sorry Guys, I'm German 8-)

[vavroom]

Now you ask for hints on new features for joomla! to support so called charity and non-profit organizations but do you really want to exclude the ones like the Red Cross? Or am I just not getting it?

Your English is much better than my German

I was not saying to exclude the big NGO's like Red Cross.  I was simply saying that the needs (and resources) of a group like the Red Cross are going to be very different than those of a small organisation that is run by 4 or 6 volunteers.  So it is difficult to decide what are the "issues" for NGO's, because the needs can vary a whole lot.

[Zwitschi]

OK, thanks for this quick reply!

So it was my fault, I misunderstood this whole thing!

But if I see our Online Gaming Clan http://www.black-mamba.info as a non-profit organization (of course we have to pay for our servers and therefor we take a small membership-fee) for having fun playing online games together and practise teamplay on Battlefield 2 for example, then I definitley could give some issues we experienced. And there are sure more of them since the Clan exists since spring 2004 and besides our clan-page the whole linux-server is full with different mambo/joomla!-sites.

If this (above) is not what you meant with saying "non-profit" then pls let me know and move my "advertisement" 

CU n THX again

[vavroom]

Zwitchi, there are, to my knowledge, many different types of "non-profits".  Some work for charity purpose, others are simply clubs like yours.  I don't make a distinction in the type of NPO.  I do, however, tend to think of an NGO as an actual organisation, registered with the relevant authorities, setup with (usualy, but depending on its legal status) a board, secretary, treasurer, etc.

Of course, some issues will be similar between big and small NGO's.  Membership drive is often a problem, for instance.  But the fundraising needs of your Clan will be very different than those of the Red Cross, and a solution that works for your NGO just wouldn't work for the RC.  (note I'm not picking on the Red Cross, they were just handy in my mind when I first posted ).

[lester]

The phrase Nic used in his opening post that I use is "not for profit". A games web site, the Red Cross, and many, many others, have as their focus, a passion for what they are doing that goes beyond business sense.

For example, I have spent 7 years without pay compiling a directory of my country's churches. Any sensible business person following the business textbooks would say that there are easier ways to make money (ie. a profit) and so I should change to a more profitable work.

I see my business' focus, it's priority, as "not for profit" but rather for the service it provides to the web site's 3,500+ visitors each day. Because of that, despite being a registered company, I identify more closely with the non-profit sector.

That's just one example. I hope it helps you decide whether you identify more closely with for-profit or non-profit work methods.

[vavroom]

Another thought...  non-profit does not mean an organisation doesn't generate revenue

[chette]

Another thought...  non-profit does not mean an organisation doesn't generate revenue

I wholeheartedly agree. We got three non-profit client, which get a lot of funding from different governments. Based on their budget for the project, its definitely not considered "low budget".

[The_Real_McCoy]

I started learning PHP almost a year ago and started to use Joomla (Mambo) about 2 months ago. I first looked into Mambo to meet a requirement for work which incidently is a local government entity. Although this has not taken flight yet (I am still working on my boss), I have implemented Mambo for a church web site that I have been maintaining. Today I had a meeting with the president of our employee association which although endorsed by our employer is self supporting financially and I would consider a NPO. The subject of the meeting was an association web site for which I pitched Joomla combined with a few other FOSS utilities. To get to the point, I am sold on Joomla as a CMS. It is the most effective yet affordable CMS available as far as I know. I am not the best developer around, but I would love to help where I can.

I am considering starting a hosting plan for NPOs in our area. I am not completely sure where to set the parameters on the term NPO. Mostly, I want to serve children's organizations such as sporting teams and scouting, but I also would like to serve churches and civic orgs. This would most likely be an at cost service with NO profits coming my way. As I said above, I already manage a church site and will be working on a Employee site soon. Additionally, I am working on a veteran memorial site which is powered by PHP and MS Access (I know, I know, MySQL is free and much better, but the hosting server is owned by my employer and my boss won't let me load MySQL on this server.)

Daniel

[kili]

Excuse my ignorance guys but what is ' accessibility compliance ' ?

Kili

[eugene33]

Interesting thread, I started working on the NGOs needs a few months ago, and I came with this idea (http://humanitarian.free.fr) I took the concept of open sources and tried to apply its strenghth to this specific probleme.
So the general Idea is to offer a space (blog or whatever) to small programmes, with a donnation module directly related to their paypal account. Well I think the idea is good, and I don't know if something like this exist ( I found some paying services of this type in france, but they are not updated ).

The current problem lie in the time, time to maintain the web site, time to offer some formation to the NGO, time to prospect, etc.
For example I spent 3 day to explain the benefit and potential  of a paypal  account for a specific programme, then to help to open it and now I should spend 2 or 3 weeks to explain the potential to display the information of this program on the web site. There is a great interest from the people of this programmes, but as everybody they are quite busy and they don't have the knowledge, time and vision.

so vavroom (or anyothers) if you have any hints or advices to perfect the system, you will be most welcome
Thanks

[ianmac]

Excuse my ignorance guys but what is ' accessibility compliance ' ?

Kili

One of the great things about the Internet is that there is lots of information available.  One of the other great things is that this information is available in a machine readable format.  This seems to make it ideal for allowing content to be accessed by people who couldn't necessarily read books - be it that they don't have the ability to see, or other limitations.  The problem is, a lot of web sites aren't designed with this in mind.  There is no distinction between content and navigation (from a code perspective), as an example.  There are now organizations that are developing standards that can be used to design sites that can be accessed by people with such limitations.  Accessibility compliance is compliance to these standards so that these sites are accessible.

Ian

[magyver]

The main thing that separated NPO's from traditional business (this may vary from country to country) is that individuals within the organisation do not benefit from surpluses. eg Split the profits at the end of the year or dividend to share holders. The money stays within the organisation. In many cases these organisations do not pay tax on surpluses.

I have became creative in the ways that I raise money. From your typical fundraising efforts (which has much competition and the lines have became blurred between the many causes) to taking advantage of Government Grants etc.

The hard part about working with the Government is they want you to spend and account for all of the money for the purpose that it was intended for. It makes it hard to make money through the Government, but it can be done.

Do NPO's need to be more accountable? Yes.

People need to look at some of the annual reports and see the Admin cost ratios to turnover while at the same time looking at the function of the NPO.

The other drama for NPO's is budgeting. You can not spend what you do not have. In essence you fundraise this year for next years spending. That is why some NPO's appear to make/have a lot of money.

Just some thought.

Good forum.

[humvee]

One of the great things about the Internet is that there is lots of information available.  One of the other great things is that this information is available in a machine readable format.  This seems to make it ideal for allowing content to be accessed by people who couldn't necessarily read books - be it that they don't have the ability to see, or other limitations.  The problem is, a lot of web sites aren't designed with this in mind.  There is no distinction between content and navigation (from a code perspective), as an example.  There are now organizations that are developing standards that can be used to design sites that can be accessed by people with such limitations.  Accessibility compliance is compliance to these standards so that these sites are accessible.

Ian

I have seen in a recent UK magazine article the ability to add a voice reader (under M$ Winblows only) integrated into InternetExplorer. Is anyone aware of such a beasty for Linux/opensource. I haven't seen anything as yet for Firefox and the software seems only to have been developed by M$.

Has anyone else picked up on this or are aware of any further details for OS?

humvee

[vavroom]

Has anyone else picked up on this or are aware of any further details for OS?

The software you're referring to I think is better known as "screen reader".

I found:  http://www.linux-speakup.org/ described as:

Welcome! The speakup project is basically a bunch of blind people who like messing around with Linux and writing cool and, hopefully useful, software. It began with the Speakup screen reader package and has grown to encompass a number of projects as well as becoming a vibrant community.

Note, I've never used, nor heard, of that bit of software, i have no idea how good/bad it is, but it's there