Looking for sponsor/mentor component

[jowens]

I work with several non-profits that work with underpriviliged children. Many of them do some sort of sponsor/mentor program where people can sponsor a child, a home, a school, or some other person/place that needs funding on an ongoing basis. Basically, it typically works by the sponsor sending in a set monthly amount and then receiving updates specific to the child/building/etc that they are sponsoring.

Right now pretty much all of these orgs do this by keeping large Excel spreadsheets and doing a lot of manual labor. It would be great if I could find a component that would allow them to track sponsors/mentors through the system. Things they would need to track would include (but wouldn't be limited to):

• Sponsor name
• Sponsor address
• Sponsor email
• Who/what sponsor is sponsoring
• Monthly sponsorship dollar amount
• Date and amount of last sponsorship payment

In addition, the system should allow communications to be sent via email to the sponsors regarding the child/place/etc that is being sponsored and should probably allow a way to house content online that can only be viewed by a group of sponsors specific to the content (ex: 5 sponsors sponsor one child, so all 5 would be able to view pictures, letters, etc. online that are specific to that child).

Is there anything out there right now that is at all similar to this?

[lobo]

I work with several non-profits that work with underpriviliged children. Many of them do some sort of sponsor/mentor program where people can sponsor a child, a home, a school, or some other person/place that needs funding on an ongoing basis. Basically, it typically works by the sponsor sending in a set monthly amount and then receiving updates specific to the child/building/etc that they are sponsoring.

Right now pretty much all of these orgs do this by keeping large Excel spreadsheets and doing a lot of manual labor. It would be great if I could find a component that would allow them to track sponsors/mentors through the system. Things they would need to track would include (but wouldn't be limited to):

CiviCRM v1.6 (http://civicrm.org) would cover 70% of the functionality you need out of the box. If you need a solution tailored exactly to your needs, you will need to add some custom code specific to your needs.

• Sponsor name
• Sponsor address
• Sponsor email

Sponsors can be created as Contacts and put in a "Sponsor group" (you could also tag them as Sponsor)

• Who/what sponsor is sponsoring

Children who are being sponsored can also be created as contacts and be put in a "Children" group. The link between Sponsor and Child can be handled as a relationship. (thus allowing a sponsor to support multple children and a child to have multiple sponsors)

• Monthly sponsorship dollar amount
• Date and amount of last sponsorship payment

This can be handled by CiviContribute and a Contribute record could be created for each monthly contribution. If its online, this could be setup as a recurring automated contribution

In addition, the system should allow communications to be sent via email to the sponsors regarding the child/place/etc that is being sponsored and should probably allow a way to house content online that can only be viewed by a group of sponsors specific to the content (ex: 5 sponsors sponsor one child, so all 5 would be able to view pictures, letters, etc. online that are specific to that child).

In Drupal, you would do this using organic groups. Not sure if there is a joomla equivalent or organic groups. You could potentially write some custom code to do this also

lobo

[jowens]

Lobo - Thanks for the advice! I had taken a brief look at CiviCRM and was a bit overwhelmed at the configuration options. I appreciate your tips on how I could set it up to make this work. I'll try and dig into it and see if I can figure it out, and then hopefully let you know how it went.

[lobo]

cool

no hassle. please post any follow up question on the civicrm forums. i think its a pretty good match between your desires and its features

lobo