NPO CRM solutions?

[trebso]

Hi

I'm looking - urgently - for a solution that will allow our npo to manage a new fundraising campaign, ie gathering and sharing information about potential donors from, and among, a dispersed group; and then allocating and tracking follow up activity to be carried out by the dispersed group. A colleague has proposed using a excell spreadsheet - but I'd prefer something we could all access over the net, if it could be set up quickly, and could be used by people who are not necessarily very technical.

Currently running mambo 4.5.1, but planning migration to Joomla soon. The CRM doesn't need to integrate with mambo at the moment, but I'd like to have some confidence that the CRM we choose stands a good chance of being integrated with Joomla in the future. I've had a look at CiviCRM - but while the contact database seems great, the management of tasks seems almost non-exisitent - unless I'm missing something.

Any suggestions

Cheers

Osbert

[Slixter]

SugarCRM has been working on integration.

http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/sugar-mambo/

--Slixter

[trebso]

SugarCRM has been working on integration.

http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/sugar-mambo/

--Slixter

Thanks - SugarCRM looks possible, but of course doesn't have the nonprofit focus of CiviCRM. Any others?

Any task management add-ons for CiviCRM?

[dmcole]

See this thread:

http://www.techsoup.org/fb/index.cfm?fuseaction=forums.showSingleTopic&forum=2016&id=54960

I'm partial to InfoCentral (http://www.infocentral.org) and if this is only a one-shot fund-raising project, it would work quite well.

EBase is good too, but the development team actively discourages using it on the Internet (because of the inherently poor security in FMP).

HTH.

\dmc

[trebso]

Hi dmc

Thanks for this - had a look at InfoCentral and that thread. Don't think it does what I need though. I want to be able to track possible leads, keep notes about them, allocate them to myself and others to follow up and then to record results of contact.

Crucial points are: recording info about potential donors (that is currently in many people's heads, but not shared); making sure only one person contacts a potential donor at one time (ie effective allocation of tasks); and recording outcomes and/or further outcomes.

InfoCentral doesn't seem to have tasks or to allow tasks to be allocated to different users (the demo was down so I'm going by feature list). The others in the thread don't seem from the descriptions to suit these needs - or budget or technology!

It's a pity - several products are very nearly there - if only CiviCRM had task allocation and outcome recording I'd go for it.

Cheers

Osbert

See this thread:

http://www.techsoup.org/fb/index.cfm?fuseaction=forums.showSingleTopic&forum=2016&id=54960

I'm partial to InfoCentral (http://www.infocentral.org) and if this is only a one-shot fund-raising project, it would work quite well.

EBase is good too, but the development team actively discourages using it on the Internet (because of the inherently poor security in FMP).

HTH.

\dmc

[lobo]

Hey Osbert:

Can u be more specific / detailed with regard to "task allocation". We have some very simple proof of concept of
"activities" with CiviCRM. Extending it to be more comprehensive is definitely doable

as in any open source project, we are definitely driven significantly by user needs and requirements (our upcoming 1.2 release was
pretty much user driven).

lobo

[trebso]

Hey Osbert:

Can u be more specific / detailed with regard to "task allocation". We have some very simple proof of concept of
"activities" with CiviCRM. Extending it to be more comprehensive is definitely doable

as in any open source project, we are definitely driven significantly by user needs and requirements (our upcoming 1.2 release was
pretty much user driven).

lobo

Can I be more specific? Not quickly! I'm just a CEO of a small NPO trying to find a solution that works for me now! I hope/assume some specialists out there (eg fundraisers, membership managers) etc have thought this stuff through. And one's needs always change with time.

At the moment I want to be able to ask my staff, directors and associates to think of people who might be interested in supporting us, and for each of them to enter the information they know about them into the CRM (contact details, interests, relationships etc - which CiviCRM looks well able to handle, along with info like 'don't contact direct, but I can approach them on your behalf)).

I then want to be able to review these leads, allocate into groups (perhaps priority and/or interest and/or potential amount) and allocate tasks to myself and others (eg phone, write, prepare tailored application, do more research etc). And then after each activity I want to record the outcome and/or next task eg research done (see notes), call to arrange meeting, etc >>> donation of XXX pledged>> write with thanks etc.

I think the key thing is that we'd want tasks that can be defined by an administrator, and can be allocated by one user to another user. Personally I'm not interested in recording the amounts given in a way that can produce reports (say total donations for project X from Jan - Mar 06) - that sort of information will come out the book keeping system.

Hope this is a bit clearer.

I posted over on openngo http://objectledge.org/confluence/x/hRQ and David Greenberg said:

Osbert - Currently logged in CiviCRM users can create tasks for themselves by scheduling meetings, phone calls, or 'custom activities' with a contact. They can also record descriptive notes on these tasks and mark them 'Completed'.

Our intent is to include addditional task management (allocate/assign, follow-up, etc.) functionality in a future release. You may want to stay current on / contribute to these specfications via our mailing list: http://lists.objectledge.net/mailman/listinfo/crm-dev

You can view the future roadmap for upcoming versions from here

For me the problem is 'users can create tasks for THEMSELVES' - not other users.

I'll keep watching!

Osbert

[micheas]

I found CiviCRM to be a back office component that was a building block (A nice block but still just a block.)

Are there any modules for CivicCRM, or any pointers of how to use this in any way other than from the back end?

The training revenue would be nice, but a solid GUI will generate more money long term.

[lobo]

hey micheas:

can u be more specific as to what you mean by a "block". CiviCRM has got quite a bit of functionality to do various things. We will focus on getting a frontend component out for Joomla! after we release 1.2 (this week)

lobo

[micheas]

hey micheas:

can u be more specific as to what you mean by a "block". CiviCRM has got quite a bit of functionality to do various things. We will focus on getting a frontend component out for Joomla! after we release 1.2 (this week)

lobo

Meaning that it looks like something that could be used to create a site, but I saw something a long ways from the non-profit equivalent of SugarCRM (which has it's problems, the main one being the fact that it does not deal with account teams handling accounts.)

[Slideri812]

I have a NPO project that we have been asked to look at (we have a few NPO clients). They to are looking for a calabritive web based tool for fund raising that is tied into the site, that being a Joomla! site of course. They want a front end component so that visitors to the site can submit info and interests in supporting them in general or in specific ways for specific interests. This info needs to be added tot he backend where the client uses it int he afore mentiond ways.

Thanx in advance

[micheas]

I have a NPO project that we have been asked to look at (we have a few NPO clients). They to are looking for a collaborative web based tool for fund raising that is tied into the site, that being a Joomla! site of course. They want a front end component so that visitors to the site can submit info and interests in supporting them in general or in specific ways for specific interests. This info needs to be added tot he backend where the client uses it int he afore mentioned ways.

Thanx in advance

Community builder seems like the way to go for the time being.

CiviCRM has potential,

Finding a non-profit inequivalent of SugarCRM and proviiding a gateway similar to SugarCRM does is obviously what you and I both want, but the path getting from here to there is not clear.

[lobo]

CiviCRM has that functionality and it is well used in our Drupal distrubtion. We do not have a front end component for Joomla!/Mambo as yet. We will probably put resources into this after our 1.3 release (CiviDonate) which incorporates donation processing into the core

I suspect building a front end component to do a few simple tasks and collect information is quite easy. If anyone in the community is willing to work with us and figure out how we can get this done sooner rather than later, please send us mail. You should be willing to contribute programming resources and joomla! expertise at this time.

For a demonstration of front end capabilities check:

http://demo.openngo.org/civicrm/drupal- ... r/register

(The Constituent information box  is extracted and stored in the CiviCRM DB. There is a 1-1 correspondence between a user and contact)

If you want to collect information and create a contact but not create a user, u can do:

http://demo.openngo.org/civicrm/drupal- ... te&reset=1

If you want to expose selective information about contacts to the world:

http://demo.openngo.org/civicrm/drupal- ... le&reset=1

All the above is controlled by the CiviCRM admin

lobo

[micheas]

CiviCRM has that functionality and it is well used in our Drupal distribution. We do not have a front end component for Joomla!/Mambo as yet. We will probably put resources into this after our 1.3 release (CiviDonate) which incorporates donation processing into the core

I suspect building a front end component to do a few simple tasks and collect information is quite easy. If anyone in the community is willing to work with us and figure out how we can get this done sooner rather than later, please send us mail. You should be willing to contribute programming resources and joomla! expertise at this time.

I am considering helping. I am lurking on the CiviCRM mailing lists.

But, I will reiterate that what I (and I suspect many others want) is a non-profit version of SugarCRM to integrate into joomla. (SugarCRM does integrate into joomla)  If you have not looked at SugarCRM I would suggest that you take a look at a couple screen shots at least. It is laid out for a sales representative. It is so geared for sales that I suspect that tweaking it for a non-profit would be a kludge that would be sub-optimal, but If there was a separate CiviCRM interface that integrated with the Joomla website, but was laid out such that it was optimized for fundraisers, event organizers, and development employee's (grant writers, development coordinators, etc.)

The Drupal and Joomla backends do not lead themselves to this naturally. (although it might change in Joomla 1.1 that you could have a group that has the backend permission of CiviCRM instead of the joomla admin template.)

Don't take my harping of not finding a solution the wrong way, I have concluded that nothing I have found meets my needs, and I am looking at the path of least resistance to create something. CiviCRM may be part of the path of least resistance.

[lobo]

Hey Micheas:

Would love your help and code contributions. We have seen and played a fair amount with Sugar and do agree that it is a great product targetted for the sales / customer service rep

Please do post your thoughts / screen shots on how you think CiviCRM shuld be organized that it is optimized for fundraisers, event organizers, and development employee's (grant writers, development coordinators, etc.). We should have a more detailed conversation on this on the crm-dev list. We do acknowledge that we have to work quite a bit on the usability and documentation part of the application, but from a feature perspective, i think we are fairly advanced

I suspect if you write down your thoughts etc and email it on the list, it will definitely give people something to think about and ruminate on. The community is growing at a nice rate and i suspect we can come up with some fairly quick and innovative solutions

lobo

[Slideri812]

Micheas,

You're right. We are looking for the same thing. We are not programmers, but we support with $ and cheerleading! So a consorted effort to develop You're right. We are looking for the same thing. We are not programmers, but we support with $, ideas and cheerleading! So a consorted effort to develop a solution sounds like the way to go! Speaking for ourselves, we see more and more NPO's moving to the web as they see their peers reaping the rewards of the most fantastic marketing vehicle ever known to marketing. And because of their size they often lack the funds for comprehensive off-the-shelf solutions. Not to mention OTS's don't integrate into or with Joomla.

If this sounds like decent I'm sorry. But Dupral, though it is a good for community building and social centric sites, I find it lacks functionality that I have only found in Joomla. And believe me, we looked HI and LOW before committing to AhughMamboUgh and now Joomla.

I would love to see the following functionality;

1) Create forms from within joomla for/ with CRM for collection of visitor data
2) Same as above except provide ability to donate on the spot (tied to PayPal or phpshop or inhouse processing)
3) All info is dumped into the CRM db
4) Back-end for CRM that can be part of or separate from the Joomla back-end OR the ability to (depending on the up coming release) allow access to the Joomla back-end and to the CRM and interface only.
5) And lastly, and this might be a stretch, the ability to import info from Outlook, Excel and other common vcard type formats.

We have found that many NPO's do use Excel and other very simple means to track and work with donors and members. Being able to move this info easily would be a huge plus, even if we had to massage the data prior to import.

Thanx

[lobo]

Hey Slideri:

If this sounds like decent I'm sorry. But Dupral, though it is a good for community building and social centric sites, I find it lacks functionality that I have only found in Joomla. And believe me, we looked HI and LOW before committing to AhughMamboUgh and now Joomla.

I'll avoid getting into a CMS war here. to a large extent there always will be multiple good solutions solving similar problems. (thats what u want, anyway). I think Joomla, Drupal and Plone are all excellent CMS's with great community and passionate supporters behind them, and we'd love to be the CRM that powers all three CMS

We chose Drupal as the initial target CMS primarily because the organization that we were working with closely (CivicSpace labs) had chosen Drupal as their CMS. It also helped that Drupal had good hooks that we could integrate with pretty easily instead of hacking stuff into the system. That said, we do realize that the Joomla! Platform is evolving and will make things easier in the near future and we are excited to get all the new stuff into the Joomla 1.1

1) Create forms from within joomla for/ with CRM for collection of visitor data

We do this today for Drupal. Most of the code is already there, and if we find a technical Joomla! person willing to help us with the front end component, we could have this fairly quickly for Joomla!

2) Same as above except provide ability to donate on the spot (tied to PayPal or phpshop or inhouse processing)

This will be the focus of our next release (v1.3). Detailed specification at:

http://objectledge.org/confluence/displ ... cification

3) All info is dumped into the CRM db

Yep, thats the current model

4) Back-end for CRM that can be part of or separate from the Joomla back-end OR the ability to (depending on the up coming release) allow access to the Joomla back-end and to the CRM and interface only.

Not sure what you mean by this

5) And lastly, and this might be a stretch, the ability to import info from Outlook, Excel and other common vcard type formats.

We have a pretty powerful import/export which allows u to get data to/from excel. We dont support outlook as yet (not a lot of requests for this as  yet). We have vCard support at the contact level now

lobo

[micheas]

4) Back-end for CRM that can be part of or separate from the Joomla back-end OR the ability to (depending on the up coming release) allow access to the Joomla back-end and to the CRM and interface only.

Not sure what you mean by this

I am pretty sure that I do.  While CiviCRM has integration to Joomla/Drupal on the website, and it has integration for the site administrator(s). It does not have a SugarCRM style interface. (rewritten for non-profits.)

Ideally this would be completely independent so that you can use a joomla or mambo website, and put CiviCRM fundraiser(or what every you call the third part.) on it's own ssl site. Ideally the fundraiser front end should be administered with the Drupal/Joomla backend.

Is that clear as mud?

Micheas

[mcsmom]

Trebso,

How big is your donor/leasds list? You can get the free version of eTapestry if you have less than 500 records.

[lobo]

I am pretty sure that I do.  While CiviCRM has integration to Joomla/Drupal on the website, and it has integration for the site administrator(s). It does not have a SugarCRM style interface. (rewritten for non-profits.)

Ideally this would be completely independent so that you can use a joomla or mambo website, and put CiviCRM fundraiser(or what every you call the third part.) on it's own ssl site. Ideally the fundraiser front end should be administered with the Drupal/Joomla backend.

yes, now its clear. Yes having our own interface will allow CiviCRM to make things more compact etc, however for the short / medium term we'll go with the integrated CMS solution, unified login etc. What benefit does having your "independent" backend administration offer?

lobo

[micheas]

The benefit of having a "fundraiser" interface, hopefully sharing logins with the CMS. is that it allows a clean user interface that is devoted solely to the task at hand.

Giving the fundraiser a full screen of workspace for the tasks that s/he is responsible for seems necessary. There just really are that many details to take care of.

[Slideri812]

Hi,

Thanx Micheas. Your are right on the money with #4. Many NPO have volunteers that need access to the data weather it is as an assigned task or as a manager of a marketing blitz. Having an "off site" interface for them to interact with and manipulate the CRM allows them to focus on what they know and leave the site alone. I sufficient permissions are not in place to isolate this type of volunteer then we are opening a door to potential issues that I'd rater keep nailed shut.

LOBO:
Dupral is a very nice CMS, so don't take my earlier comments the wrong way. As you stated it is great to have choices that fit both the need and the type of environment one feels "comfortable" working in. And yes Plone is another good one. I did not intend to bash other platforms. I was merle trying to state that as you keep referring to Dupral we are looking for the Joomal answers.

Additionally, I am pleased that you have had the opportunity to deploy your CRM to an active community and I trust that experience will succesfuly translate to a Joomla version.

As far as cost goes, most our clients could pony up $100 - $300 for this one feature, thought my preference is to keep it OS. I would rather spend that same money here in my Joomla community.

Thanx you guys, I am excited at the prospect of a real solution for this need being in the near offing.

[lobo]

Thanx Micheas. Your are right on the money with #4. Many NPO have volunteers that need access to the data weather it is as an assigned task or as a manager of a marketing blitz. Having an "off site" interface for them to interact with and manipulate the CRM allows them to focus on what they know and leave the site alone. I sufficient permissions are not in place to isolate this type of volunteer then we are opening a door to potential issues that I'd rater keep nailed shut.

Thats what we use the underlying CMS permission system for. Restricting what a person can do based on their permissions. ACL's give u a fair amount of permission, and we've incorporated a decent permissioning system with CiviCRM (well integrated with Drupal, none for Joomla!). I think Joomla! 1.1 will have ACL's and we will integrate with that to permission various things

From a CiviCRM perspective, we will put resources into the Joomla! project after Joomla! 1.1 and CiviCRM 1.3 (so later this year, early next year). if folks need stuff earlier, folks in the community need to step up and contribute. Discussion in the forums are great, but its no substitute for some real code

lobo

[micheas]

From a CiviCRM perspective, we will put resources into the Joomla! project after Joomla! 1.1 and CiviCRM 1.3 (so later this year, early next year). if folks need stuff earlier, folks in the community need to step up and contribute. Discussion in the forums are great, but its no substitute for some real code

lobo

Don't know how this is going to get me the software by 2003

anonymous CVS access is always nice.

[lobo]

http://svn.objectledge.net/repos/trunk

you can checkout a copy using:

svn checkout http://svn.objectledge.net/repos/trunk crm

(or use your favorite svn client)

lobo

[Slideri812]

That sounds great lobo. So I checked the Forge and this project is not listed. It seems to me the best way to get the attention of those that can actually code this is to float it in the Forge where it can be found. So list it as a project. If you plan to do it any way list it now, give it some time to attract attention. You might be surprised at the response. If you'll check the forge you'll see several cross over projects that are listed but not yet active, but it is coming.

[lobo]

http://developer.joomla.org/sf/projects/civicrm

has been there for some time. We'll upload 1.2 when we release a final version later this week / early next week

[cozimek]

Hey everyone,

Geez, i've been so busy, I haven't seen this conversation going on!

As one of the lead point people for Joomla-CiviCRM integration, I asked on another post a little while ago for a team of individuals that were interested in working with us on the development integration and coding.  With 1.1 alpha out for Joomla, and since Rey's told me that it includes the user-hooks, it looks like we can start on the front-end integration.  So, just like how Drupal allows for CiviCRM profile form fields to be included in registration process, we should now be able to do the same for Joomla.

The only piece left is the ACL.  But for now, I think we should move forward on the frontend integration.

Anyone else interested in joining the integration team?  We really could use a few more coding hands.

Best,
Ryan

[Slideri812]

LOBO

So sorry. I looked and searhced the forge before I posted my last comment. I didn't wat to say it if you'd already done it . Thanx!

Thank You Ryan!!

[crecalde]

I'm surprised by the lack of mention for one of the premier Non-Profit software providers in the industry.  I sit on the board of a couple of non-profits, and regularly interact with others at similar organizations.  Many of the larger non-profit organziations use products form Blackbaud, Inc. (http://www.blackbaud.com).  They're a premier provider with solutions dedicated to effective fundraising.  Of course, they are a commercial venture, but their pricing is structured to scale, with a low entry price.  So you may want to look at whether they will meet your needs.  Another issue you may have is that there is no automated bridge between Joomla/M*bo and their product set - so this may nix the whole idea - depending on how embedded you are with your current environment.

By the way, I have no connections with the organization, and am passing along the info only because it is another potential solution for your requirements.

C.