2 posts tagged “crm”

Recently I was asked by my organization to do an analysis of technology platforms so that we could plan strategies for next year's national events.  Over the past year we've rebranded our program and are doing a lot more national promotion than in the past, so we wanted to be sure we are on a solid path.

To gather information, I sought out development and technology staff at ten large nonprofit organizations which do comparable events.  Not surprisingly for the nonprofit community, I was gratified by the helpfulness I received from the people I spoke to.  I asked what products they were using, what worked vs. what didn't, and whether they would make the same choices today that they made in the past.

I wasn't really interested in which CRM product was best, since what's best for one organization may be not a good choice for another.  However, I was curious about those organizations that chose to develop customized solutions rather than select prepackaged or hosted applications.  At my current organization, we've struggled with multiple vendors in getting screens, processes etc. to work the way we would like them to.  We've also heard from some constituents about user interfaces that are confusing or which otherwise make it difficult for them to participate in our programs.

As expected, many of my peers at other nonprofits have struggled to integrate online and offline data;  some are doing only a partial integration; others have tried but fallen short; others have chosen to do data entry into two separate systems.  I am encouraged by the new popularity of 'open' alternatives, but it's too early to report on organization successes resulting from these initiatives.

Generally, organizations that have developed custom solutions reported as much satisfaction as those who have chosen the large eCRM vendors.  Yet, these nonprofits also admitted that system development had been a long, expensive process.  Those who stuck with hosted products explained how they've had to closely project manage their vendor to make sure their needs were met as much as possible (as has been my experience).

My summary recommendation to my organization was to attempt a hybrid solution: consider staying with the vendors we have now if they can adapt to our requirements or connect to customized screens / systems developed elsewhere.  I won't tell my national staff event managers they can't have what they want but we must be able to clearly document our requirements to give to the vendor or developer.  In addition, we need to be able to differentiate between items that are deal breakers vs. others that would be 'nice to have.'

I'd like to especially thank these organizations whose staff generously gave of their time to help with my analysis: Alzheimer's Association, American Diabetes Association, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Multiple Sclerosis Society and Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization.

Sat, Oct. 13 I attended the NYC Joomla Day run by PICnet and sponsored by Google.  Joomla is currently the most popular open source CMS (Drupal and Plone are also widely used).

As a relatively new Joomla user (I'm using it to build nonprofitbridge.com), I found the 'Joomla 101' session helpful.  Louis Landry, a core Joomla developer, also reviewed the history of the development of upcoming 1.5 version and why it has taken a while to be released (it will be fully internationalized).

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I am a big believer in data integration, and that applications should be able to share data with each other.  (I'm not alone in this effort - see the Integration Proclamation.)  Ryan Cozimek of PICnet led an afternoon session to explain why integration of CMS & CRM products is important.   Some benefits include allowing constituents to manage their profile on the web, providing a way to search data in inventory systems, making available help tickets to users and allowing for ACLs - access control lists, as a way to customize web site content.  PICnet is currently developing tools to integrate Joomla with SalesForce and Democracy in Action.  Recently announced integration initiatives by the big nonprofit vendors are Kintera Connect and Convio Open.

If your organization doesn't have an current web site because it takes too much time to update content, using a content management system will help. With an active community and developer base, Joomla looks like the strongest option in the open source CMS market.