CiviCRM: A Free and Open Source eCRM Solution

CiviCRM is a free, libre and open source constituent relationship management solution. CiviCRM is web-based, internationalized, and designed specifically to meet the needs of advocacy, non-profit and non-governmental groups.

CiviCRM is a powerful contact, fundraising and eCRM system that allows you to record and manage information about your various constituents including volunteers, activists, donors, employees, clients, vendors, etc. Track and execute donations, transactions, conversations, events or any type of correspondence with each constituent and store it all in one, easily accessible and manageable source.

CiviCRM is created by an open source community coordinated by CiviCRM LLC, and the 501c3 non-profit Social Source Foundation. The project also receives ongoing input and guidance from our Community Advisory Board.

Why use CiviCRM?

• "CiviCRM is free 'as in freedom' software, so you and your organization can finally be in full control of your own data and communications
• Unified view of every constituent. Store information about individuals, organizations and households and your interactions with them.
• Strong open source community. A rapidly growing open source community of developers, consulting firms, consultants and others support, extend and maintain the software.
• Designed for the civic sector. CiviCRM was designed from the ground up for non-governmental organizations that engage in advocacy, community and political organizing, and non-profit work.
• Seamless integration with web sites. CiviCRM integrates directly into the popular open source Content Management systems - Drupal and Joomla!. Registration and visitor interactions are logged directly into the system, including end-user maintenance of their own addresses and custom fields.
• Internationalized & Localized. CiviCRM was built from the ground up as a product intended to be used globally. It can store data in many localized formats and has been translated into a number of languages - including French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese...
• Open source & open standards. Licensed under the GNU AGPL, users can make any modification to the software, can benefit from modifications made by others and can effectively interoperate with other applications.
• Affordable and cost effective. CiviCRM is available without a license fee and is supported by a community of nonprofit-focused consultants.
• Optional components like CiviContribute, CiviEvent, CiviMail, and CiviMember give you more ways to connect with and engage your supporters.

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CiviCRM Community

• The CiviCRM package was downloaded over 210,000 times during 2009, and we believe it is installed on more than 4,000 servers.
• The community forum has 11,500 members averaging 50+ posts per day (as of December 2009).
• Over 100 individuals and consultants have participated in the design and development of CiviCRM.
• Consulting firms from one person shops to multi-million dollar organizations offer CiviCRM-based services.
• Open visibility and community participation in bugs, features and product roadmaps.

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Technical Requirements

CiviCRM is a web-based solution that runs on your own web server, or on a server at your hosting provider. Installs on local machines should consider using the XAMPP/WAMP stacks which almost painlessly install Apache/PHP/MySQL.

• CiviCRM is resource-intensive. We encourage users to consider Virtual Private Servers (VPS) OR (semi) dedicated hosting OR shared hosting from a host with experience hosting CiviCRM. Please review our Hosting provider information page for hosting options.
• Apache 2.0+
• PHP 5.2.1+ (PHP 5.3 is supported starting with CiviCRM 3.2)
• MySQL 5.0.x+ with InnoDB support
• Drupal 6.x / Joomla 1.5.x
• Server cronjobs
• 128mb PHP memory limit recommended
• Multi-lingual features of CiviCRM require SUPER privileges in MySQL 5.0.x (to allow the use of TRIGGERS)

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Key Features in Detail

• Segmentation Tools. Use groups, simple and searchable tags, and/or relationships to segment constituents.
• Extensive Configurability. CiviCRM is highly configurable, allowing you, in most cases, to configure it to work with your existing business processes. Unlimited locations, addresses, phone numbers, emails and custom data fields allow most unique needs to be met.
• Internationalization & Localization. CiviCRM can store CRM data in many localized formats and supports most languages, currently including Brazilian Portuguese, German, Polish and Spanish.
• Contacts. Store common nonprofit contact data (individuals, organizations, and households) that support donor management, case management, voter, and advocacy applications.
• Relationships. Understand the relationships between any two contacts with standard (volunteer, employer, head of household) relationships or create your own unique custom relationship types.
• Activities. Record standard activities (phone call, meeting, email) for any contact or create your own custom activities that meet your needs. External software can use the CiviCRM Application Programming Interface (API) to register activities with any contact, providing a comprehensive central repository of CRM information.
• Smart Groups. Create smart groups based on any search criteria or create standard groups that are simply lists of contacts. The membership of a smart group changes automatically according to that moment’s search results.
• Custom Data. Create unlimited custom data fields in virtually any format, including radio buttons, drop-down menus, etc. All custom fields are searchable and can define a smart group.
• Support Multi-site Organizations and Networks. Centrally store data across multiple organizations or web sites.
• Import and Export Functionality with De-duping. Import functionality intelligently maps CiviCRM fields to imported data and checks for duplicates based on user-defined criteria.
• Permissions. With Drupal integration, access to certain groups of contacts can be limited to specific users, offering a way for volunteers to manage small portions of a larger CiviCRM database.
• Website Integration. CiviCRM is integrated with both Drupal and Joomla/Mambo. Web site registrations automatically become CiviCRM records and individuals can maintain their own CRM record.
• Application Programming Interface (API). CiviCRM offers a fully documented API exposing all major functionality. For instance, you can search the database, register interactions with constituents, create or update contact information, etc. This allows CiviCRM to realistically be a central repository of virtually any nonprofit’s CRM information.