We help many not for profits implement CiviCRM through consultancy, training, configuration and custom development. Many of them come from a painful world of old Access databases, multiple spreadsheets and even paper. It's really satisfying to
help people move on with a system that's so much in tune with their own ethics of sharing and collaboration. We also 'eat our own dog food' and use Civi in-house for our client records because we love the flexibility and control it gives us.

For us it's important to share code and advice with other members of the community when we can because we know we get it back in help at other times. The community really is awesome and one of the friendliest and undaunting I've come across. We appreciate the huge value of the software to us and our clients so we try to contribute back and make it even better.

CiviCRM helps the organizations we support to do what they have to do! At EE-atWork we assist our customers with implementing and using CiviCRM. This includes functional support, training, project management, data migration, integration using the API and customization. We are based in The Netherlands.

Our customers are mainly non-profits, varying from larger organizations continuously improving the way CiviCRM supports them to smaller organizations using the core functionality and perhaps contributing to a Make It Happen. We have been active in the CiviCRM community since 2009. CiviCRM is all about community, sharing and producing together. We truly believe that one and one can be three!

I am trying to build a stronger End-user community withing CiviCRM to increase cooperation among non-profits using CiviCRM in similar ways. Going to CiviCRON and being a part of the community at the conference has made me want to make the End-user community more robust. I think the open-source and non-profit focused nature of CiviCRM lends itself to strong community building as is an aspect of CiviCRM that is exciting!

We feel there are too many obstacles facing not-for-profits (NFPs) considering commercial CRM offerings, including many of those that are charity oriented. From licensing models which restrict the fluid expansion of an organisation's user base (why should you be punished with higher costs for being successful?), to support from commercial companies being inherently tied to one supplier; a NFP would benefit from the option to 'shop around' for those most appropriate, e.g. based on: proximity and availability on-site, cost, experience, value added services... They also often lack the capacity for charity relevant workflows, necessitating either customisations, complicated and inefficient workarounds or an en-masse call for new functionality, as individual charities do not appear to carry the weight required to influence subtle NFP-only changes to market leading software, without large expense.

On the flip side, CiviCRM is completely free and open-source, carrying with it a friendly, hard-working and enthusiastic community of developers and implementers, constantly listening to the users' needs and sculpting future releases to the requirements of NFP organisations. This is exciting!

The community around CiviCRM is international, multicultural, friendly, sometime opinionated but always respectful and welcoming new ideas. It is a real pleasure to interact with these people - but see for yourself: dive in and ask your first question on the forums!

We thoroughly appreciate CiviCRM as a software and this community, and when helping our customers implement and make the best of CiviCRM we are always looking for ways to contribute back.