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!

Appreciate the shared resources on the CiviCRM website. We continually refer to it for updates and knowledge.

I find the engagement with our community of users to be intellectually stimulating
and rewarding. Seeing folks with expertise in a particular area step up and contribute their time and ideas to help improve the product is quite exciting. Every time I hear about a new interesting organization starting to use CiviCRM, I get a renewed sense of excitement about our work. The range of civic sector organizations currently using the software is quite amazing to me - from large international advocacy organizations to local performing arts troupes. I also really enjoy interacting with our international community - building friendships and getting to share culture (food, music, humor ....) with colleagues on every continent.

It's all about community. I love the CiviCRM philosophy and in IXIAM, we are trying to expand the catalan speaking community in Catalunya

PeaceWorks provides technology solutions for not-for-profit organizations. CiviCRM fills an important niche among our clients who need a flexible, comprehensive, user-friendly, web-integrated CRM solution.