Notice to non-developers: This post is about how some functionality in 4.2 will be implemented in code and in the database, with very minor changes to anything visible through a browser. If you're not a developer, it probably won't interest you.

Background
Pogstone's client had already been using a web-based membership database, however that system did not have any features related to households and other features needed when interacting with families and children. They also needed many features related to needs of a typical synagogue that were missing from the previous system.

Roll-out process

As most non-profits know, driving revenue exclusively off of events can be a hit or miss adventure.  Revenues YOY are not consistent, and its difficult to find those supporters who will organize and host fundraising events to support your cause.  Many are intimidated by hosting large fundraisers or simply don't have the time or resources to pull it off.  So to sum up our problem: we needed a broader more consistent source of revenue to fund our programs.     To expand our source of revenue, we looked to our community of donors, families, and fundraisers to raise money on our behalf through their own social networks.  The average user on facebook has 30 friends [http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics] which means that we could exponentially increase our reach through online social networking interaction.  All we needed was to setup the campaign pages platform and get people started.

Our idea is that a Room Booking Module would be a fantastic addition to CiviCRM.

The Room Booking Module would give the ability to manage the availability of multiple rooms (i.e. meetings rooms / conference facilities) and assign the bookings to CiviCRM Contacts. Each booking would appear on a contacts new ‘Room Booking’ Tab and an activity ‘Room Booked’ would also be generated. This is the same methodology used for CiviEvents. A calendar view would allow you to search current bookings and add new ones in available time slots. In addition a room could not be booked if that time slot had already been taken unless a booking had been cancelled.

When making a booking you would be able to assign resources to the room. This could be limited number items, such as Projectors, or unlimited items such as Cups of Coffee. Each resource would have a unit cost which would be automatically added to the Booking charge.

A couple of issues have begun to sting us repeatedly and I see others raising same issue.

#1

Getting a Default Header/Footer used in the SysTplMsgs

SysTplMsgs (System Template Messages) are found here /civicrm/admin/messageTemplates?reset=1)

To avoid repeated copying of the desired header/footer in to the upto 22 SysTplMsg, one option would be to add a checkbox to the CiviMail Footer/Headers (/civicrm/admin/component?reset=1)

Hi,

We conducted a research to see how often someone tweeted about a page powered by CiviCRM in the past month and a half. We analysed 858 tweets by 612 users about 163 sites, some big names like oxfam or the red cross, some for tiny organisations.

These sites cover an amazingly wide range of topics: homeless, food, transgender, environment, sport, political parties, pets, public health NGOs, independant movies, gender equality, education, cancer, anti weed prohibition...

Eli Beckerman is the second winner of a copy of Using CiviCRM from Packt Publishing. Eli is excited about the potential of CiviCRM to organize bottom-up transformations to deal collaboratively with the many crises facing the world today.

Packt has also selected a runner-up in its contest: an experienced CiviCRM user from the City Bible Forum, ken, will get a downloadable eBook copy of the book.

Here's some background on Using CiviCRM from Packt's site:

What you will learn from this book:

Sheila Burkett is the first winner of a copy of Using CiviCRM from Packt Publishing. Packt is running a promotional contest where you just have to post into the forum or email them to qualify to win a copy of the book.

Here's some more information about the book from the Press Release:

Using CiviCRM is the first commercially published book on CiviCRM, and came out in February 2011. It will teach readers to build a CRM that conforms to their needs and to integrate it with Drupal or Joomla!. Written by Brian Shaughnessy and Joseph Murray, this book will assist readers in developing an integrated online system that handles contacts, donations, event registration, bulk e-mailing, case management, and other functions such as activity tracking, grants, reporting and analytics.

Few days back I was testing "Tell a Friend" functionality in CiviCRM, which allows users to spread a word / refer information about Events or Fundraising to their friends. As of now users are allowed to enter max 3 contact details ( first name, last name and  email Id ). There is no setting to configure the max number of allowed emails via user interface. When you send email using tell a friend these details are saved as contacts in CiviCRM with approprriate Contact Source.

As part of the Google Grants program for non-profits, Google offers their Google Checkout service to qualifying non-profits at no-charge with no processing fees. Depending on the fees you would pay with a competing processor this represents an instant 3% jump in your organization's fundraising efforts just by using Google Checkout.

The only limitation has been recurring donations. To address this Google launched Google Subscriptions and now we need to get support into CiviCRM so we can enjoy a single free processing fee payment gateway.

A new Make it Happen iniative was launched to get this going in 4.1 or even 3.4 if we meet the campaign goal soon! A donation to this iniative will easily pay itself back by the savings in processing fees. This initiative is already 70% there with donations from Powered by Action and the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA):

    http://civicrm.org/mih#google