This October I spent five inspiring days in the Netherlands for CiviCamp Europe 2025 — a week that brought together users, developers, and implementers of CiviCRM to learn, share, and collaborate. From a packed one-day conference to hands-on training and a busy community sprint, it was a perfect mix of learning, teaching, and building together. The other day my phone made me a slide show of memories. It made me reflect on how silly I’d been to feel nervous before going along, and prompted me to share my experience with a few tips in case you’re also on the verge of getting more involved in CiviCRM as your new years resolution!
I am Abi, an ex CiviCRM user turned implementer attending my first sprint after joining the team at Third Sector Design two months prior to the event. I’ve been to Civi events and meet-ups in the UK before as a user so I was coming in with fresh eyes and a new mindset this year! There were familiar faces amongst a crowd of new people with fascinating stories and reasons for being there. If the organised activities weren't so interesting I could have sat around chatting all week - no problem.
Everyone is *actually* that nice
The general tone set out from the start was one of open mindedness - collaboration and a feeling of “we’re in this together”. Throughout the week we spent time working together, learning together, eating together and chilling together. And if you were unlucky enough to be on my team, losing at pool together.
The week absolutely flew by and there’s so many different ways to get stuck in (or take time out if that’s more you). I didn’t manage to use the running shoes I packed, but there were people up and exploring the local area and making the most of being together in such a beautiful setting.
Having not attended a sprint in the past, this was the part of the week that felt most unfamiliar to me at first. But helpfully, everyone gave an update on what they planned to do both at the start of the sprint, and on the Thursday, when those that had been involved with the training joined the pack. My colleagues were cracking on with their projects: a Nuxt integration for CiviCRM, a WordPress Docker image for CiviCRM and tweaking the user interface for FormBuilder. I got to dip into discussions about future events, improving the documentation and “the great AI debate”!
You can’t help but get inspired
The lightning talks that took place on the Monday were as varied as they were inspiring, and are always a highlight for me - previously using this part of the day to make a mental “shopping list” of features I want to try once they’re available. Some of these were then explored in more detail towards the end of the week during the sprint, in some cases with an opportunity to get involved in adapting or testing the new tools that might be the next new thing at a future event!
A particularly practical talk walked through address-lookup challenges in Belgium, where addresses can be written in multiple languages. Using OpenStreetMap and structured fields, they showed clever ways to keep data clean. And speaking of clean data, my colleague Kurund shared a quick tip for keeping bots out of subscriber lists which I know made it to multiple users’ “shopping lists”.
I particularly enjoyed the number of “no-code” or “low-code” approaches using SearchKit and FormBuilder. Lots of teasers of exciting things to come, and/or get involved with throughout the week…
But, it’s not just the strangers that become friends that spark new ideas. My colleagues each contributed to the agenda at various stages of the week, and during the camp we delivered a workshop alongside Patricia from Repowering London who has been involved in our CiviShares work for the last year or so. The workshop was showcasing how Third Sector Design have built an extension to support societies to manage their share offers using CiviCRM as a platform. Having that chance to listen and see the project from a new perspective was really great.
One theme that kept coming up was how much more powerful CiviCRM is becoming thanks to SearchKit and FormBuilder. I was particularly struck by a demo showing how membership organisations could build interactive pages — including grid and even map-based displays of members — all without custom code. Someone showed a form that combined a search view and a submission action, which opened my eyes to how flexible FormBuilder is becoming.
I also loved hearing from Hamburg Community Foundation about their funding application framework, involving a clever combination of a public-facing applicant portal and a structured back-office workflow. I thought it was a great example of the kind of dual-interface tools nonprofits often need.
I was learning without noticing
Through Tuesday and Wednesday I tagged along to the user admin training which was a crash course for what we branded “beginners” and “advanced beginners” to explore a fresh CiviCRM environment and ask any and all of those niggly questions that you’ve just never been able to get to the bottom of in the office or back home. In a room along the corridor another group got stuck into the developer training, which sounded engaging and useful particularly for the more technically advanced friends I chatted to over lunch!
Even in the final two days when I thought my brain must be full with new connections and tips from the community, just being immersed in the programme saw me tagging along to more conversations and discussions that I’d never dream of if I were at my desk at home.
There’s not much left to say other than a huge thank you to everyone who helped organise and coordinate CiviCamp Europe in Lunteren. And thanks to everyone that I met and got to know during our stay. I met Liz from MJW in the Netherlands and have since enjoyed reading about her experience too, as we were in a similar boat as relative newbies being brought into the fold!
October might feel like a while ago and maybe it’s the Christmas spirit as hinted at above that has me feeling hopeful for the new year. I know through discussions throughout the week that there are lots of exciting plans for 2026 in the Civi world, so watch this space and get involved when you get the chance to - you won’t regret it.
Comments
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Abi, "Learning without noticing" is a good way to put it!
You can find the community foundation of Hamburg, Germany here: https://buergerstiftung-hamburg.de/ The one in Hamburg, NY is probably also doing great work, not sure if they use Civi though ;)