Help CiviCRM thrive: become a founding partner!

Published
2013-07-10 02:01
Written by
michaelmcandrew - member of the CiviCRM community - view blog guidelines

If you've been keeping up with blog posts on sustainability that I've been writing recently, you'll know that one of our main focuses at the moment is on ensuring the long term sustainability of CiviCRM.  A key part of these efforts is our new partner program, which we've been busy developing over the past few weeks.

We're now at a point where we would like to invite 'early adopters' to become founding partners of this programme.

Reasons to join the partner program come in two irresistable flavours:

  • direct benefits to your organisation
  • ensuring long term growth and sustainabilty for CiviCRM

Lets start with the benefits to your organisation. Join the partner program and you will get:

  • your organisation highlighted on the civicrm.org home page (rotated with supporting partners)
  • a prominent listing in our soon to be revamped service provider directory.  Note that we'll be phasing out the listing of organisations that are not partners or active contributors over the next few months as we bring the new directory online.
  • a partner badge that you can display on your website signifying your commitment to CiviCRM
  • a mention in the monthly CiviCRM newsletter and from the CiviCRM twitter account when you join the partner program
  • 25% discount on CiviCon sponsorships

Join as a founding partner by the 31 August

To say thank you for stepping up:

  • you'll get a founding partner badge, which you can proudly display to the world for as long as you keep your membership current
  • you'll be recognised as a founding partner in our service provider directory and in our founding member hall of fame
  • we'll give you three complementary tickets to your next CiviCon

Now on to the ways in which you will be ensuring the long term growth and sustainabilty of CiviCRM.

As we all know, CiviCRM relies on countless contributions of many different shapes and sizes from our diverse ecosystem of users, implementors, developers.  We also rely on the hard work of the core team to steward these contributions into Core CiviCRM, look after our infrastructure, and ensure two stable releases of CiviCRM per year and lots more.  By joining the partner programme, you are contributing to this work, ensuring our amazing non profit CRM continues to grow and thrive for years to come.  Something that is good for your work, your clients work, and the countless other organisations and individuals that benefit from CiviCRM.

CiviCRM partners pay an annual fee. You can join the partner program at one of three levels:

  • $1,000 per year - Associate partner (edit: was Consultant / freelance partner)
  • $2,500 per year - Supporting partner
  • $5,000 per year - Sustaining partner

We recognise that all service providers are different, and you are free to choose the level you think most appropriate. To help you choose a level, here are our guidelines for which types and sizes of organisation should join at specific levels

Associate parter This level is designed for independent consultants, freelancers and smaller non for profit consultancies (2-5 staff) that provide CiviCRM services on a regular basis. We appreciate your support at this level!
Supporting partner This level is designed for smaller companies working with CiviCRM. We expect that most organisations with 2-5 staff will join at this level. Larger non-for-profit organisations providing CiviCRM services may also wish to join at this level. By becoming a supporting partner, you are showing a significant commitment to the project - thanks!
Sustaining partner We've designed this level for organisations that want to go the extra mile to help CiviCRM. We expect that larger organisations (with six or more staff) will join at this level and invite other service providers who make their living from CiviCRM to do so as well. Becoming a sustaining partner is a fantastic way to ensure the long term sustainability of CiviCRM.

Note that if you are not a service provider but want to support our work, there are many other ways that you can do so.

To wrap up, our partner program is still in its infancy, but we are incredibly excited about the direction this can take us as a community, and invite you to sign up as a founding partner,

Comments

I tried to join but when I submitted I noted I hadn't selected any Services. I checked again and there is indeed no way to select any. Is this meant to work that way?