It’s been on my tasklist to write about the CiviCRM community. Like most people it seems, my task list is longer than I care to admit, so I’ve put this off for some time. I had a moment of inspiration the other day when I was jogging about trying to visually represent some of the key elements of our community, however this was problematic for two reasons. First, our community is complex, offering different ways for people to participate around a common vision, often with little structure to support them. Second, because even though I am often struck with great ideas (at least, I think they’re great) when I’m running, I rarely remember them by the time I return home. Sadly, I don’t typically run that far.
But this one stuck with me: put together a very simple venn diagram demonstrating how the community works. Ideally this will help clarify and deepen understanding of this open source project, specifically within our end user base such that we see greater...
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We are thrilled to announce that Caitlin Cogdill, Senior Fundraising Email Manager for the Wikimedia Foundation will be our 2016 keynote speaker.
Her address will focus on Wikimedia's data-driven approach to online fundraising and how CiviCRM and other tools are used. Caitlin manages the organization's global fundraising email campaigns which spread over 30 countries in more than 20 languages and raise about 25% of Wikimedia's overall budget.
Register for the User Summit, CiviCRM's premiere conference by users and for users. Also, book your hotel reservation today. Discounts for the Hilton Garden Inn end on August 18.
I discovered CiviCRM as I was transitioning from accidental techie to intentional techie. While it's true that a TRS-80 Color Computer featured heavily in my childhood — I would secretly leave it powered on for the days it would take me to key in the recipes from Getting Started with Color BASIC, as we didn't have the cassette storage peripheral that would have allowed me to save my progress — I never set out to become... well, a geek.
Like so many in our community, I landed at the doorstep of technology through other activism, and purely by accident. In college I co-founded a campus animal rights organization. Having already lost two webmasters to burnout, graduation, the...
Read moreThe Core Team has spent the past six months assessing its capacity, managing a cultural transition, and overseeing the CiviCRM project in a post-founder environment that requires a different approach to economic sustainability. The challenges and opportunities presented by this transition can’t be overstated. We’re confident that, with strong community support, we can evolve CiviCRM into a model open source project.
Before we do that, however, It’s important to recognize that not only are we undergoing a significant cultural change at CiviCRM, but that we’re also in a space (open source) in which there are few good business models. Needless to say, it’s very challenging to build a viable business based on freely giving your product away. CiviCRM’s own model has been based on community participation and has been financially supported by a relatively few number of individuals and organizations. Going forward, CiviCRM will become exceptional at cultivating its community for...
Read moreGiving back to my community is a core of who I am and it gives me purpose. That is why I love being a contributor to CiviCRM. Volunteerism is how I discovered the power of CiviCRM. As a past board member of the Webster Groves School District Foundation, they reached out to me in 2009 to evaluate their need to review their engagement with eTapestry. I decided to do my research to look for alternative solutions available to understand our options. That is how I found out about CiviCRM and the power it gave nonprofits to integrate their web presence with their donor, event and membership management systems.
At the same time, I was in the early planning stages of starting Spry Digital with my partners. We shared a love for the open source community and their passion to build great technology platforms. Since starting in 2010, our team has worked with the WordPress, Drupal and CiviCRM communities to promote these platforms,...
Read more- to provide more guidance and direction for developers in the creation and publishing of extensions, and
- to provide more clarity and better usability for users in finding and managing extensions through the multiple channels through which they are available (including the user interface, on CiviCRM.org, and on GitHub).
This year we had the second CiviCon in North West Europe, which was in Woerden this year, a small town near Utrecht in The Netherlands. Before I tell you more about the event let me start by thanking our gold sponsors CiviCooP and Systopia and our bronze sponsors Orgis and IT4nonprofit. It would not have been possible without them!
Although CiviCon was on 26 May, we sort of started with a very cosy pre-conference session with the people who were staying overnight. The day started with an inspiring session by coach Caroline Vos who asked us all to check what kind of ape we were. A good start of the day including the invitation to become part of we! We had about 45 participants, who had a choice between a good variety of sessions. Some existing CiviCRM users like Amnesty...
Read moreIn late 2009, we were looking for a better solution for one of our larger faith-based clients. The AMS and CRMs we investigated were either too expensive or too simplistic. We had taken a hard look at CiviCRM about a year earlier, but we didn’t think it was ready. However, with the release of CiviCRM 3.1, CiviCRM was more mature and gave us the flexibility and Drupal integration we needed. CiviCRM was ready and so were we.
Making the decision to implement CiviCRM was probably the most pivotal decision we made at BackOffice Thinking. Flash forward to 2016, CiviCRM is still our go-to CRM/AMS in many situations ; CiviCRM has matured and developed into a leader in the space.
I’d been involved in other open source “communities”, but this one is different for several reasons. Two that stand out are:
(1) CiviCRM becomes the lifeblood of nonprofits it serves. The community understands how important this is and it drives us to make...
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On Monday, 23rd October 2017, CiviCRM developers and users will meet in Canberra, Australia for the first ever Australian CiviCon. The day will be sessions to help evaluators, new and advanced users to understand how to use CiviCRM to achieve their organisation's mission.