A renewed step for growth in international markets

Compared to other open source projects like Drupal, WordPress and Joomla, CiviCRM is quite small and unassuming. It’s powered by a dedicated community that serves an important need; providing world-class software for nonprofits, non-governmental organizations and for civic sector organizations. Though CiviCRM is used around the world, the Core Team would like to see the total number of active sites grow substantially, thereby improving our capacity to grow not only the project’s base of contributors and supporters, but to increase the overall impact that the software can have.

Part of our role as the Core Team is to set the direction and objectives for the overall project, deferring execution to key project teams. With respect to market growth, the Marketing Team is directly tasked with positioning CiviCRM and encouraging its adoption as a world-class CRM for nonprofits. While there’s opportunity for wider adoption across all markets, there’s renewed interest in growing CiviCRM’s international presence.

No small task to say the least, growth internationally requires a significant commitment to not only ensuring that the software works within each country, but also that resources are localized in order to address any language hurdles. From a marketing perspective, our biggest opportunity likely rests in the creation and management of localized sites specific to each country or region. They’re cost effective, dynamic, and are, by and large, widely accessible around the world.

Started a few years back with the original formation of a CiviCRM marketing team, the focus on localized sites has been renewed thanks to iXiam Global Solutions and Systopia, both partners and active contributors to the CiviCRM project. The initial focus of localized sites will be threefold; 1) raise awareness of CiviCRM for nonprofits, 2) provide clear information on getting support, and 3) encourage users and developers to get involved in the project. 

Ideally, localized sites will not only present opportunities to increase recognition of and participation in CiviCRM in markets outside of the United States, but will align with other efforts such as greater event development (CiviCRM events) and participation (in external events), more focused communications and, with a growing user base, an overall improved product for everyone. CiviCRM stands at 10,876 active sites as of today, and we're already seeing growth in markets outside of the United States. The timing is good for more focus on tactics such as localized sites and events (maybe an AU-based event in 2017?.. more info soon) to help drive CiviCRM's growth.

As with everything CiviCRM, blog posts like this are an open invitation to get involved. If this is something that you think you could assist in driving, we’d love to hear from you.

Stay tuned for more updates on localized sites and on our marketing efforts.

Josh