Folks on the core team engaged with our partners recently in a spirited conversation about an updated mission statement for the project. We went through several iterations to come up with something broad enough to help with setting direction - but specific enough to be meaningful. We'd love to get your comments and incorporate them into a final version ...
CiviCRM Mission Statement (draft)
The Software
CiviCRM will continue to serve the needs of "third sector" organizations of all sizes (non-profits, government entities, membership associations, advocacy groups … ). Our goal for the next few years is to continue to improve the software and its infrastructure, particularly in the following areas:
1. The software is easy to learn and use.
2. Distributions for various sectors are developed to facilitate adoption and shared innovation.
3. The platform is developer friendly i.e. easy to customize, extend, and contribute back improvements.
4. Technology infrastructure and reliability is improved with every release.
5. The user interface works smoothly across different platforms and devices.
6. Integrators can modify workflows for clients easily.
7. The platform integrates well with the wider world via well-defined and comprehensive APIs.
8. Accurate and up-to-date documentation is available for both end-users and developers.
The Community: Partners, End-users and the Core Team
CiviCRM is moving towards a community built, managed, marketed, financed and supported open source software project. Over the next few years we envision seeing a lot more super active contributors at many of our partner shops. This will enable us to follow a plan similar to "Drupal's battle plans" where different folks from different shops spearhead different initiatives that will be merged into future releases.
We see the CiviCRM core team playing more of a facilitator role for various activities - including release management, coordinating larger development initiatives, code review, infrastructure, community management, marketing, fundraising, documentation, conferences and sprints.
We are excited to see the blossoming of face-to-face and online community spaces including meet ups, regional conferences, webinars, and hangouts. These spaces enable community members to learn, collaborate and innovate together. We will continue to cultivate an engaging, welcoming and fun community where people from many different backgrounds and with a variety of skills can participate and contribute effectively.
The Bottom Line
The project will strive to be transparent and accessible. The software will be distributed under a FLOSS license, AND …. a key measure of success will always be the social good that the project generates.
Comments
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_sector doesn't really match the list of organization types you've got above.
The name is suggestive that in fact CiviCRM doesn't serve government (along with business, presumably the first two sectors?).
Certainly, there is a collection of use-cases of CiviCRM that are partisan political, but that's kind of different from being a tool for an existing government.
I wonder what word or words would capture that collection of use cases CiviCRM really means to serve? The "voluntary sector" sounds relatively close, but for me the key is really about mission being the primary driver instead of the bottom-line. "Not for profit" captures it also, but it's a bit awkward.
Some of the discussions around CiviCRM have used the term "civic sector", and I personally like that term a little more than "third sector." The phrase "third sector" suggests a sharper line (ie first vs second vs third), and "civic" seems more like a catch-all for the public sphere (where the key driver is a desire for a good, just, nice-to-live-in society). It evokes "civics", "civics class" (a common topic of study in US K-12 education), "citizenship", and "civil society" (non-profit organizations, business associations, unions, etc). Growing up, I heard the phrases "civics" and "civil society" but not "third sector."
But... this word choice may reflect other factors (eg the quirks of culture, geography, personal history, personal goals), and I wouldn't want to get hung up on it unless the phrases were outright misleading. As a reader, I understood the intent behind "third sector" well enough.
Third sector is more popular in Britain, not-for-profit I believe is more common in Canada, and non-profit is more common in the US. Not sure what the Aussies and Kiwis like. Member associations is a term that Brian has encouraged me to use (it includes business associations that have organization memberships) along with advocacy groups, political campaigns, etc. I'm now supporting Universities too.
I like civil society groups.
Agreed that "third sector" is UK specific (also in other "commonwealth" countries ?). We had used "civic sector" in our tagline for many years and I still like that. Would be great to hear from folks in other regions (Europe, Asia) as to how any of these 'translate'.
I agree that "third-sector" excludeds government and private business (the other two sectors), but I don't object to the term out of hand--I just think it's a straight synonym for nonprofit sector, NGOs, not-for-profits, etc., with the same implications.
However, as a CRM option, much of CiviCRM's value is that it is tailored for nonprofit organizations, but being open-source, it could be used for anything. We have for-profit and governmental clients, but those are also the ones who find the "contributions" term a little foreign and primarily use Civi for its other features. Then again, most clients don't use CiviMember at all, so it's rare to have a single organization use every feature anyway.
I just think there's something to be said for pointing out that it was designed with the needs of nonprofits in mind, even as it's used for all kinds of entities that need to track and engage people.
I think any talk of development has to expicitly include mobile and social components. Except for the continuing improvements to the back end, it's my opinion that these are the two most important challenges that Civi has to tackle right now from a product development perspective. I know the phrase "works smoothly across different platforms and devices" includes mobile, but I think stating it explicitly is important.
Also, integrating the social component is important on multiple levels. One of the big advantages Civi has over many other systems is that it's integrated, and therefore gives a holistic view of constituents that allow a user to get a true sense of the energy that's appropriate to devote to that relationship. However, without the social component more tightly integrated, we not only don't have that, but we've lost the holistic view. As social continues to become more and more a part of outreach, this only continues to get more and more important.
Finally, I think both of these things are more important than sector-focused distributions. As a provider, I know Greenleaf Advancement can help clients in different nonprofit verticals with their implementations (because we do), but programming the mobile and social components has got to be a team effort.
I agree with guyiac that improved mobile support - can we do more to support responsive themes? - and deeper integration with social media properties are high priority focuses. JMA is currently developing an extension to integrate with http://attentive.ly which provides linkages from CiviCRM contacts to their accounts on about 100 social media platforms, and especially good integration with Twitter.
I have a sense that Nationbuilder pulls in users' social graph when people sign petitions, with user permission of course. I would like to see CiviCRM offering some of that functionality soon.
Just wanted to add my support for a focus on mobile and social. Joe, your extension sounds really interesting. Looking forward to seeing that.
... seems like a really good approach for this year - especially as I don't think we have a clear picture yet for 'generalized' functionality to include in core. Joe - super exciting to hear that JMA has stepped up to develop an attentive.ly extension!
just a quick comment as an ex-Brit now-Kiwi
- civic is rarely used or instantly understood here imo (and yes that means CiviCRM really doesn't mean anything to people till I explain it, but that is fine)
- third sector is not used either afaik (and excludes the public sector where I believe civi can play a role)
- nonprofit makes instant sense though probably isn't used as much as NGO
that said, i am happy to help educate/disperse understanding about the 'third sector' (though my understanding is
If there is further tweaking on the mission statement I would suggest including the term political, since i don't believe 'advocacy' by itself covers political parties and that does seem a reasonably active sector for civi
of course 'third world' as a notion was meant to imply that as in 'third party' those countries were
More feedback on terminology and target audience stuff:
- I'd prefer to see something other than third sector.
- We're finding a growing take-up by municipalities, and I know others are finding various government bodies are interested.
- Lots of newcomers in Canada call CiviCRM 'Civic-CRM' because they know the word Civic. Civic has a pretty good flavour, but it's a bit focussed on towns and local actions. Civil society organizations is pretty close to third sector or NGO.
- Side note: Civic Relationship Management like Citizen Relationship Management can be a good moniker for the point of the software in many vertical markets served by CiviCRM but it is a bit too exclusionary for some, such as Association Management. Despite 'Constituent' having been a term more common in US than Canada, I've been using it successfully for many years now.
- Non-profit can include government bodies. NGO and third sector excludes them. So that's now my preferred term. To give a little wiggle room, 'focussed on the needs of civil society organizations' doesn't exclude that others like government bodies may find it useful.
- I would like to add political after advocacy, so long as that doesn't affect CiviCRM LLC's 501(c)3 status.
Hi guys,
I agree Third Sector is pretty UK specific (and can be controversial to use here!) We generally use community and voluntary sector, but I don't think this would really translate either.
I'm in favour of some not-for-profit / non-profit variation. Agree with Pete that Civic here doesn't really mean much here and some people even just comment "that's American" and assume it won't be applicable.
Heather.
I appreciate the attention to word choice (and am a proponent of "not-for-profit," FWIW, but I am also a little confused about the purpose of this mission statement. In my experience a mission statement is very brief, and does not change much if at all over time. It would be something that encapsulates Civi's work at a very high level--something like "CiviCRM supports other non-profit and public-sector organizations in meeting their missions more efficiently and effectively, by providing a high-quality, user-friendly CRM platform that is free/libre and open source."
The statement under discussion here is excellent, but it seems like more of an articulation of goals than a mission statement. So I'm wondering what the purpose is and if it makes sense to call it something else.
It seems like we have a consensus (more of less) to use non-profit / not-for-profit in the lead-off paragraph (especially since 'third sector' technically excludes government - thanks Alan - and hence is too narrow). I'm liking Lisa's 'high level' one-liner as both a mission statement and a nice lead-in to a more expanded elaboration of goals.
Letting this brew a bit longer and then I'll post an updated version linked into the site navigation and documentation. (Of course it will always be a living document - so not cast in concrete.)