Blogs

The CiviCRM Core Team is pleased to announce that it will begin hosting monthly webinars for project contributors and supporters (members, partners, sponsors) beginning December 8th, 2016, and continue on the second Thursday of each month throughout 2017. These webinars will be a mix of overall project updates (provided quarterly) and technical improvements and demonstrations (provided 8 months out of the year).

Long time contributor Eileen McNaughton recently won the New Zealand Open Source Award for Open Source Contributor, so we thought we’d reach out to a few members of the community to get input on her efforts with CiviCRM. Erik Hommel and Dave Greenberg are kicking off this blog post with their own personal thanks to Eileen. If you have a comment, story, or just want to say thanks, post it in the comments!

Earlier this year, we did a community wide survey to better understand the CiviCRM user base as well as help refine our priorities as a Core Team. While there were a few surprises in the results, one item that we expected to stand out was a need for ongoing training. Let’s face it… CiviCRM can be complicated, at least for those that leverage its full potential and adapt it to their own business processes.

At the CiviCons and developer meetings this year, we've had several conversations about release strategy. The topic is a bit abstract -- touching on a web of interrelated issues of technology and scheduling and business-process. I've been searching for a way to explain this topic to people who don't eat and breathe code in CiviCRM's git repos -- an analysis which is a bit simpler and more transcendent.

CiviCon London wrapped up last week, with over 150 attendees attending more than 30 information-packed sessions. It was great to have such engaging presentations, representatives from the core team talking about the direction of the project, and so many long-term contributors around. But for me, this is the most valuable thing about attending CiviCon...

Nearly 78% of sites using CiviCRM are on either version 4.6 or 4.7 (check out CiviCRM stats online). Why is that significant? Because those are the only two community supported releases currently. If you’re not on one of these versions, most importantly, don’t be alarmed. There might be a reason you’re not… perhaps you’re using a partner that continues to support an previous version, or have customizations that prohibit an upgrade.

Good evening. (Or, for folks in America… good afternoon. For folks in Oceania, good morning.) I'm writing from the CiviCRM sprint in Edale (UK), and it’s the height of apple season. In an ordinary year, the local folks here would be shaking the apple trees, getting a bit tipsy on cider, and discovering gravity.

Recording details of staff contracts and then keeping them updated for any changes to job titles, pay, hours, and other job history essentials is vital not only for legal reasons but also for the proper functi

This year, around 25 dedicated and fascinating people have gathered together in Edale, Peak District, to make improvements, discuss progress, and learn more about the CiviCRM project. Some have already left us and some will be here right up to the end of the weekend, but we have all contributed to the project in a helpful and constructive way.

As the title implies, we’ve stuck our toe into improving the contributor framework before, but never quite settled on the best approach. But, it’s high time we do so. Why? Because contributors are key to sustaining and improving CiviCRM. The trouble is and has always been that recognizing, rewarding and encouraging contributions from the community is a complex task.