Blogs

Version 4.6, the latest release of CiviCRM, has been out for just over a month now and for the first time we tied in a fairly concerted effort to encourage contributions during download. With the goal of reaching $5,000 in support, this campaign represented another initiative aimed at bringing CiviCRM as a project to a sustainable point. Given that this had not been attempted before, it was a bit of a test to see how the CiviCRM community would respond. So, how’d we do?

CiviCRM sits in the middle -- exchanging data with your CMS, payment processor, email service, SMS service, spreadsheets, ad nauseum.  CiviCRM is also extremely flexible -- supporting multiple CMSs, multiple payment processors, multiple email providers, multiple SMS providers, ad nauseum.  These are great power features, but they also come with a cost -- complexity.  The on-boarding process for a new organization requires evaluating and configuring a plethora of integration op

As we are living in an increasingly mobile-focused world, how can CiviCRM can be integrated with mobile and leverage features native to mobile? During the recent CiviCRM Sprint in Colorado, a group of us got together to discuss what currently exists, what's in the works and new features that would be helpful to include in the future. 

In May of 2013, Michael McAndrew initiated a blog post about the Core Team’s efforts to make CiviCRM sustainable. Two years later, we’re still on that path and sustainability remains our goal.

My colleague Tommy has been leading our response at AGH Strategies for Civi911 calls that come in, and he's noticed a few common themes.  I suspect that you may encounter some of these same issues, and this might save you some time and money in addressing problems that crop up on your CiviCRM site.

For core team member Coleman Watts, it all started while working for an environmental & peace education center that needed a database. Trying out CiviCRM, he soon discovered its power to unite different facets of the organization into a coherent whole.

"When you donate and download, you make the statement to the entire community that CiviCRM is a vital, open source platform worth supporting. Nearly 10,000 organizations count on CiviCRM & on your support."

Now that CiviCon 2015 is over, it is a good time to reflect on the people we met and the great new things we learned. I attended the CiviCon conference as well as two full days of training prior to the event. Joining me in Denver were designer Kurt Thomas and front-end developer (and former organizer) Phillip Kent Knight from the Los Angeles LGBT Center, a Black Brick Software client organization.

Great to read all the feedback from CiviCon Denver and the sprint in the blogs and on social media. It confirms that CiviCon is THE conference where users, developers, supporters and fans of CiviCRM meet each other, share knowledge and swap stories. It is the best spot to get inspired and gain insights into the possibilities of CiviCRM!