Josué started doing social justice work when he participated in the Center for Third World Organizing‘s organizer training program in 1990. That led to a decade of working as an organizer for both community groups and labor unions. In 2000 he decided to switch careers, focusing on supporting the technology needs of groups doing organizing.
From 2006-2009, Josué was the Technology Manager for The Praxis Project. Along with elevating the technological infrastructure of this national intermediary, Josué supported the work of many groups across the country. Additionally, he built two web based tools: the HealthJustice ReportCard and the Detention Watch Network’s Detention Centers Map.
Josué started working with the Progressive Technology Project in 2002 as a trainer and served on the board from 2008 to 2009. In 2009, PTP asked him to start up the PowerBase Project. PowerBase is a hosted version of CiviCRM. With more than 70 community organizing groups using it, PowerBase has become the leading online database software specifically designed for groups engaged in community organizing. PowerBase is a tool that tracks what organizers want – and need – to track.
When PTP launched the PowerBase project, the first task was to research different open source database tools. Their search found that CiviCRM was the best fit for the project, and so when you use PowerBase, what you’re using is a version of CiviCRM, prepared by PTP, that is designed to meet the needs of community organizing groups. For example, there is a workflow for tracking the effort organizers make in getting people to come to meetings, to complement the Events component. In order to train and educate his clients on how to navigate around PowerBase, Josué, created a set of “how to” youtube videos https://www.youtube.com/user/PowerOnPTP/videos?view=1&flow=list. This coupled with the fact that the PowerBase team have all worked as organizers, allows them to really understand their customers. “This experience allows us to better serve our constituents, as we can relate to the work that folks are trying to accomplish via PowerBase. We are very proud of our customer service”, says Josué .
PTP has a political commitment to the CiviCRM project, where they continually contribute all their improvements back to the community. CiviEngage was our first contribution, and Summary Fields Extension is the most recent. Any new features that are developed are driven by our users’ needs. Some examples of this is converting Andrew Hunt’s CiviCRM Petition Drupal 6 email module to Drupal 7.
“As the project moves forward, our hope is that we will help groups do their work more efficiently and effectively, thereby making the world a better place. Helping to improve CiviCRM is also something that pleases us immensely”, says Josué .
