Comments on: CiviCRM and Associations

By: Wes Trochlil

Wes Trochlil — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:05:55 +0000

Great point, and duly noted, Donald.

By: Donald Lobo

Donald Lobo — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:48:58 +0000

I’ll be honest about this. We dont have a lot of domain expertise with regard to AMS system. If the AMS community wants to see more “robust” AMS features in CiviCRM they need to step up and help spec it and write the needed code (or sponsor the development). Waiting for someone in the community to built it might result in a long wait

lobo

By: Wes Trochlil

Wes Trochlil — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:14:05 +0000

It’s been a while since I reviewed it, Dan, but no A/R and no committee functionality were definitely show-stoppers. But, like you, I’m hopeful for future development.

By: Dan Shenk-Evans

Dan Shenk-Evans — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:34:26 +0000

CiviCRM is developing nicely and is good at what it does, especially for the price. I think it will continue to make in roads with small associations and nonprofits of all stripes. Its open source platform makes it attractive and customizable, although as the quote above states, it still is highly preferable if an experienced implementer installs it given the complexity of most projects.

Where it struggles to match a traditional Association Management Systems is in the depth of features some associations require in key areas. To my knowledge it still does not serve as an AR sub-ledger (credits, refunds, aging), or have some of the robust annual conference, committee, and AR-based membership management features.

I do look forward to its continued development.

Dan

By: Donald Lobo

Donald Lobo — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:11:25 +0000

hey sam:

actually CiviMember handles that quite nicely in 2.1/2.2

A person registers a membership “on behalf of an organization”. So the org is the member

A membership type can also use a “relationship” inheritance model. So if you have a “belongs to” relationship to model org individual relatioship, you can allow inheritance of the org membership through this relationship and hence meet your goals. Quite a few folks are using this quite nicely :)

lobo

By: Sam Hummel

Sam Hummel — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:52:57 +0000

We’ve looked into using CiviCRM for our association but have been discouraged by CiviCRM’s apparent lack of support for associations in which the members are *organizations* but the member services/privileges are provided to people within the organizations. If anyone out there has experience implementing CiviCRM in an association of organizations (each with dozens and sometimes hundreds of persons that need to be tracked and given member privileges), I’d love to hear about it.

By: Wes Trochlil

Wes Trochlil — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:14:09 +0000

@Donald, thanks for your comments. I sense CiviCRM has a critical mass of users; I’m just not sure there’s a critical mass within “traditional” associations yet.

@Brian, thanks for sharing your experiences. I really do look forward to a time when CiviCRM is competitive in the broader association space.

By: Brian Shaughnessy

Brian Shaughnessy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:09:23 +0000

I am a web developer who has implemented CiviCRM+Joomla on a number of not-for-profit sites (nysnla.com, nyama.com, fiasi.org, nystownhwys.org, ibany.org, josephshousetroy.org, sbga.org, and others).

What CiviCRM has provided for these associations, perhaps more than anything else, is the ability to have a single data source for all records. No longer do they maintain an Access db for membership records, and periodically transfer data online for a member directory — the database and website are integrated in realtime, so all records are always current. Members can edit their own contact details, register for events, renew membership, etc. — all in real-time and interfacing directly with the single data source. This reduces data entry for staff and empowers members to manage their own data. Communications is also centralized, as the member database and broadcast email system are running off the same set of data.

Realize, however, that CiviCRM is not a light-weight product. Getting your arms around the software can take some time, as its functionality is very robust. It’s very customizable (all open source), but that too can take some time and effort to really tweak it to the needs of your organization.

The core development team are consummate professionals, and really listen to the needs and interests of the community. They also are incredibly helpful with support — far better than you get with many commercial products.

By: Donald Lobo

Donald Lobo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:48:21 +0000

I think we do have quite a few associations using CiviCRM. I’ve asked brian who does a fair amount with associations to respond here with more details. Critical mass is an important aspect for any open source project. At this stage, we do have a fairly robust and significantly large installed based. We have 200+ downloads on a daily weekday basis and over 7000 active ping backs since the 2.0 series was launched :)