[HacktionLab] CRM systems for a charity

Fri Nov 11 14:15:54 UTC 2016

Yes absolutely, CiviCRM requires a lot of maintenance as it needs
updating every few weeks and is buggy.

Also it is not user friendly or nice looking. Unless you are going to
pass everything through to a custom front-end, it's pretty embarassing
showing people what they are going to have to use. Things like loads of
extra, useless fields on the main screen for each contact, reports on
the dashboard that don't let you click on a contact's name and go
straight to their record. May seem small to us but are so offputting for
users.

I wish I could suggest something  better though. There must be something
out there

On 11/11/16 12:54, Christian Wach wrote:
> Well said, Helen. Having written most of the CiviCRM plugins in the
> WordPress plugin directory (as well as the one that integrates it with
> WordPress itself) I agree wholeheartedly with your experience. CiviCRM
> requires technical competence and plenty of maintenance to self-host.
> It will, however, scale with an organisation as it grows, which may be
> an advantage in the long run.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Christian
>
>
>> On 11 Nov 2016, at 12:38, helen varley jamieson
>> <helen at creative-catalyst.com <mailto:helen at creative-catalyst.com>> wrote:
>>
>> CiviCRM is very good, but i wouldn't call it a "lightweight CRM";
>> it's potentially very powerful & requires quite a bit of maintenance
>> to make it work.
>>
>> i used CiviCRM previously for a small organisation, we didn't have a
>> regular budget for maintaining it so it just about all fell to me & a
>> couple of other volunteers. we struggled for some time to maintain
>> it, since it enabled us to do a lot with our member database, however
>> ultimately it was too much work for volunteers to maintain & just
>> became more & more broken as we couldn't keep up with everything. we
>> were running it in tandem with a drupal website & unfortunately the
>> same thing happened with that, we just could not manage to keep it
>> going. in the end we ditched everything & moved to wordpress & had to
>> let the idea of an online database go (& at the moment this
>> organisation is kind of in hibernation).
>>
>> i run another site with drupal & thought about adding CiviCRM, but i
>> realised that again it would end up being me voluntarily maintaining
>> it, & it requires too much time.
>>
>> so if you have the infrastructure & resources to support CiviCRM then
>> it's great. many big organisations such as greenpeace use it & for
>> members it can be quite easy to do stuff like update a profile, sign
>> up to events, pay membership fees & so on. but you really need to
>> have the people who can maintain it.
>>
>> h : )
>>
>>
>> On 11/11/16 12:53 39PM, ekes wrote:
>>> On 11/11/16 12:48, U wrote:
>>>> Thanks for the suggestion, it does look decent. The organisation here is not on 
>>>> open source systems, in fact it is quite rooted in .net / windows and sql servers.
>>>>
>>>> The other thing is they're looking for something UK based with a solid 
>>>> infrastructure of support behind it. Already ruled out Salesforce and Dynamics.
>>> There are quite some organisation that do CiviCRM hosted. I've not used
>>> any so can't vouch for them. Well I know of an instance hosted by
>>> GreenNet, but...
>>>
>>> anyone in the West had experience of
>>> https://www.circle-interactive.co.uk/ they're listed and
>>> talk-the-right-talk for 'solid infrastructure and support'.
>>>
>>>> On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 11:29 AM, ekes <ekes at aktivix.org 
>>>> <mailto:ekes at aktivix.org>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     On 11/11/16 12:22, U wrote:
>>>>     > I'm doing some work for a UK charity who are looking at migrating to a new CRM
>>>>     > system. They're looking at Icaris (http://icaris.co.uk/) or Harlequin
>>>>     >   (http://www.harlequinsoftware.co.uk/software/crm/
>>>>     <http://www.harlequinsoftware.co.uk/software/crm/>).
>>>>     >
>>>>     > I wondered if anyone here had any experience of using either of these systems,
>>>>     > working with those companies?
>>>>     >
>>>>     > Any suggestions on a relatively lightweight CRM that you might recommend for
>>>>     > managing a few thousand contacts would also be appreciated.
>>>>
>>>>     For something straightforward, but tailored to Charity/NGO, I can't see
>>>>     any reason not to use CiviCRM.
>>>>
>>>>     For more complicated, brain hurting, functionality... then I understand
>>>>     why people go for SaaS (Salesforce), or M$ (Dynamics), but for
>>>>     straightforward contact, campaign, donation blah management Civi does do
>>>>     it (and the code isn't completely horrid any more).
>>>>
>>>>     ekes
>>>>
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>>>>
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>>
>> -- 
>> helen varley jamieson
>> helen at creative-catalyst.com <mailto:helen at creative-catalyst.com>
>> http://www.creative-catalyst.com <http://www.creative-catalyst.com/>
>> http://www.upstage.org.nz <http://www.upstage.org.nz/>
>>
>> *We have a situation, Coventry!
>> <http://www.wehaveasituation.net/?p=1402>*
>> 24 November 2016
>>
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