<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div class="">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.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Cheers,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Christian</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 11 Nov 2016, at 12:38, helen varley jamieson <<a href="mailto:helen@creative-catalyst.com" class="">helen@creative-catalyst.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" class="">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" class=""><p class="">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.<br class="">
</p><p class="">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).</p><p class="">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.</p><p class="">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.</p><p class="">h : )<br class="">
</p>
<br class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/11/16 12:53 39PM, ekes wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:507cfea0-835f-aecb-27ab-a519b79ff886@riseup.net" type="cite" class="">
<pre wrap="" class="">On 11/11/16 12:48, U wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<pre wrap="" class="">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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="" class="">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
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.circle-interactive.co.uk/">https://www.circle-interactive.co.uk/</a> they're listed and
talk-the-right-talk for 'solid infrastructure and support'.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<pre wrap="" class="">On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 11:29 AM, ekes <<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ekes@aktivix.org">ekes@aktivix.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ekes@aktivix.org"><mailto:ekes@aktivix.org></a>> 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 (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://icaris.co.uk/">http://icaris.co.uk/</a>) or Harlequin
> (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.harlequinsoftware.co.uk/software/crm/">http://www.harlequinsoftware.co.uk/software/crm/</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.harlequinsoftware.co.uk/software/crm/"><http://www.harlequinsoftware.co.uk/software/crm/></a>).
>
> 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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<pre wrap="" class="">
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<br class="">
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br class="">
helen varley jamieson<br class="">
<a href="mailto:helen@creative-catalyst.com" class="">helen@creative-catalyst.com</a><br class="">
<a href="http://www.creative-catalyst.com/" class="">http://www.creative-catalyst.com</a><br class="">
<a href="http://www.upstage.org.nz/" class="">http://www.upstage.org.nz</a><p align="center" class=""><strong class=""><a href="http://www.wehaveasituation.net/?p=1402" class="">We have a
situation, Coventry!</a></strong><br class="">
24 November 2016</p>
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