In an effort to help spread the word of open source content management systems (CMS) and constituent relationship management systems (CRM), I was asked to give a talk at OneWorld on March 28, 2007 to the OneWorld Peer Learning Exchange. Roshani Kothari from OneWorld was gracious enough to write up some great notes on it (see below) as well as post a podcast of this.
Thanks to Roshani for her hard work to make these OneWorld Peer Learning Exchanges occur, and to my co-presenters Alan Rosenblatt and Guy Stevens for their contributions.
Notes from OneWorld Peer Learning Exchange on March 28, 2007
Key terms
Interoperability - Share data between applications. Connecting all these things together, not keep them in silos.
http://www.integrationproclamation.com/
Open api-application programming interface, way in which applications talk to other applications, ask vendors if they are going to open their apis, so your open source and closed source tools can talk to each other.
Dotorganize.net - Report on the systems trying to better integrate with each other.
Hosted open source cms solutions
http://www.nonprofitsoapbox.com/
http://www.bryght.com/
Meeting Handout
The World of CMS and CRM tools: The Big Picture
Ryan Ozimek
Chief Executive Officer
PICnet (www.picnet.net)
cozimek@picnet.net
202-585-0239
A 30,000 Foot Overview
Three main types of online tools for managing content and data communications:
- Mass communications - Content Management Systems (CMS)>
- Database repository - Constituent Relationship Management (CRM)
- Action center - Advocacy Toolset
Some examples:
CMSes: Joomla, Drupal, Plone, ezPublish, CrownPeak
CRMs: Democracy in Action, GetActive/Convio, Kintera, eTapestry
Advocacy: Democracy in Action, CapWiz
Other tools to consider:
- Intranets
- Email blasting
- Donation management
A Lessons Learned Story: Women's Edge Coalition
Challenge: Organization had an inflexible, difficult to manage Web site, and was looking for a solution that would provide them more control of the site. Additionally, as a membership based organization, they wanted to have an online repository for their member data.
Solution: After a thorough discovery process, with due diligence across CRM and CMS systems, WEC choose to go down an open source CMS route utilizing Joomla (www.joomla.org) as well as Democracy In Action (www.democracyinaction.org).
Road Map: During the proposal process, WEC aligned budgetary, executive needs, and business logic to arrive at their solution. The process was a two part system, with CRM and CMS development working in parallel. WEC choose a CMS that provided a road map to integration with their selected CRM system, which was critical for future development.
Resources
http://www.idealware.org
http://www.techsoup.org
http://www.nonprofitmatrix.com
http://www.opensourcecms.com/
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