CiviCRM's 3.0 Review: Where are the weaknesses?

I wrote a post in 2006 about CiviCRM's weaknesses. With the upcoming CiviCRM 3.0 release (try it out), I thought I would revist those weaknesses and see if I could add some more.

1. Ecology. The ecology is now mature enough to support virtually any size customer.

http://civicrm.org/professional (support the active contributors!)

Community reviewed list of hosts

2. Documentation. Online docs done by the esteemed John Kenyon and just released a CiviCRM book! I think the documentation is certainly on par with anything out there.

3. Donor Management. Pledges, soft credits and user configurable LYBUNT reports, what more can anyone want? (there are some things, but the basic functionality in now all present)

According to my criteria, CiviCRM has long surpassed the sustainability tipping point:

• Lots of competant consultants are avaliable.
• Nonprofits can pay for hosted CiviCRM or an install.
• Documentation and online training is avaliable.
• People are extending CiviCRM and contributing back. Go CiviCase!

So what are the weaknesses now? Since the CiviCRM team moves very rapidly, many of the key weaknesses are getting addressed in the 3.0 release... I probably should do this post yearly.

1. Usability. This was a recent bug-a-boo that the CiviCRM team took a big swing at in the 3.0 release. The new navigation bar is pretty much to die for. The configuration checklist that makes setting up a new site a snap is underadvertised and perhaps underappreciated. Oh, and the recent items list is a basic but import feature. There is still room for improvement, but CiviCRM is certainly now on par with any competitive piece of software.
2. Reporting. The new CiviReport framework addresses the basic reporting gaps and allows the community to fill most remaining reporting gaps.
3. Donor management gaps. Things like postal mail merge are not tightly integrated into the application or into the CRM history. Prospecting and proposals have yet to be addressed directly.
4. Accounting integration. This need to be smoothed out and improved. And the community is already on it.
5. Volunteer management. Not sure this is a weakness, per se, it just hasn't been a priority.

And other things people can add to the comments.

Overall, the 3.0 release represents the end of fundimental gaps in the utility of CiviCRM for most nonprofits.

FINALLY, the vendor community steps up

So I look at this new Blackbaud NOW product and I must say, they have their corporate strategy right on to own all of the charity software market, soup to nuts.

Blackbaud NOW is basically Groundspring/ Network for Good -- a set of services designed for very small charities -- accept online donations, keep a central contact database, send mass emails. They take around 5% of your donation and you get the service for free.

Judging from the mailing address in Indiana, this is built on etapestry's technology (PS, please spring for a web designer, guys, the etapestry site is an eye sore). I find it interesting they didn't build something on Blackbaud's Infinity platform, but hey. They also couldn't spring for an email blast tool, but I suppose that might open a can of worms for them-- their email tool is basically designed to send email to individual contacts rather than mass mails with open tracking, etc.

If I put my cynical hat on, I would say this is just an etapestry lead gen tool, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and hope it is the precursor to real service for small charities. And hopefully some corporate strategist at Blackbaud has figured a way to serve the bottom of the market in order to feed prospects into their higher end offerings.

It makes me a little sad since CivicSpace offered this basic package plus soo much more , but alas... we were a bit to early and under-capitalized.

And finally, yet another data point that a CiviCRM-based ASP would be a good value proposition! Come on folks, anyone?

CiviCRM Continues to Make Constituent Relationship Management Accessible to Small Groups

With the latest CiviCRM release (2.2) I am reminded that the CiviCRM team is one of the few groups actively making a product designed as a solution rather than just a tool. 

The single most important feature in 2.2 is the Simplified Configuration option for CiviMail. Email marketing is a critical engagement tool for charities and all other civic groups. But for the folks that don't have the money to use commercial services, there just aren't any integrated, simple options. The new CiviMail solves that by just connecting to a SMTP server to send mail. Got Gmail? You now have open and link tracking!

Sure there are still spam management concerns... that's what paid services like CiviSMTP are for.

And yes wouldn't it be great if there was an ASP.... [any (social) entrepreneurs out there interested?] .

And, yes, other folks out there are making strides-- the Salesforce Foundation is taking some steps in the direction of an out-of-the-bax charity experience, but that hasn't been their primary focus over the past few years. As Michelle Murrain notes, the out-of-the box functionality of CiviCRM is just better... donation pages, marketing email, relationships, smart groups and more are there and with a few clicks can be working for a small group in a couple hours. You have to (sometimes)  purchase and (always) integrate those solutions into Salesforce.

Now if we get the CiviCRM usability up a few notches we can have a horse race for meeting basic charity and civic group needs.

What is Donor Management Software?

So NTEN decided not to include CiviCRM as a listing in their Donor Management Survey. On the face of it, that was an OK decision because CiviCRM wasn't specifically designed as donor management software.

That kind of made sense to me, plus we have plenty enough users that use CiviCRM that we'll have just as many responses as the named systems. [If you use CiviCRM for donor management, Vote Now!]

Then they modified the front page of the survey to define donor management and I started thinking this is another conflict between the platform solution vs. "best-of-breed". Their definition of donor management is:

1. Manages relationships with current and prospective donors
2. Sends/Tracks correspondence and relationship history
3. Is more than just a donation processor (i.e. PayPal, Google Checkout, DonateNow)
4. Tracks ALL types of monetary gifts (on- and offline, events, etc.)
5. Is available for purchase/download

CiviCRM was probably excluded since it does so many other things, but from CiviCRM v1.0 oh so many years ago we supported each and every on of these "features". But as a platform, we tend not to support "deeper" version of these features... for example, you could track pledges in v1.0, but real useful pledge management / automation functionality had to wait for the current release.

As a platform, we weren't included, but I bet if we called ourselves fundraising software from day one, we would have been.

Platforms like CiviCRM are designed very much on the 80% rule... try to get most of the way there for most of your users. But when you are trying to be a platform for operating a charity, most of the way there for most of your users doesn't look anything like most of the way there for most of your users if you are just building a gifts database. Features for a platform tend to be broad and shallow.

Over time, however, each aspect of the platform becomes deeper and more capable as more users use it, more contributions (code and financial) are made and time simply allows you to get around to a specific piece of functionality.

And finally, there is another reason that CiviCRM doesn't show up on the comparision lists (Techsoup, Aspiration, NTEN, etc.). I think the assumption is that if you can't install it on your Windows PC or access it as SaaS online, it is simply too complex for charity users and therefore shouldn't be put out there as an option. I agree a little with this, but the simple fact is that installing and maintaining a MYSQL application is not beyond an advanced accidental techie... I'm not sure we are helping too much by excluding a high-quality solution for the reason it requires some technical competence to deal with.

OK, they get the benefit of the doubt

I've watched Wild Apricot since it came out of the gate and been impressed with their product as a solution for small groups. I've also been impressed with their well thought out blog and they seem like all around good guys.

I see this blog post about how they are going to:

...take a closer look at free and open-source software: the real costs, the barriers, and the trade-offs; some of the best FOSS alternatives to “brand name” software; and online resources to help you make the most of it.

And I start to wonder if it is going to turn into a stealth vendor hit piece / FUD on open source. But as I mentioned, they don't seem like those type of folks, so I'm looking forward to what they write up.

PS, if anyone wants to compete head to head with Wild Apricot using open source software, you could run a CiviCRM-based ASP ;)

Open source vs Antharia

The folks over at Antharia are some true blue mission driven nonprofit technology providers, but I suspect they are buying into the entire open source vs. vendor thing driven by FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt) generation on both sides. To whit this post.

I think Jordan and I would enjoy having drinks... something about an affinity for a rant. So here goes,

1. Drupal, Plone and Joomla ARE NOT VENDORS.
2. Antharia, CitySoft, Convio, etc. ARE NOT SOFTWARE.

When you send Antharia a check you are buying two things:

1. FourtyFourFish / On Content, their software.
2. Antharia, the vendor.
   

Jordan has this comment her blog post that is a common misperception... and the way vendors spread FUD about open source (I'll cover how open source spreads FUD about vendors in a sec.).

If I did not know better I would swear the makers of Drupal, Joomla, and Plone were greasing the pockets of NTEN.

I'm not sure how the 1400 individuals that "made" Drupal by offering uncompensated contributions of software code could or even would slip NTEN a check, but hey, whatever. You are not buying a vendor when you use open source software. End of story.

Now, NTEN can take it on the chin for screwing the pooch on the CMS software survey by conflating the software and the vendors into a single entity rather than having people rate the software and the vendor seperately. Not sure how Drupal can deliver on promises since software doesn't make promises, vendors do.

And the open source guys spread FUD about vendors mostly by using the words lock in and free. If you have a good vendor, your probably pretty happy with your lock in.

Finally, as a big open source proponent, I must pose the question... who can write better software? A small company with a couple developers? Or 1200+ contributors driven by a multi-million dollar ecology?

And props to the small nonprofit technology vendors... who can help out a small nonprofit implement software better? 1200+ conributors who couldn't care less about you? A small company where you are an important customer?

What is the best solution for nonprofits? Excellent software (open source) implemented by excellent vendors (small mission driven shops).

Mergers, Open Source, Open Standards and Wishes

The esteemed Holly Ross writes,

I also think that the physical act of integrating two disparate systems, especially in the case of Convio and GetActive, will cause them to create the kinds tools that will be used to share data internally at first, but can then be spit polished and prettified for use by the general consumer.

Lets chew on this a bit. I have a corporate quarterly profit goal. I build tools to port data from Get Active to Convio as fast as possible. (1) Those tools are probably not general purpose, they are designed to get the job done and get it done fast. (2) If they are general purpose, who is going to polish them? Convio will if it leads to porting data from Blackbaud to Convio, but I doubt they would release the tools to facilitate the other direction.

And here an aspect of the difference between (distributed) open source and open standards. If the clunky tools were released into the community, all kinds of people would have an incentive to polish and prettify. If they aren't released to the community, they will serve quarterly profit targets.

I was thinking that the CiviCRM/Drupal community should run a marketing campaign... "you have to migrate anyway, migrate to open source." I suspect the tools and the companies have a few more years of maturation before they compete head to head with Convio, but I like the marketing campaign. :)

Online communities with fundraising microsites

From the CivicSpace Blog.

We think anyone should be able to create a Kiva or Global Giving style site for their social change project without having to pay for rebuilding the same basic technology over and over. Ultimately, we want to allow anyone to launch a Kiva or Global Giving style site for a low monthly fee with open source software (Drupal/CiviCRM).

The benefits of open source is that you can focus on the mission and share the costs of the technology, building a community of folks supporting social change.