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.

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.

Reinvention of the wheel again...

One of my irritations in life is when dollars dedicated to social change get invested invested in duplicative technical infrastructure.

So I've been looking at DonorsChoose, Kiva and GlobalGiving. From a software perspective, I pretty much can't tell the difference between them. Authenticated user creates project, visitors contribute money to project, project contains some rich information about the project, there is some accountability structure and reporting.

Why did they have to build three incompatible software systems? Why not standardize on single open source platform? That way each organization's investment in the open source foundation benefits all users. Over time the cost of innovating and maintaining the software per organization falls drastically. [I'm not naive... there are lots of good reasons, but still.]

Better question... where is the "micro-project" data standard so small fundraising opportunities (a school in need of a whiteboard, a village in need of a goat) can be syndicated quickly and easily across the Internet?

Lets build our technology with the same eye toward social change we use when developing our projects.

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.