Membership management software is effectively client relationship management (CRM) software by another name. Whilst the likes of Raiser's Edge is tailored with a fundraising bent and other systems, e.g. Salesforce, Goldmine are coming from a sales standpoint, they all effectively do the same thing: give you a single, holistic view of the customer/donor and allow you to record your organisation's interactions with that person and manage the communications that make up that relationship.
There are free CRM tools out there. If you've got a CHY number Salesforce will give you 10 licences for free. Or you can go open source and try SugarCRM, a widely used and impressive looking tool. Still in the open source camp, there's always CiviCRM - written by non-profits for non-profits. It has the CiviMember module which is specifically for tracking memberships. Otherwise - again, if you have a CHY - you could get Microsoft Dynamics CRM for 4% of its value through the www.encludeit.org technology donations programme. Lastly, Really Simple Systems recently launched a free edition of their hosted CRM solution for two users.
With these projects a big chunk of the resources needed to get them going is in the setup and getting it going. There are consultants out there who will help, but they are not free. Enclude implement Salesforce and 54 Degrees implement CiviCRM. I don't know who does Sugar.
Thanks Anthony, that's a thorough overview of the options available. Since you mention 54 Degrees & CiviCRM, I'll elaborate a little on CiviCRM. We've also integrated Drupal with Salesforce for clients.
You're right, a lot of the time involved in leveraging the benefit of any CRM is putting in the time understanding what you need from it. What you get out of it is only as good a what you put into it.
With CiviCRM, small organisations can get it installed on a shared hosting account for a relatively modest budget & if you're prepared to spend the time going through the thorough CiviCRM online book http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm you can start using it straight away. Learning how to use it isn't unique to CiviCRM, you'll need some guidance and training for any CRM you choose. We've been through it multiple times so we can radically speed up the process and set it up according to your organisations unique requirements.
CiviCRM also comes integrated with either Drupal www.drupal.org or Joomla www.joomla.org so you also have a solution for updating your website that works with your CRM.
If you're looking for FREE, then your options are pretty much covered by the above. Remember though that one of these solutions should reduce the amount of time you spend performing certain tasks or reduce your communication costs through effective & virtually free email communication. So FREE or cheap up front doesn't always work out that way in the long run. Time is a precious commodity.
We have numerous examples of organisations using CiviCRM for online donations, peer to peer fundraising pages, membership management and email broadcast.
I'm happy to share examples or discuss your options with you in more detail, feel free to get in touch 071 9127434 or ask further questions on here for all to share.
Comments
Membership management
Membership management software is effectively client relationship management (CRM) software by another name. Whilst the likes of Raiser's Edge is tailored with a fundraising bent and other systems, e.g. Salesforce, Goldmine are coming from a sales standpoint, they all effectively do the same thing: give you a single, holistic view of the customer/donor and allow you to record your organisation's interactions with that person and manage the communications that make up that relationship.
There are free CRM tools out there. If you've got a CHY number Salesforce will give you 10 licences for free. Or you can go open source and try SugarCRM, a widely used and impressive looking tool. Still in the open source camp, there's always CiviCRM - written by non-profits for non-profits. It has the CiviMember module which is specifically for tracking memberships. Otherwise - again, if you have a CHY - you could get Microsoft Dynamics CRM for 4% of its value through the www.encludeit.org technology donations programme. Lastly, Really Simple Systems recently launched a free edition of their hosted CRM solution for two users.
With these projects a big chunk of the resources needed to get them going is in the setup and getting it going. There are consultants out there who will help, but they are not free. Enclude implement Salesforce and 54 Degrees implement CiviCRM. I don't know who does Sugar.
You can read more about CRM here.
Thanks Anthony, that's a
Thanks Anthony, that's a thorough overview of the options available. Since you mention 54 Degrees & CiviCRM, I'll elaborate a little on CiviCRM. We've also integrated Drupal with Salesforce for clients.
You're right, a lot of the time involved in leveraging the benefit of any CRM is putting in the time understanding what you need from it. What you get out of it is only as good a what you put into it.
With CiviCRM, small organisations can get it installed on a shared hosting account for a relatively modest budget & if you're prepared to spend the time going through the thorough CiviCRM online book http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm you can start using it straight away. Learning how to use it isn't unique to CiviCRM, you'll need some guidance and training for any CRM you choose. We've been through it multiple times so we can radically speed up the process and set it up according to your organisations unique requirements.
CiviCRM also comes integrated with either Drupal www.drupal.org or Joomla www.joomla.org so you also have a solution for updating your website that works with your CRM.
If you're looking for FREE, then your options are pretty much covered by the above. Remember though that one of these solutions should reduce the amount of time you spend performing certain tasks or reduce your communication costs through effective & virtually free email communication. So FREE or cheap up front doesn't always work out that way in the long run. Time is a precious commodity.
We have numerous examples of organisations using CiviCRM for online donations, peer to peer fundraising pages, membership management and email broadcast.
I'm happy to share examples or discuss your options with you in more detail, feel free to get in touch 071 9127434 or ask further questions on here for all to share.
Talk to Salesforce.com. We
Talk to Salesforce.com. We are using it for CRM and it's fantastic. They give up to 10 licences to organisations in the non-profit sector.