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Try this open source alternative to Salesforce Laryn Kragt Bakker Tue, 04/12/2022 - 03:00 Up Register or Login to like.

CiviCRM is an open source constituent relationship management (CRM) system designed to help you manage information about your organization's contacts, members, donations, and events. It's built specifically for nonprofits, so you won't find yourself having to try to shoehorn your organizational workflow into a business-oriented model (as some find themselves doing when using similar CRMs).

Even better, it's built to be extremely flexible and customizable. You can create custom fields, location types, contact sub-types, relationship types, financial type and more. Best of all, it's customized to your nonprofit's specific needs. There are no hard-coded limits on the number of contacts you can store—and likewise, no arbitrary limits or thresholds that trigger a higher monthly fee. (I've heard an unfortunate story of a group that started out with, for example, a "Nonprofit Success Pack" on a proprietary CRM. When they outgrew it, they were trapped in what turned out to be a very expensive system, or they wanted to expand functionality with "apps" that ended up unexpectedly costing hundreds of dollars a month.)

More great content Free online course: RHEL technical overview Learn advanced Linux commands Download cheat sheets Find an open source alternative Explore open source resources Breaking down data silos

If your organization is storing data in many different places ("data silos"), you can imagine the benefit of having an accessible, centralized place to store information: no more maintaining multiple spreadsheets and databases to track your constituents. No more updating information in one place only to find out the contact is also being tracked in a different location with inconsistent, unreliable data. No more donations in one system, event registrations in another, and email lists in a third location. When you (or the contact themselves, if you allow it) updates the information, it's updated across the board. When you view a contact, you can see at a glance their donation history, a record of their attendance for your events and their membership status, for example.

Privacy is always a concern, and policies like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) work hard to preserve it. Using CiviCRM, you can fully own your data and store it on your own server and under your privacy policy, rather than off-loading it to third party systems with their own privacy policies. (There's also a GDPR extension to provide GDPR-specific functionality such as a "Forget Me" button).

Costs

Though the software is open source and available without charge, there can be costs associated with CiviCRM. The fees range from hosting fees to hiring consultants or developers who can help you set up, configure, and maintain the installation or import historical data from another system. In the meantime, instead of these costs being sunk into a proprietary profit-based system, they go towards deepening a sharing, educational, empowering economy that can benefit other nonprofits as well.

Core components and functionality

CiviCRM covers a lot of ground. Here are some of its core components and functionalities:

• CRM: Tracks contact addresses, demographics, relationships with other contacts, activities with your organization, and custom fields you've set up. Uses groups, tags, and saved searches to categorize your contacts. A powerful API allows developers to do more extensive integrations and customization if the need is there.

• Events: Tracks attendance to past events, and sets up events that allow registration (with or without payment).

• Memberships: Tracks membership status and allows membership registration and renewal (with or without payment).

• Donations: Tracks donation and contribution history and creates as many customized donation pages as needed. It also allows peer-to-peer fundraising pages.

• Mailings: Sends email to contacts in certain groups or to subsets based on filters/searches. Allows people to sign up to mailing lists while verifying/updating their contact information. Uses special links in your emails to prepopulate the forms on your site with the contact's information and links it directly to their record.

• Payment gateways: Connects directly to your payment gateway of choice with no additional middle layer or additional fee on top of your processor's fee. This puts more of the donor's money in your organization's bank account. This also allows you to change your payment processor if needed without having to change your entire CRM.

Contributed extensions of note

Those are just the broad categories, of course. CiviCRM is flexible, so if you need more than what's provided by default, you can install extensions developed by the community.

Here are some examples:

• Contact Layout Editor: Take control of the contact summary screen. Rearrange, rename, and design blocks. Drag and drop fields. Choose which layout gets shown to each type of user, and design custom layouts for each contact type.

• DIY Forms: Use Backdrop or Drupal's powerful Webform module to push data directly to your CRM database from form submissions on your site. Allows multiple contacts to be added and edited from a single form, including relationships between them.

• CiviVolunteer: Manage your volunteers.

• Extended Reports: Generate detailed, customizable reports.

• Mosaico drag and drop email builder: Use the Mosaico library for a drag and drop interface when creating email templates.

Examples of integrations with the website

CiviCRM currently requires a CMS (although there is some talk about allowing it to run as a stand-alone system in the future). At the moment it supports Backdrop, Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla. It can be run on one of these as a separate CRM-specific subdomain or can be integrated directly into your main site (if you use one of these CMS's). Here are some examples of the types of website integrations that are possible:

• Private members area/intranet: Sync membership or group status from CiviCRM to a role on the website, allowing access to private information for certain contacts.

• Member directory with filters: Pull specific contact information into a searchable directory on your site that dynamically updates based on data in CiviCRM.

• DIY updates: Allow contacts to update their own information and avoid manual entry of hand-written or emailed changes. Use deduplication rules to match contacts, allow logged in users to update their own info and send special customized links in an email to pre-populate the form with the contact's information and link it directly to their record (whether they are logged in or not).

• Mailing list signup: Add a mailing list signup option on contact forms.

• Create user accounts: Allow users to register for an account on your website while also capturing their information in CiviCRM.

Try CiviCRM

The CiviCRM community is interested in educating and empowering users of all kinds. There are free online manuals for users, administrators, and developers. If you think your organization could benefit from CiviCRM,  ask a question or just give it a try.

CiviCRM is an open source CRM built specifically for nonprofit organizations.

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The path to an open world begins with inclusivity Ron McFarland Tue, 04/12/2022 - 03:00 Up Register or Login to like.

For the past few weeks, collaborator Brook Manville and I have been offering our thoughts on (and analyses of) Johan Norberg's Open: The Story of Human Progress. My first article simply explained what the author means by the word "open." Thinking alongside Norberg now, I'd like to discuss future ways we might apply open organization principles to bring about prosperous societies globally. Norberg hints at such directions, but I believe further detail is required if we'll be able to set up action plans for the future.

The importance of inclusivity

One of the open organization principles, namely inclusivity, is extremely important when developing a more open society.

Open Organization resources Download resources Join the community What is an open organization? How open is your organization?

To highlight this importance, Norberg often asks readers to consider the differences between two groups or communities: an "inside" group and an "outside" group. When we consider people from our inside group, we see them as individuals. If we don't approve of one member, we limit our judgment only to that person. When we consider people from our outside group, or community, we see them as representatives of the whole group (forming a stereotype).

Here is where inclusivity becomes important. When the two groups interact, stereotypes can erode and both groups' members get seen as individuals. This doesn't mean the two groups become completely integrated; it just means each develops a deeper level of understanding about the other. And while differences are still apparent, joint interests emerge, too. Both groups can begin working together on efforts that serve them both.

To improve our inclusivity, we could ask how often people spend time with groups outside of or different from theirs. And does the group seem satisfied with that degree of contact?

Multi-dimensional group identities

When inside groups begin making more contact with different, outside groups, they begin to sew the seeds of more open global societies.

When inside groups begin making more contact with different, outside groups, they begin to sew the seeds of more open global societies.

Naturally, we all are members of many communities, and we have many identities (which Norberg explains). Consider just a few: nationality, religion, race, political party, specialty/profession, language, educational level, and gender. Some of these dimensions of identity we have in common with others; other aspects of our identities differentiate us from others. By seeking common connections in the dimensions of our identities that we share, we can begin pursuing a better understanding of those "other" dimensions of identity that seem different to us. Problems arise when we identify too strongly (or too extremely) with only one facet of our identities, refusing to acknowledge the existence or importance of those different from us.

So how can we get people with such extreme, single-dimension identifications to be more inclusive?

"Tolerance" is a common theme in Norberg's work, but the concept on its own isn't sufficient for building open societies.

Steps to more inclusive societies

What Norberg calls "tolerance" is for me one aspect of a multi-part system of values that can help us create more open and inclusive global societies. I'd describe them like this:

1. Recognition: We must first recognize the existence of other identities outside our own. This doesn't involve any kind of judgment about those identities, just acknowledgement of their existence.
2. Respect: With recognition should come respect for those identities. It involves not just acknowledging others' existence, but validating it in some way. For example, say I travel to another city to meet fans of an opposing sports team. What I have to do is respect fans of that "competing" city's team—not determine whether that team is "bad" or "good," but try to understand why a person would be a fan of that team (particularly, say, if that fan grew up in that city).
3. Understanding: This involves trying to understand what others are thinking and feeling. Here we begin to see others as individuals with unique histories and experiences that have led to the development of their identities. Simply put, we need to see the context others inhabit and understand how it might differ from ours.
4. Tolerance: Norberg argues for greater tolerance of differences throughout Open. What he's describing here is the (occasionally uncomfortable) work of holding different identities in tension with our own. It takes effort. When I hear different perspectives, how do I respond? Am I overly defensive? Do I respond quickly or pause to consider his context? Do I ask clarifying questions to get a feeling for his thinking? These questions will help me become more tolerant of different and divergent perspectives.
5. Optimism: Being optimistic is helpful for becoming open to differences. As Norberg notes, fear leads to pessimism, which narrows people's thinking and makes them look inward. It blinds them to others' perspectives. For instance, when giving sales seminars, I'd notice that people who were pessimistic about making sales had a harder time spotting the needs of the customer. They were too preoccupied looking inward. Optimism leads to thinking outwardly, which can lead to inclusivity.
6. Patience: Finally, I think patience is also required to improve our ability to work through differences. When the differences are so great, the work of understanding those differences also seems great. It can feel easier simply not to do it. The best advice might just be to give yourself some time to think about the differences. After some time, a new perspective and better understanding might come to the surface. Patience is key.

Barriers to openness

Norberg stresses that most societies actually maintain barriers that prevent them from becoming more open. Barriers to growth and opportunities mean talented people will seek to join groups in societies where those barriers don't exist. Norberg offers several historical examples of this tendency.

But what are those barriers?

They relate to four types of mobility:

1. Physical mobility: The ability to physically move where one wishes and away from a place or situation one wants to avoid is a form of physical mobility. How easily can a person or group move from one area to another in which they perceive more opportunity for growth?
2. Professional mobility: This is the ability to move into different professions when the need for one's current professional skills are declining. How easily can a person or group develop new skills and adopt professions in higher demand?
3. Social mobility: Are people or groups able to move to communities that promote their vision of human development—and away from communities that don't? How accepting is a community? How welcoming of new and different people? Can new ideas flourish here through discussions with newcomers?
4. Psychological mobility: This refers to emotional desire or fear associated with moving to new and different environments and away from others. How psychologically adaptable and flexible is a person or group in general? Can people emotionally adjust to changes within their current surroundings?

Understanding these various forms of mobility can help a group or society learn how it can become more open.

Toward a more open world

As I've written previously, a more globalized society tends to be a more open society. Norberg clearly feels similarly, arguing that throughout history, when societies become more accepting of differences and open up, they tend to prosper, innovating and developing faster. It is due to openness, he says, that human civilization has progressed more in the past 200 years than it has in the past 20,000. Clearly, openness is important enough to warrant our efforts in helping it flourish.

We should be thinking of our work as "non-zero sum," even striving for a "plus-sum game," where one group's successes propel everyone forward.

In the end, Norberg's work stresses the importance of combining inclusivity with another open organization characteristic: collaboration. Future successes will rely, he says, on overcoming the idea that social progress involves a kind of "zero-sum game" in which one group's gains represent net loss for others. We should, he insists, be thinking of our work as "non-zero sum," even striving for a "plus-sum game," where one group's successes propel everyone forward. All groups have their own strengths and weaknesses; by working collaboratively, they can leverage each other's strengths far more effectively, increasing total benefit for all.

Openness, tolerance, recognition, and respect lead to increased trade, better division of labor, greater specialization, the quicker iteration and perfection of processes, and global understanding. As Norberg notes, openness helps new forms of expression, new ideas, new business models, and new insights circulate, leading to greater prosperity. Furthermore, Norberg notes that scientific advancement depends on open exchange of information, viewpoints, criticisms, and concepts. Isolation and restricted interaction, on the other hand, have historically led to failure—and will continue to do so in the future, should we not avoid them.

Building open societies requires respect, understanding, and patience.

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The Open Organization Diversity and inclusion Read the series Open exchange, open doors, open minds: A recipe for global progress Making the case for openness as the engine of human progress 4 questions about the essence of openness This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. 1 Comment Register or Login to post a comment. Image by:

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Ron McFarland | April 12, 2022

After writing this article, I started thinking of the value of an open society or organization.  Consider this.  

What is the value of more open organizations and societies?

To answer this question, I would like to compare it with product standardization.  What is the value of standardizing an electrical outlet socket for example?  Imagine every country, city, town and even individual home having different home appliance electrical outlets and sockets.  If that were the case, the cost, quality and performance would be hundreds or even thousands of times worse than one standardized electrical outlet design.

Looking at the extremes where there is only one standardized socket design that is mass-produced using advanced automation and on the other hand, thousands, possibly even millions of versions, all made by hand at varying levels of quality.  The benefit of standardizing of these electrical sockets could be 1,000 times a handmade version.  Open organizations and societies offer that exact same value to their community members.  Openness helps find and standardize what is best for wide communities.

 

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