Open Source CRM

Michelle Murrain, Nonprofit Open Source Initiative

March 27, 2008

What Ill cover today

What is a CRM?

Kinds of CRM

Why Open Source CRM?

Examples of Open Source CRMs

How to choose a CRM

So what is a CRM, anyway?

CRM stands for Constituent Relationship Management

aka Community Relationship Management

aka Contact Relationship Management

aka Customer Relationship Management (its for-profit progenitor)

There are many kinds, and they have different feature sets

Whats in a CRM?

Basic Data

Basic contact info

Track activities (calls, events)

Track donations

Tracking Volunteers

Actions

Email blasts

Automated donations

Event management and registration

Kinds of CRM

Desktop & Client/Server CRM

Download and install on network and/or desktops

Web Server-based CRM

Download and install on your intranet web server, or on your public-facing web server

Software as a Service

No download or installation all hosted on companies site

Categories of CRM by license

Proprietary

Open Source In Spirit (built on proprietary platforms)

Open Source CRM built on proprietary OS/Database

Open Source CRMs built to run entirely on Open Source platforms

Software as a Service (not obtaining software, obtaining services)

Examples of CRM: Proprietary

Blackbaud Raisers edge

Donor Perfect

Fundware

Sage

...

...

Examples: SaaS

Democracy In Action

Convio

Kintera

Salesforce

eTapestry

Both Salesforce and eTapestry are free (as in beer) for some users:

Salesforce 10 free licenses

ETapestry free for 500 or fewer contacts

Examples: Open Source In Spirit

METRIX (built with MS Access)

EBase (built with FileMaker Pro)

Examples: Open Source

Depends on proprietary OS and/or Database

mpower open (built on .NET and depends on MS SQL server)

Organizers database (Windows and Visual Basic)

Compiere (requires proprietary databases)

Examples: Open Source

Can be run completely using open source OS/tools

Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP stack):

CiviCRM

SugarCRM

BaseBuilder

Any OS, Apache Tomcat, Java:

OpenCRX

vTiger

Why Open Source CRM?

Free as in beer - organizations can get good CRM without spending a lot of money

Free as in speech - you can see, and modify the code behind the CRM

Open APIs open source CRMs have open APIs (APIs that are without cost, and documented)

Community support

Help to enhance open source CRM by contributing to CRM projects/products

Why Open Source CRM?

People seem to be satisfied with their choice of open source CRM:

In the NTEN CRM satisfaction CiviCRM was first in satisfaction, SugarCRM and Organizers Database were 3rd and 4th (out of 22 tools.)

These tools were all ahead of Blackbaud, Convio, Kintera, and other proprietary CRMs.

Why not open source CRM?

You need features not present in any current open source CRM

Your staff are familiar with a particular CRM

You want Software as a Service (SaaS)

Open Source CRM

All current open source offerings are:

Stable and secure

Support (both paid and community) readily available

Some are Enterprise Class

Web Based CRMs: CiviCRM

LAMP Stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

Web-based

Integrates with Drupal or Joomla (Drupal is best)

Has a new stand alone version

Version 2.0 is newly released

http://www.civicrm.org

Webinar 4/29

Web Based CRMs: SugarCRM

Written primarily for Sales in for-profit organizations

LAMP stack, fully open source

GPL v3

http://www.sugarcrm.com

SugarCRM

Strengths:

Lots of features

Popular

Active Community

Can be used by large organizations

Easy to install

Has a company behind it so paid support is easily available

Weaknesses

Designed for sales/business

Client/Server CRM: mpower open

Very mature product, very newly open source

Comparible to Raisers Edge

Windows client

Depends on MS SQL Server

Written in C#/.NET

No community yet

http://www.mpoweropen.com

mpower open

Strengths

Designed for nonprofits

Used by medium and large organizations

Comparible to Raisers edge

Mature product

Completely open APIs

Company behind it paid support is readily availabe

Lots of future potential

mpower open

Weaknesses

Newly open sourced no community around it

Not easy to install

Currently depends on proprietary platform and database

Desktop CRM: eBase Pro

Has been around for a long while

Is not truly open source written with FileMaker Pro

Can be customized if you own FileMaker Pro

Good for small-medium sized orgs

Future is uncertain

http://www.ebase.org

Dekstop CRM: Organizers Database

Windows only

Written in Visual Basic

GPL

Customizable

Active Community

Still under active development

http://www.organizersdb.org

How to choose a CMS

Whats your budget?

Cost is not just the cost of software, it includes implementation, support, and data migration

Remember to include staff time in your calculations

Can you identify sources of support?

Paid support from vendor/company

Consultant support

Community support (takes staff time)

How to choose a CMS, continuted

Features what do you need?

Basic contact management

Donation tracking

Tracking of activities and events

Integrated online donations

Email advocacy or newsletters

Other features

Compare feature sets of different CRMs

How to choose a CMS, continued

Open APIs, and ease of data import and export

How important is open source?

Platform issues (web, desktop)

Database issues (some open source CRMs require proprietary databases)

Resources

Software choice worksheet: http://nosi.net/projects/primer

NTEN CRM satisfaction survey: http://www.nten.org/research/crm

Great Idealware article on CRM: http://www.idealware.org/articles/crm_software.php

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