Open Source CRMMichelle Murrain, Nonprofit Open Source

InitiativeMarch 27, 2008

What I’ll 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

What’s 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 Work through a web browser

Software as a Service No download or installation – all hosted on

companies site Work through a web browser

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 Raiser’s 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)

Organizer’s 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

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 Organizer’s 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 Raiser’s 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 Raiser’s 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: Organizer’s Database

Windows only Written in Visual Basic GPL Customizable Active Community Still under active development http://www.organizersdb.org

How to choose a CMS

What’s 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