Are you looking for a database, but not sure which one is right? Or do you wish your current database allowed you to track donations, volunteers, emails, and events? CiviCRM may be a tool that is right for your organization.

We all know that it’s important to collect information about our donors, vendors, volunteers, partners, and members. But we don’t always have a good system for capturing this information. In the perfect world our data would be stored all in the same place, in the same way, and be easily accessible by key staff and board members. It would also show relationships and connections.

Salesforce.com is a popular cloud computing customer relationship management (CRM) database that’s used by tens of thousands of companies around the globe. Nonprofits are utilizing Salesforce CRM to manage donors, activists, community members, contacts and more. Through the Salesforce.com Foundation product donation program, qualified 501©(3) organizations are able to receive a donation of 10 Salesforce CRM licenses. If you want to learn more, join us for this upcoming free webinar.

Submitted by rczamor on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 00:42

I just read a very thought provoking post on Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology comparing Salesforce and CiviCRM. This has been something heavy on my mind as I think of solutions that will work best for our clients to work with. All too often I speak to clients or meet nonprofit staff at conferences/sessions that are unhappy with their CRM systems. The most common solutions I hear people looking to are Salesforce and CiviCRM.

Steve Wright, Program and Technical Director of the Salesforce.com Foundation talks to us about how social benefit organizations are improving their operations by using Salesforce.com to gather and understand data.

Hello all! Thought the community might be interested in this donation opportunity (disclosure: I run the philanthropy program at NetSuite)

NetSuite has launched a pilot program to donate NetSuite software and NetSuite employee volunteer assistance to charities and for-profit firms that generate positive social impact. NetSuite (www.netsuite.com/giving) is a public company with over 5,400 customers-- you might have seen NetSuite in the news recently for our Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

A little shout out here for our pals at NTEN who are launching their first NTEN Vendor Satisfation Survey to help nonprofits chose the software they need.

They're starting out with a CRM (Constituent Relationship Management) Survey. The survey has 14 questions and will take about 5 - 10 minutes to complete. Survey respondents will receive a free copy of the complete survey results.

For those of you who are saying, what the heck is CRM? Idealware has a good defintion in its article Creating the Relationship-Centric Organization: Nonprofit CRM:

Location

Deborah Elizabeth Finn is a Massachusetts based independent consultant who helps bridge the gap between "distraught technophic social workers" and technology. One of her current projects is consulting with the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers on their selection of a CMS/CRM (Content Management System/Customer Relationship Management) system vendor. Deborah is helping the organization make their selection and will then help the chosen vendor and the Council build a solid working relationship.

The Council released a Request for Proposals for the project that was crafted to include key hooks for the Open Source community and descriptions of the module types sought. They are also considering proprietary software if they determine that it best meets their needs.

Deborah hopes that a quality CMS/CRM system for the state's human service providers' association will be a showcase that can help the effort to build a state wide association of all nonprofit organizations generally.

For more information about Deborah's work, you can visit deborah.elizabeth.finn.com.