Future Tech: Open Source Software

Future Tech

• What do Wikipedia, The Conservation Fund, USPIRG and the Obama administration have in common?

Open Source software?

• Access to source code• Users can modify and improve• Anyone can redistribute• Public collaborative development

Philosophy

• Cathedral vs. Bazaar• Users as co-developers• Release early and often• Diverse agendas welcome

Open source culture?

• Scientific communities• User-generated content• Copy-left (Creative Commons)

Does it matter?

• Pace of change– Facebook,Twitter, YouTube…what's next?– Can in-house development / proprietary vendors keep up?

• Strained resources– Exorbitant license fees vs. cost-sharing to build the sector

• The power of many– Open source projects built by hundreds / thousands of users and developers

Tools

• Content Management Systems - CMS

• Keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site

• Content = text, photos, music, video, documents…

• “Giant bin of free Lego-style building blocks”

Open source CMS’s

• Drupal and Joomla!• Hundreds of thousands of sites

• Thousands of contributors

Constituent Relationship Management - CRM

• Constituent = donors, funders, volunteers, clients... everyone who helps your organization to achieve its mission

• RM = Strengthen relationships• Reliable and easy-to-access info enhances fundraising, mobilization, awareness…

CiviCRM

• Open source CRM designed by and for non-profits– Fundraising– Events– Membership– Newsletters– Case management– CMS integration

• 6,000 community members, thousands of installed sites

Foundation for Prader Willi Research

• Offline organization - widely distributed constituents– Drupal + CiviCRM: 300% increase in fundraising in 2 years

Open source advantage• Contributed “Personal fund-raising” specification

• Built into CiviCRM “core”• Breast Cancer Research Foundation "Time for Research"

Wikimedia Foundation• Fundraising not integrated with website– Connected MediaWiki to CiviCRM and PayPal

– $5M in 2008

Open source advantage

• Sponsor / design collaboration for enhanced reporting in CiviCRM

• In CiviCRM 2.3 “core” for thousands of organizations to share!

Physician Health Program

• Needed better case management software– Sponsor and design CiviCase

What Now America• Needed a media-rich and interactive web site

• Needed volunter recruitment and management– Joomla!– CiviCRM

Native Americans in Philanthropy

• Widely distributed constituent base• Needed online membership signup and

renewal and ways for members to connect.– Drupal + CiviCRM!

Generations Community Wellness

• Donate Your Fat - 40-day wellness program benefits at-risk communities

• Tracking was on paper and spreadsheets.– CiviCRM + ModX for online team recruiting

Power of many

• Book Sprint• 12 people - 5 days - 300 page book!

• “Understanding CiviCRM”

Plugin to the future

• Twitter, Facebook and Social Action integration are all available as free plug-ins for Drupal sites

Is Open Source for You?

• Free as in beer• Free as in kittens.• There are costs

– Configuration and data migration– Training– Hosting– Upgrades

“It may be time for organizations to think about rejecting the standard “every organization for themselves” mentality of software acquisition and development, and consider investing in open source tools that enrich the sector as a whole.”

Michelle Murrain - OpenIssue.com

Learn more…• CiviCRM.org• “Understanding CiviCRM” (the book)

– http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm

• Drupal.org• Joomla.org• Floss Manuals - http://en.flossmanuals.net

• Professional resources– DharmaTech - http://dharmatech.org– Four Kitchens - http://fourkitchens.com– OpenConcept - http:/openconcept.ca– OpenIssue - http://openissue.com– raSANTIAGO and Assoc - http://rasantiago.com– Rayogram - http://www.rayogram.com