Inspired by the comparison charts at Techsoup and AFP and Grassroots Funding Journal and Nonprofit Times and others, I thought it was time to rectify the fact that CiviCRM appears on none of these charts. One wonders if one needs to have a bigger marketing budget to appear on these lists.
Unlike these very un-useful comparison chart, we'll also provide some actual, balanced details on the chart.
THIS IS FOR CIVICRM VERSION 2.1
REVISED JULY 2008
Delivery
| Web-based | |
CiviCRM is accessed primarily through your web browser.It can also be accessed via API. |
| ASP | |
No CiviCRM ASP is available at this time. |
| Hosted | |
You can install CiviCRM in a hosted configuration yourself or vendors (http://civicrm.org/professional) can supply and maintain a CiviCRM installation for you to use. |
| In-house | |
You can install CiviCRM in an in-house configuration yourself or vendors (http://civicrm.org/professional) can supply and maintain a CiviCRM installation for you to use. |
Costs
| License fee | |
None. Software can be freely downloaded by anyone. |
| Installation | |
You can do it yourself or select a vendor to install CiviCRM (http://civicrm.org/professional). |
| Support | |
As an open source project extensive documentation and support forums are provided for free. You can also select a vendor to provide support (http://civicrm.org/professional). |
Major Charity Functionality
| Abstract analysis | |
|
| Annual fund campaigns | |
Simple support. Track campaign through source field or with custom field. No strong campaign functionality. |
| Annual giving | |
Solicit through CiviMail, accept donations through CiviContribute and track and report on giving. |
| Auction event management | |
No specific auction event management. Potential support by creative use of basic functions. |
| Capital campaigns | |
Simple support. Target and segment your donor database. Track campaign through source field or with custom field. No strong campaign functionality. |
| Corporate giving | |
Supported through CiviGrant. |
| Credit card processing | |
Supported through CiviContribute payment processors (PayPal, Google checkout, Authorize.net and others). |
| Data management / analysis / reporting | |
Supported through CiviReports. CiviCRM lacks extensive donor management fields (which can be added as custom fields) and an extensive reports library. |
| Direct marketing | |
Strong segmentation and targeting through groups. Stong email direct marketing through CiviMail. Tracking interactions through constituent record. No strong campaign functionality. No integrated mail merge. |
| Donor relationship management | |
Core functionality. |
| Donor research | |
No default integration with donor research resources. Strong integration capabilities through open APIs would support integration with data providers. |
| Endowment management | |
No financial / accounting integration. No strong campaign functionality. |
| Event management | |
Supported through CiviEvent. |
| Gift annuity administration / contracts | |
- |
| Government relations / advocacy | |
Strong basic CRM, but no specific advocacy scoring or other advocacy functionality. |
| Grant making | |
Supported through CiviGrant. |
| Grant tracking | |
Partially supported through CiviGrant. No post grant performance tracking, task management, calendaring, etc. |
| Information on foundations / prospects | |
No default integration with grant research resources. Strong integration capabilities through open APIs would support integration with data providers. |
| Internet services | |
Strong integration with CMS (Drupal or Joomla). |
| Mailing list management | |
Supported through CiviMail and Groups. Not a replacement for a traditional mailing list management solution. |
| Major-gift management | |
Handled through activities functions. No lead / prospect conversion capabilities. No default project entity. |
| Major-gift marketing | |
Handled through activities functions. No lead / prospect conversion capabilities. |
| Matching gift management | |
Handled through custom fields instead of default functionality. |
| Membership / alumni management | |
Handled through CiviMember. |
| Online auctions | |
- |
| Online events / registration / management | |
Handled through CiviEvent. |
| Online fundraising / donations / management | |
Handled through CiviContribute |
| Outcome management | |
Potentially supported by upcoming CiviCase. |
| Planned gifts administration | |
- |
| Planned gifts marketing | |
Customization, not default functionality |
| Pledge management | |
Handled through CiviContibute. |
| Recurring gifts management | |
Strong capabilities through CiviContribute, but few default pledge management reports. |
| Volunteers / opportunities management | |
Customization, not default functionality |
Working with Records
| Type in partial constituent names to get a match. |
|
The quick search provides a predictive interface which narrows down the list in real time as you type additional letters. All searches in the system accept partial names (constituents, contributions, pledges, members, etc.) |
| Data entry default settings allow users to enter constituent and contribution information easily and rapidly. |
|
CiviCRM provides profiles that can handle repetitive data entry tasks. Create a profile for your data entry task. Unfortunately you cannot set default values for profile fields in CiviCRM, HOWEVER, all modern browsers have a feature that will automatically fill our web forms for you and/or remember what you have typed in previous fields of that type, speeding up data entry siginficantly. CiviCRM provides a sophistocated CSV import and update capability that is the preferred method for large volume, repetitive data entry. Create a CSV import template. Do the actual data entry (constituents / contributions / ??) in an Excel sheet. Import that sheet. For normal data entry screens, CiviCRM provide no defaulting mechanism nor does it remember your last preferences on values like communication preferences. |
| Seperate recognition names for donors so that they can appear on honor rolls or published materials differently than in the database. |
|
CiviCRM provides the database record name and custom greetings that can be used for mailing labels and similar situations.The user can also add a custom field easily to store the honor role name, handling this requirement. Custom fields can be accessed programatically or via csv export. |
| Spouses can have joint and seperate giving records. |
|
Spouses can have both joint and seperate giving records by creating a household record that is connected to both spouses' constituent records. Contributions do not, however roll up into the household record without manual data entry. |
| Mailing names are auto-created per a set of rules. |
|
CiviCRM provides seperate prefix, suffix and name fields and assembles them automatically. |
| Auto-address formats can be over-ridden. |
|
Users can specify a custom greeting to over-ride the auto-created mailing name. If users want full overwrite control when producing mailings, they should use the csv export functionality and make their ad-hoc modifications in Excel. |
| Relationships between constituents can be tracked. |
|
CiviCRM provides standard relationships (employee of, head of household) out of the box. Users can create unlimited custom relationships. |
Administering Records
| Allows records to be archived. | |
| CiviCRM does not provide an inactive check box that would hide the record in day-to-day workflows yet still allow it to be accessed if needed. | |
| Globally change a large number of records in a batch. |
|
| You can create a profile with the fields you want to update, search for any set of records in the database and then batch update via profile. |
|
| Audit log of changes to records. |
|
| Provided as a tab on the constituent record. |
Common Development Tasks
| Calendar of grant deadlines |
|
Simple list by date of grant deadlines via CiviGrant or via activities list. |
| Tickler to remind users of deadlines |
|
Create other activity for each grant deadline, assign to staff. |
| Task tracking for the user and their manager |
|
Assign activities. |
| Track correspondence and communications with constituents |
|
Logged as activities. |
Tracking Gifts
| Handle in-kind gifts |
|
Create a contribution type for in-kind gifts. No specific in-kind functionality. |
| Handles soft credits |
|
|
| Handles matching gifts |
|
Use custom fields to track matching status and searches to identify open matches. |
| Track gifts to different funds |
|
Use custom fields to track funds. No default functionality. |
| Handles split gifts between funds |
|
Workaround... enter single contribution for each split. |
| Handle tracking gifts via campaign |
|
Handled via custom fields. No default campaign functionality. |
| Handle tracking gift via appeal |
|
Handled via custom fields. No default campaign functionality. |
| Handle tribute/ honor gifts |
|
Supported in CiviContribute. |
| Notifying the honoree re: gifts in their name |
|
Manual process involving searching, creating CRM records and then notifying. |
| Handle anonymous giving |
|
Can be handled with a custom field, but not integrated functionality (masking from reports, for example). |
| Handle gift acknowledgments and thank you letters |
|
Handled by CiviContribute. |
| Handle gift receipts |
|
Handled by CiviContribute. |
| Handle end-of-the-year donor statements |
|
Manual via search. |
Pledges
| Handle pledges |
|
|
| Schedule and track pledge payments |
|
|
| Remind staff of pledges that are due |
||
| Remind donors of pledges that are due |
