CiviCRM as a Donor Database Evaluation

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