I volunteer as a technical advisor to the Ministry of Stories in Hoxton. If you don’t know them they are a charity that runs creative writing workshops for children. To help fund the Ministry they also run the Monster Supply Shop.
Right now they have a big project for which I need your help, as a charity they have lots of people who volunteer, donate or are just interested. Over the last year they have managed these various lists through a number of systems, some more ad hoc than others. Now though they know that they need to sort out some joined up system, we are into the world of CRM.
I have started looking at CiviCRM as a possible solution, but my experience with Drupal is rather limited. We have also been pointed to at least one commercial solution. So below I have noted our key requirements for a CRM system and was hoping that you might be able to help us work out the best route to take.
Currently
Currently we have three main sites on the net that can collect data for us, The main website, http://www.ministryofstories.org/ allows you to find out about the Ministry and sign up as a volunteer or just sign up for news.
http://www.monstersupplies.org/ is our online shop, where you can buy Tins of Fear and more to support the work of the Ministry. This is another data point, allowing you to sign up to newsletters etc.
Finally we also have a presence on http://www.justgiving.com/ministryofstories/ information from here should also get captured.
We have a database of people, mostly from signing up on the main Ministry website. These are contact details for people who want news, volunteers and donors. Volunteers have various roles, there can be volunteers who help out in the shop, or the office (or like me trying to give some domain advice) or they can be the mentors for the workshops. If they are going to work directly with the children, then they have to have CRB checks completed and references. All this needs to be recorded so that we know who is doing what, what status they are at (fully trained and checked, in progress etc).
Also people can have multiple roles, some will volunteer time as well as donate money. So when someone joins our database we need to be able to know about their multiple roles and make sure when we communicate with them we do so in the correct context and also make sure we are not spamming them.
We also have data on organisations and contacts at these organisations. Since some donations come in via such organisations we need to be able to record these as entities as well.
There is also a database of Schools and contacts there and we also keep records of the children who attend the workshops, data around allergies, dietary requirements and their progress through the workshops. This database we want to keep separate to further restrict access, but would need to get some reports from this into the general reporting in the main system.
As, yes, reporting. We need to be able to generate reports, for us to track people we have, interest, admin (ie who has CRB checks that need renewing, who has been attending the workshops, who is also signed up as an illustrator etc). We also need to be able to generate reports for various funding bodies, as they like to know information such as number of volunteers, number of volunteers from a specific area and other demographic information.
Where we have that data we need to be able to create these reports, they will help us to apply and maintain funding from various organisations. This data is also useful in quantifying the impact the Ministry is having, in terms of engagement etc.
So our new system needs to be able to do all this, but whereas at the moment this is all spread across a number of databases (wordpress users, filemaker, mailchimp, various spreadsheets) we would like to be able to have one system, or at least one core system that can push out relevant information to the other systems (so, when you sign up at the website we record your information in the main database, it can then update the wordpress system to create your account on there).
Also:
- We would like to be able to attach paperwork to records, ie a scan of references, or CRB document.
- Create contact reports when calling organisations / individuals about funding / donations.
- Possibly integrate with ticketing systems, we run some events, some free some paid.
Finally, we hope that over the next year other Ministries will appear across the country and we would like to be able to say ‘Here is the CRM system for you, here are the reports you need, here is a shared contact database for funding groups. etc’
So we now need to find the solution that ticks as many boxes as possible, is something we can work with (on a day to day usage basis) but will also grow as our requirements possibly change.
It needs to:
- Be cost effective, we are a charity with a very limited budget.
- Integrate with our existing websites as much as possible. Though of course we can work on them to get them to work with the new system, I do want it all to join up as much as possible so we are not duplicating data or adding points where mistakes can be made.
- Integrate with MailChimp. We currently use mailchimp for sending out our emails but we are getting close to the free limit, something that allows us to work closely with mailchimp to efficiently send emails, to make the best use of the free account would be great (yes, I intend to start talking to MailChimp about possibly helping us further).
- Support a number of users working with the data. A volunteer co-ordinator and a fundraising volunteer could well be accessing records on the system at the same time.
So, as I said I have started looking at CiviCRm as a possible solution and we have had http://www.tessituranetwork.com/en/Products/Software.aspx
suggested as a possible solution. What I would like to know is if you have any experience with either of these, would they deliver what we need and what would it take to make them do what we want.
Also do you have any other suggested solutions?
If you have any further questions, then please leave a comment or find me on twitter @marksimpkins.