Hey Laura, 

At Broke Spoke, we've used Google Spreadsheets for a lot of that with mixed success. It's a reasonable solution to begin, but it cannot handle a high volume of data (depending on how you set it up). I ended up writing some scripts (like excel macros, but in javascript) to make it easier to use. We've looked as Salesforce as well, and it was too much, and seemed like a bit of a square peg in a round hole.

Some other things to look at:

Volunteerspot 
for volunteer signup. We've been using this, and while the interface could be improved, it is an effective way to solicit volunteer sign-ups, and track who you have working when. We just started the paid subscription.

Freehub
http://freehub.bikekitchen.org/
This was developed to track patron visits and volunteering. I haven't worked with it, because my understanding is that it was not getting new features, and it was missing some things we needed. But some people on this list love it, so definitely worth checking out.

We've recently outgrown Google Docs, and I'm just finishing up our own custom web app for managing sign-ins, volunteer hour tracking, and bike tracking. Id' love to make that a community project in the future, but that will have to be a subsequent version. It's written in javascript (node.js), which I hope would make it more accessible for other groups with developers to add to or modify as they need to.

Andy

Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop
Lexington, KY




On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 12:24 PM, Justin Smith <justin@bikeerie.org> wrote:

Laura,

I highly encourage you to watch/listen to this Alliance for Biking and Walking webinar on choosing a database or CRM. Also, I've listed some other articles and resources to check out. Remember that there are discounts for nonprofits and organizations like TechSoup offer many free or heavily discounted products. Also, I echo Sam's recommendation about working with what is most simple and figuring out what you need as you grow. Choosing and implementing a CRM is not an easy decision and process by any means, so I wish you the best of luck.

 

On 02/13/2015 10:00 am, Laura Biren wrote:

Hi all,

I am interning at a volunteer-run non-profit called the Community Bike Project in Bellows Falls, VT. We've been around about a year and a half now and have been quite successful! We're excited for what the future holds but one thing we are trying to do now is organize our infrastructure by putting everything we can into a database (volunteer information, inventory, bike donations, events, individual donations, memberships, etc). We've been looking into CiviCRM, and getting an external host for that, but before we commit to anything I am hoping to hear any feedback/comments anyone might have on what systems you are using?? Thank you!

--
Laura Biren

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