Sheldon -- I'm just getting back into DB work; I got bucked into management years back, and am only now getting an opportunity to get code-dust back on my fingers.

As you've probably noticed, DB work is *inherently* tricky; the additional layer of computer-systems administration that inevitably ends up on top only adds to a pre-existing problem.

I have not yet put in hands-on experience with SalesForce.  What I've picked up on the gossip-mill (most recently at OSCON last month) suggests that while free implementations are available for non-profits, there are two issues with it:  1.) It's really more designed and more suited to a for-profit context, and 2.) it has an alarming tendency to suddenly become non-free, *after* one is already committed to it.

I'd suggest CiviCRM as an alternative.  It's specifically designed with NFP operations in mind, and while the inherent complexity I'd mentioned above will make it suddenly look very worthwhile to hire a consultant to do the implementation for you, it *is* FOSS, and you *can* do the implementation yourself.  I'd suggest hiring a *trainer* rather than a consultant, as that way you learn how to fix it yourself rather than give your organization as hostage to the consultant.

If you want to discuss this in greater detail, please contact me off-list.

best, Joel polydad8@yahoo.com

  From: sheldon mains <sheldon@spokesconnect.org>

To: The Think Tank thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org Sent: Friday, August 21, 2015 12:15 PM Subject: [TheThinkTank] Comprehensive Database for community bike center-- any expereinces

We're (Cycles for Change in St. Paul, MN ---www.CyclesForChange.org) is starting a search for a comprehensive database for all of our programs and activities.  We want something that: Tracks participants, donors and volunteers over all programs(Earn-a-Bike, Community Partners Bike Libary, Learn-to-Ride, Open Shop, Youth Apprenticeship, Volunteer Night, Community Rides, Equity Council, Infrastructure Advocacy) Automates event sign-up for classes and events Manages multiple email newsletters Tracks participation levels (e.g. how often someone comes to open shop or if they attended all 4 classes in a four week course) Tracks all communications with all participants, volunteers and donors Comprehensive demographic information Customizable reports Anyone with any suggestions?  We're looking at something that is on the web (we have three locations). We are looking for something that does not require a techie to manage. Specifically, we've heard there is a community bike center that has created a bike center implementation of SalesForce  thanks much sheldon..............Sheldon MainsCycles for Changewww.SpokesConnect.org  www.CyclesForChange.org Minneapolis, MN 612/618-7149Three ways to donate to SPOKES:1. Volunteer.  2. Donate repairable used bikes. 3. Financial donations always welcome. Check www.SpokesConnect.org for details. ____________________________________

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I've worked with Nationbuilder on a national campaign. It's a clunky program but not bad if you're working with millions of people at a time.

https://www.insightly.com/features/ --- this is free and integrates easily with gmail. I liked it a lot but I'm not sure it has everything you need.

Joshua Hoffman Market Manager KCK Farmers Markets http://www.kckfarmersmarket.com/ 816-823-2367

On Sun, Aug 23, 2015 at 11:29 AM, momoko saunders analyst@bikefarm.org wrote:

I haven't used it yet. But I've been considereing Nation Builder http://nationbuilder.com/features_nonprofits. The Community Cycling Center, in Portland OR, is using it. They emailed the company and got a free version. If you try it out, let me know how it goes!

-momoko Bike Farm

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 12:15 PM, sheldon mains <sheldon@spokesconnect.org

...

wrote:

...

We're (Cycles for Change in St. Paul, MN ---www.CyclesForChange.org) is starting a search for a comprehensive database for all of our programs and activities. We want something that:

Tracks participants, donors and volunteers over all programs (Earn-a-Bike, Community Partners Bike Libary, Learn-to-Ride, Open Shop, Youth Apprenticeship, Volunteer Night, Community Rides, Equity Council, Infrastructure Advocacy)

Automates event sign-up for classes and events

Manages multiple email newsletters

Tracks participation levels (e.g. how often someone comes to open shop or if they attended all 4 classes in a four week course)

Tracks all communications with all participants, volunteers and donors

Comprehensive demographic information

Customizable reports

Anyone with any suggestions? We're looking at something that is on the web (we have three locations). We are looking for something that does not require a techie to manage.

Specifically, we've heard there is a community bike center that has created a bike center implementation of SalesForce

thanks much

sheldon .............. Sheldon Mains Cycles for Change www.SpokesConnect.org www.CyclesForChange.org Minneapolis, MN 612/618-7149 Three ways to donate to SPOKES:

1. Volunteer. 2. Donate repairable used bikes. 3. Financial donations

always welcome. Check www.SpokesConnect.org for details.

---

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More details:

Thanks for all the great responses so far. I’ll provide a few more details about our requirements;

Cloud based. Not custom designed by one individual. The organization does NOT have an in-house techie (in my mind, this rules out Civic CRM and Drupal but feel free to argue about that). Needs to include pretty complete customer relationship management tool

HERE ARE THE RESULTS SO FAR:

NationBuilder is still in the running but it does not track volunteer hours. Unclear if it has good/flexible reporting for client outcomes. (If we use it, we’d probably use a combination of that with Volgistics) Very good at tracking members/donors

Volgistics is great for volunteers but doesn’t seem to do a good job on the other things (again, feel free to argue with me on that)

PowerBase—(Progressive Technology Project’s implementation of CivicCRM for advocacy) is still in the running but it does not track volunteer hours. Unclear if it has good/flexible reporting for client outcomes. (If we use it, we’d probably use a combination of that with Volgistics)

ClientTrack — appears to be great at client tracking and reporting. Not so good at Donor and volunteer management. Is not a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) database.

Community Bike Shop DB--Good at volunteers and members. No events/class management. No customer relationship management. (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) FreeHub---Good at volunteers and members. No events/class management. No customer relationship management. (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

SalesForce: Very high implementation costs— over $10,000 to do it right. I've talked to organizations that tried to do it on their own with volunteers-- unless the volunteer knows and has worked with SalesForce, there seems to be a high failure rate. Very customizable (hence the high start-up cost). Anyone know a community bike center that is using it?

TheDataBank--So far, most complete option— but ongoing price could be an issue

Still collecting information on these and other options.

ANYONE USING ANY OF THESE: Would like your comments:

PowerBase EveryAction Frontstream Online (was Giftworks) ResultsPlus Little Green Machine theDataBank Salsa CitySoft Community Enterprise .............. Sheldon Mains SPOKES Bike Walk Connect program of Cycles for Change www.SpokesConnect.org www.fb.com/SpokesConnect Minneapolis, MN 612/618-7149 Three ways to donate to SPOKES:

1. Volunteer. 2. Donate repairable used bikes. 3. Financial donations

always welcome. Check www.SpokesConnect.org for details.

---

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i worked at a commercial, for profit business that switched to/grew into SalesForce and made the switch, while i was volunteering/staffing a non-profit bike shop. i don't know if they still offer this, but they used to essentially give away their software for free to registered 501c3 non-profits after a minimum of hoop jumping. (my memory is that it's very easy if you just submit a few forms, but it's been a while.)

i was an almost-admin at the for profit job, and i tried to implement SF into the non-profit shop after having used it and seen it work there. in both instances, my experience told me that you DEFINITELY need someone who knows Salesforce, or who is not intimidated by database coding, or at least will be willing to struggle through figuring it out. and even then, once you do have one person advocating for its use, getting the team to buy into it and begin using it (versus a google spreadsheet, paper form, or whatever they're used to) is difficult at best. it's highly robust and has a ton of features and add ones and different ways to set things up in a way that could be less than perfect for a community bike shop. (for example, you have to assign people to different roles such as client, vendor, sales team member. is a volunteer a customer? a vendor? a sales team member? it's pretty easy to goof that up at the outset if you don't think through all the permutations...)

again, it's been a while, but i know it also allows for email newsletters and such.

i do still feel like it would have been a great solution for us but couldn't get anyone else to buy into it as heavily as i was, so it just kind of faltered.

i do have a copy of Salesforce for Dummies i'd be happy to part with for the cost of shipping if anyone wants it.

josh.

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Randi Park rsolomonpark@gmail.com wrote:

Happy, Joyous and Freewheeling had a demo of EveryAction a while back, but we aren't established enough to either need something this sophisticated, or justify the expense. I was very impressed with the level of integration between modules, the way ride participants could set up their own donation pages, and the way the contacts database will show you the number of FB friends your contacts have. The rep. I dealt with was willing to cut a very reasonable deal for the first year because we are a start-up. I talked to Nathan Moore NMoore@everyaction.com , but I'm not certain he is still there. Worth checking out.

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 2:26 PM, sheldon mains sheldon@spokesconnect.org wrote:

...

More details:

Thanks for all the great responses so far. I’ll provide a few more details about our requirements;

Cloud based. Not custom designed by one individual. The organization does NOT have an in-house techie (in my mind, this rules out Civic CRM and Drupal but feel free to argue about that). Needs to include pretty complete customer relationship management tool

HERE ARE THE RESULTS SO FAR:

NationBuilder is still in the running but it does not track volunteer hours. Unclear if it has good/flexible reporting for client outcomes. (If we use it, we’d probably use a combination of that with Volgistics) Very good at tracking members/donors

Volgistics is great for volunteers but doesn’t seem to do a good job on the other things (again, feel free to argue with me on that)

PowerBase—(Progressive Technology Project’s implementation of CivicCRM for advocacy) is still in the running but it does not track volunteer hours. Unclear if it has good/flexible reporting for client outcomes. (If we use it, we’d probably use a combination of that with Volgistics)

ClientTrack — appears to be great at client tracking and reporting. Not so good at Donor and volunteer management. Is not a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) database.

Community Bike Shop DB--Good at volunteers and members. No events/class management. No customer relationship management. (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) FreeHub---Good at volunteers and members. No events/class management. No customer relationship management. (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

SalesForce: Very high implementation costs— over $10,000 to do it right. I've talked to organizations that tried to do it on their own with volunteers-- unless the volunteer knows and has worked with SalesForce, there seems to be a high failure rate. Very customizable (hence the high start-up cost). Anyone know a community bike center that is using it?

TheDataBank--So far, most complete option— but ongoing price could be an issue

Still collecting information on these and other options.

ANYONE USING ANY OF THESE: Would like your comments:

PowerBase EveryAction Frontstream Online (was Giftworks) ResultsPlus Little Green Machine theDataBank Salsa CitySoft Community Enterprise .............. Sheldon Mains SPOKES Bike Walk Connect program of Cycles for Change www.SpokesConnect.org www.fb.com/SpokesConnect Minneapolis, MN 612/618-7149 Three ways to donate to SPOKES:

1. Volunteer. 2. Donate repairable used bikes. 3. Financial donations

always welcome. Check www.SpokesConnect.org for details.

...

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that's good to hear.

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 4:29 PM, Sue Prant sue@communitycycles.org wrote:

Josh- FYI- We now use Saleforce and have everything run through it. Even though it is free, it costs about $5k to have a consultant set up and we have continued to pay a consultant to tweak. I'm guessing maybe we have spent between $8- $10k on it? And it does require one staff person to be in charge and it is his job to be the SF admin. Maybe that is about 1/4 a FT staff person.

Josh, fortunately we are in a very different situation than that year we almost end up in debt, not so long ago.

So, I think SF works great in that lots of other systems and people are compatible with it, but your organization needs to be fairly robust to take it on. It's free, but far from it.

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 2:21 PM, veganboyjosh@gmail.com wrote:

...

i worked at a commercial, for profit business that switched to/grew into SalesForce and made the switch, while i was volunteering/staffing a non-profit bike shop. i don't know if they still offer this, but they used to essentially give away their software for free to registered 501c3 non-profits after a minimum of hoop jumping. (my memory is that it's very easy if you just submit a few forms, but it's been a while.)

i was an almost-admin at the for profit job, and i tried to implement SF into the non-profit shop after having used it and seen it work there. in both instances, my experience told me that you DEFINITELY need someone who knows Salesforce, or who is not intimidated by database coding, or at least will be willing to struggle through figuring it out. and even then, once you do have one person advocating for its use, getting the team to buy into it and begin using it (versus a google spreadsheet, paper form, or whatever they're used to) is difficult at best. it's highly robust and has a ton of features and add ones and different ways to set things up in a way that could be less than perfect for a community bike shop. (for example, you have to assign people to different roles such as client, vendor, sales team member. is a volunteer a customer? a vendor? a sales team member? it's pretty easy to goof that up at the outset if you don't think through all the permutations...)

again, it's been a while, but i know it also allows for email newsletters and such.

i do still feel like it would have been a great solution for us but couldn't get anyone else to buy into it as heavily as i was, so it just kind of faltered.

i do have a copy of Salesforce for Dummies i'd be happy to part with for the cost of shipping if anyone wants it.

josh.

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Randi Park rsolomonpark@gmail.com wrote:

...

Happy, Joyous and Freewheeling had a demo of EveryAction a while back, but we aren't established enough to either need something this sophisticated, or justify the expense. I was very impressed with the level of integration between modules, the way ride participants could set up their own donation pages, and the way the contacts database will show you the number of FB friends your contacts have. The rep. I dealt with was willing to cut a very reasonable deal for the first year because we are a start-up. I talked to Nathan Moore NMoore@everyaction.com , but I'm not certain he is still there. Worth checking out.

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 2:26 PM, sheldon mains < sheldon@spokesconnect.org> wrote:

...

More details:

Thanks for all the great responses so far. I’ll provide a few more details about our requirements;

Cloud based. Not custom designed by one individual. The organization does NOT have an in-house techie (in my mind, this rules out Civic CRM and Drupal but feel free to argue about that). Needs to include pretty complete customer relationship management tool

HERE ARE THE RESULTS SO FAR:

NationBuilder is still in the running but it does not track volunteer hours. Unclear if it has good/flexible reporting for client outcomes. (If we use it, we’d probably use a combination of that with Volgistics) Very good at tracking members/donors

Volgistics is great for volunteers but doesn’t seem to do a good job on the other things (again, feel free to argue with me on that)

PowerBase—(Progressive Technology Project’s implementation of CivicCRM for advocacy) is still in the running but it does not track volunteer hours. Unclear if it has good/flexible reporting for client outcomes. (If we use it, we’d probably use a combination of that with Volgistics)

ClientTrack — appears to be great at client tracking and reporting. Not so good at Donor and volunteer management. Is not a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) database.

Community Bike Shop DB--Good at volunteers and members. No events/class management. No customer relationship management. (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) FreeHub---Good at volunteers and members. No events/class management. No customer relationship management. (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

SalesForce: Very high implementation costs— over $10,000 to do it right. I've talked to organizations that tried to do it on their own with volunteers-- unless the volunteer knows and has worked with SalesForce, there seems to be a high failure rate. Very customizable (hence the high start-up cost). Anyone know a community bike center that is using it?

TheDataBank--So far, most complete option— but ongoing price could be an issue

Still collecting information on these and other options.

ANYONE USING ANY OF THESE: Would like your comments:

PowerBase EveryAction Frontstream Online (was Giftworks) ResultsPlus Little Green Machine theDataBank Salsa CitySoft Community Enterprise .............. Sheldon Mains SPOKES Bike Walk Connect program of Cycles for Change www.SpokesConnect.org www.fb.com/SpokesConnect Minneapolis, MN 612/618-7149 Three ways to donate to SPOKES:

1. Volunteer. 2. Donate repairable used bikes. 3. Financial donations

always welcome. Check www.SpokesConnect.org for details.

...

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Join the movement! Become a Community Cycles member http://communitycycles.org/get-involved/membership-form.html

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