Which CRM for an association?

Choosing a CRM is always a difficult question. For an association too!

The non-profit sector is subject to its own constraints. Budgets are often limited, teams are paradoxically very involved but not always very available, and the external community is often very imposing. What's more, the variety of tasks to be accomplished is often staggering. Between fundraising, event organization, community animation and advocacy, the days are packed. More than anywhere else, the challenge of a CRM project is to reclaim time.

Who are the vendors to consider?

There are, of course, the two big players on the market, Microsoft and Salesforce, both of whom offer their powerful machinery at very low prices (almost free). The deployment effort is commensurate with the power of these tools. It should therefore be reserved for large associations, or those planning to develop a digital tool themselves, taking advantage of the rapid development capabilities(RAD) offered by these two major publishers.

Then there are a score of more specialized players(full list). These include: AssoConnect, Concursive, Eudonet, Hivebrite, iRaiser, Ohme, Pep's Up, Uningo and Virtuous. Their functional scope is quite broad (they do a lot). In many cases, they are fairly quick to implement, as their administration options have been simplified to make them easier to learn. Pricing models are quite disparate: per user, per organization, per simultaneous connection, or based on the number of contacts in the database. There's something for everyone.

There are also a few general publishers who offer significant discounts to associations. These include Close, Efficy and OnePageCRM.

Open-source: a good idea?

It's also tempting to consider open-source tools (although we'd be remiss if we didn't take the rather quick shortcut of making them free). In the same vein, this also leads us into the realm of CRMs running on Drupal or Wordpress (a scenario not necessarily devoid of meaning for small associations, where the external community is more important than internal processes). There are a number of interesting possibilities.

CiviCRM is fairly well known, albeit rather crude. If your IT today boils down to your website, this is certainly an option to consider. Odoo is a well-known player on the market, but the publisher doesn't offer anything specific for non-merchants, limiting itself to referring you to its Community version, which is certainly open-source, but also less powerful and less flexible.

Don't lose sight of the fact that you're not alone. By getting mentored on this project, which by definition is both structured and strategic, you'll avoid getting lost along the way, and ensure a certain "momentum".