Comment Go with Salsa (Score 1) 186
We a web shop that helps NPOs and advocacy orgs with online action, fundraising and community building. We work with 4 person orgs and massive international groups. We have to set up and manipulate the various non profit SAAS solutions during set-up and campaigns for our clients and have used most of the majors frequently (Salsa, BSD, GetActive, Convio, Kintera, Network for Good, etc.) We've also had a hand in designing the interfaces of a few.
Salsa is the best combo of price, ease of setup and support. There's a decent community to help you do stuff, and because they're a Non-profit themselves, it's affordable. One of the key benefits of Salsa over something open source like CiviCRM is the live person support is included and they're good about helping you fix and just figure out stuff. Also Salsa integrates things like Salesforce, Catalist Data, and Activate-based calling. If you want to just jump in and build relationships and community rather than master a new tech platform, go with an SAAS.
Frankly if you don't have Drupal folks in-house or on are willing to put some on retainer, I'd avoid CiviCRM. Drupal is flexible and robust, but it's interface can be byzantine and I'm saying that as a drupal-based shop. If you don't have the resources to support the more complex aspects of CRM avoid anything custom.
But the best advice I can give you is to first hire a strategy firm or consultant to determine how you plan to use these tools and to set up a lifecycle for your constituents. Too many folks set up these tools blind and without proper context, a long term plan or specific goals. It's like building a house, without blueprints from a decent architect, buying all the tools in the world won't guarantee a decent result.
Full Disclosure: I designed interfaces for parts of Salsa, parts of Act Blue and some of Blue State Digital's tools while there.
Salsa is the best combo of price, ease of setup and support. There's a decent community to help you do stuff, and because they're a Non-profit themselves, it's affordable. One of the key benefits of Salsa over something open source like CiviCRM is the live person support is included and they're good about helping you fix and just figure out stuff. Also Salsa integrates things like Salesforce, Catalist Data, and Activate-based calling. If you want to just jump in and build relationships and community rather than master a new tech platform, go with an SAAS.
Frankly if you don't have Drupal folks in-house or on are willing to put some on retainer, I'd avoid CiviCRM. Drupal is flexible and robust, but it's interface can be byzantine and I'm saying that as a drupal-based shop. If you don't have the resources to support the more complex aspects of CRM avoid anything custom.
But the best advice I can give you is to first hire a strategy firm or consultant to determine how you plan to use these tools and to set up a lifecycle for your constituents. Too many folks set up these tools blind and without proper context, a long term plan or specific goals. It's like building a house, without blueprints from a decent architect, buying all the tools in the world won't guarantee a decent result.
Full Disclosure: I designed interfaces for parts of Salsa, parts of Act Blue and some of Blue State Digital's tools while there.
