Friday, December 1, 2006
Reinvention of the wheel again...
One of my irritations in life is when dollars dedicated to social change get invested invested in duplicative technical infrastructure.
So I've been looking at DonorsChoose, Kiva and GlobalGiving. From a software perspective, I pretty much can't tell the difference between them. Authenticated user creates project, visitors contribute money to project, project contains some rich information about the project, there is some accountability structure and reporting.
Why did they have to build three incompatible software systems? Why not standardize on single open source platform? That way each organization's investment in the open source foundation benefits all users. Over time the cost of innovating and maintaining the software per organization falls drastically. [I'm not naive... there are lots of good reasons, but still.]
Better question... where is the "micro-project" data standard so small fundraising opportunities (a school in need of a whiteboard, a village in need of a goat) can be syndicated quickly and easily across the Internet?
Lets build our technology with the same eye toward social change we use when developing our projects.
Labels: civicspace, drupal, fundraising, globalgiving, kiva, microsites 4 comments
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Online communities with fundraising microsites
From the CivicSpace Blog.
We think anyone should be able to create a Kiva or Global Giving style site for their social change project without having to pay for rebuilding the same basic technology over and over. Ultimately, we want to allow anyone to launch a Kiva or Global Giving style site for a low monthly fee with open source software (Drupal/CiviCRM).The benefits of open source is that you can focus on the mission and share the costs of the technology, building a community of folks supporting social change.
Labels: civicrm, civicspace, drupal, fundraising, globalgiving, kiva, microsites 0 comments
Thursday, November 16, 2006
There you go
Have you ever wondered why everyone - grandmas, kids, CEOs - can figure out how to use Amazon, eBay, Google but the otherwise-intelligent staff of nonprofit organizations often need extensive support from the companies or associations that provide them with grants management, CRM, web-conferencing and other software?
That says it all. We're working on it!
Sunday, November 5, 2006
CiviCRM Team Start Outlining Architecture
CiviCRM is an incredible open source framework for constituent relationship management. But as a user it takes some learning to understand the basic structure of groups, relationships, activities and contacts.
As a developer it gets even more complex. Luckily the team has started to blog about the architecture of CiviCRM. Check it out.
Sunday, October 1, 2006
Customers want it all... why not?
The guys over at DIA uncovered a quote I missed from the DotOrganize survey:
Users tend to expect technology vendors to provide around the clock support and intensive customization at below market value.On one hand, I love this quote because there seems to be a complete disregard for the cost and complexity of technology in the civic sector. The market value of a high level of service is pretty expensive.
But more importantly, it unscores the fact that our current technology delivery models are ill suited to deliver super-low-cost technology to the grassroots. Sure, if every group would let me sell internet ads and cell phone service to their constituencies, I could provide them with great service for free. Probably wouldn't get many customers though since groups' constituencies would probably object.
At CivicSpace we recognize there are three big levers in a service provider's financial model. First is the cost of customer support. If I give customers a 24-hour 1-800 number, I have to charge customers a lot of money. Conclusion: time for a new model of customer support.
Second is the cost of customer acquisition. If I send a sales guy yout to the customers, I have to charge the customer a lot of money. Conclusion: time for a new customer acquisition model.
Finally, if I have to spend a bunch of money on programmers and acquisitions to deliver the functionality customers need, I have to charge the customer a lot of money. Time for a new R&D model.
Providing technology services to the grassroots as a business is a lot like providing cell phone service to consumers... consumers will ask for far more than you can afford to deliver and your competitors will be driving down margins like there is no tomorrow.
But by rethinking the model, challenging the assumptions, and changing the way we achieve our mission, we think CivicSpace has a model that can use all the major financial levers to deliver around the clock support and intensive customization to the grassroots at a market rate far below what the current providers can achieve. Stay tuned.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Scale
George Hotelling won the Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest.
I am fascinated by the selection. On one hand I completely agree with it... CitizenSpeak provides a key function for the grassroots. It makes a difference on the ground and was put together with incredibly few resources. It is a triumph of a small group with no resources creating a high-impact solution. They will use the prize money to do something fantastic.
On the other hand, it exemplifies the complete disregard in the sector for basic infrastructure. CiviCRM is building the water pipes and sewer system, CivicSpace is building the electricity and public transportation, and Citizen Speak is the nice little house on the corner that has electric lights, is public transit accessible, and has running water and a toilet.
It also highlights the importance of ecology. CitizenSpeak can store the CRM information in CiviCRM. People can install the CitizenSpeak module in Drupal or the CivicSpace download. CivicSpace On Demand can offer CitizenSpeak functionality in our hosted service. This is the power of open source and more importantly, the community behind open source.
Congratulations George and Jo. Well earned and well deserved.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
CSOD Beta
Kinda cool. CivicSpace On Demand went to beta last week. Nice to see groups using it and partnering with us improve it.
CivicSpace On Demand offers an integrated, simple-to-use solution for running a group's website, collecting money (donations & memberships), sending sophistocated emails/ e-newsletters, and maintaining a constitutent relationship management system. It is entirely web-based, avaliable in minutes and accessed through your web browser. Based on Drupal 4.7 and CiviCRM 1.5, we look forward to continuing to contribute back to those open source communities.
Ask around, maybe you can get access to the beta :)
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
CiviCRM Up for a Prize
CiviCRM (more specifically, Lobo) has been nominated for the Antonio Pizzigati Prize for software in the public interest. Reading the wonderful testimonials from the CiviCRM community, I realize that CiviCRM is equal parts great people, great ideas and great software.
One of the keys of evaluating open source is evaluating the community. I think CiviCRM has been able to build a community worthy of the civic sector... real support, a friendly face, and a committment to 'customers' and incusiveness.
If you use CiviCRM, please offer a post about why.
Some neat quotes:
" Always polite, always helpful (Lobo) is the main reason many of us can even deal with a project with the ambitions of CiviCRM."
"We had skilled tech volunteers but couldn't afford a "turnkey", and extensive research in 2004 into both commercial and "free" CRM solutions showed that there was a dearth of affordable, flexible and easy to use web-based CRMs for small NPOs like ourselves. When CiviCRM came along, it was clear that it would meet our needs and talk to our values."
And my favorite:
"At first I had trouble envisioning a sucessful implementation of open source. This perception changed as I became more involved, but they drastically changed when I started working with CIVICRM. There is a clear gap between CIVICRMand the remainder. Not only is CIVICRM a robust piece of software, it was clearly built by a team that is privy to the needs of the organizations it serves. This is not an uninformed effort; CIVICRM is as close to a custom solution that I could ever hope to get, even if I paid a team of developers to work only for me. It is one of the most well thought out pieces of software I have ever used."
technorati tags:nptech, drupal, net2, civicrm, civicspace
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Hacking for Good
The sucess of an open source ecology is based on a bunch of things. One of those things is raw innovation. 100 programmers in a room building "stuff" is a fountain of innovation.
CivicSpace exists to harness that innovation and make sure the largest possible audience of civic organizations can access it. So naturally we are involved with Silona's grand plan.
We need nonprofits to participate so the coders don't go creating things *they* think would be cool. We need experienced Drupal/CiviCRM coders so that hackers move the ball forward rather than building code we can't utilize in the community. Visit the wiki and participate!
*The League of Technical Voters is sponsoring a programmer lock in!*
*What:* We are going to lock in 100 programmers for 48 hours developing Open Source Software for non-profit organizations.
*When:* October 13-15th 2006
*Where:* Austin Texas at Ventana Del Sol
*Why:* To make the world a better place, have a great time, andlook cool doing it. To top it off, Austin Texas is great in October!
*How:* http://lotv-lockin.pbwiki.com/ Sign up, catch up, and pipe up! Password is: transparency
*The Madness*
We are going to have 5-15 minute events happening every 3-4 hoursto keep all the programmers motivated. Everything from surprise gueststo various styles of performers (like firespinning at 2 am.) We willkeep everyone fed all 48 hrs (not just pizza) and hydrated (not justcoke). However, we aren't promising showers or beds. This event isonly for the most hardcore programmers out there, 'cause this is gonnabe intense.
-------------------------------
FAQ
-------------------------------
- How the hell is this gonna work?
We are using Drupal and php. We'll have a list of modules andfeature sets that people will grab and run off to develop. We willalso have a few optional speakers and tutorials on getting started inDrupal if you are new to the environment.
- Why Drupal, you may ask?
Mainly because of the supportive community, modularity and featurerich pre-existing code base. We have a large set of features that wewill have to implement or fix in a short amount of time. If you wannaprogram in something else... lets talk about version 2.0. When theLOTV site reaches the amount of traffic that will break version 1.0, weshould have the resources to build the next one.
- Why php?
'Cause we are using Drupal... duh...
- Nothing will work and you guys suck.
So who pissed in your wheaties this morning? We don't honestlythink that at the end of 48 hours everyone's code will miraculouslywork. We just want to get this organization kick started and createsome useful tools for other Non Profits... and maybe raise a littleawareness about Open Source Software and Non Profits. No other groupsout there understand more about collaboration than Non Profits. Socome on out and save the world for 48hrs! It may make you less grumpy.
- Who is this League of Technical Voters?
Our primary goal is to involve more technical people in thepolitical process, especially in relation to the use of technology bygovernment. We plan on doing this through tying together blogging,social networking and community management tools. We aim to rule theworld and make the world rule! Join us!
http://www.leagueoftechvoters.org
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Can the grassroot be in control?
The relationship between Web 2.0 Social Web property owners and Web2.0 Social Web user contributors, in fact, is inherently symbiotic.While each side needs the other, however, the relationship is not oneof equals; Social Web contributors are dependent upon the“free” infrastructure graciously offered by Web 2.0properties.
Part of the CivicSpace value proposition is that CivicSpace pushes the control of the infrastructure of the social web further out to the edges.
CivicSpace On Demand will provide an instant website, online community, central CRM database, online donations and email newsletters. Rather than rely on News Corp (MySpace), you can actually operate your own social web. We want to give the grassroots some control over the social web and empower them to use it for social change purposes.
The holy grail of this line of thought is identity owned by the user-- software like Flock and various identity efforts are pushing toward this. Until then, we are happy to provide a little more disruption in the system by trying to push power and control out to the edges of the network.
Can the grassroot be in control?
The relationship between Web 2.0 Social Web property owners and Web2.0 Social Web user contributors, in fact, is inherently symbiotic.While each side needs the other, however, the relationship is not oneof equals; Social Web contributors are dependent upon the“free” infrastructure graciously offered by Web 2.0properties.
Part of the CivicSpace value proposition is that CivicSpace pushes the control of the infrastructure of the social web further out to the edges.
CivicSpace On Demand will provide an instant website, online community, central CRM database, online donations and email newsletters. Rather than rely on News Corp (MySpace), you can actually operate your own social web. We want to give the grassroots some control over the social web and empower them to use it for social change purposes.
The holy grail of this line of thought is identity owned by the user-- software like Flock and various identity efforts are pushing toward this. Until then, we are happy to provide a little more disruption in the system by trying to push power and control out to the edges of the network.
Monday, July 3, 2006
Computers and previous thingamabobs...
This quote from Wendell Berry keeps re-surfacing in my life:
Computers make people even better and smarter than they were made by previous thingamabobs. Or if some people prove incorrigibly wicked or stupid or both, computers will at least speed them up.
When we think of tools like CivicSpace... platforms for social change, we need to remember that they are neutral... social change for good, social change for bad. People often ask if CivicSpace is going to take a position on what is good or bad. As a business, I think that Google's "Do no evil" motto is a nice thought, but making money is almost by definition an amoral activity. So I doubt CivicSpace will take a position on what is good or bad.
What we will do is build a community around what we think is good. That requires partners, friends and supporters in an ecology based both in values and in economic exchange. Sitting down with venture investors and others, it amazes me how many people don't get our CivicSpace Associate model.
We're building a community of stakeholders. Sure, there is an economic component... as much as I am a Utopian at heart, I'm going to get my people health insurance. That community is what tips the scales and makes sure the technology powering social change is in the hands of folks doing what the community thinks is good. And hopefully their energy and commitment will allow those doing good with the technology to far outstrip others.
I would love to see an investor look at the associate model as a way to reach more customers rather than "limit" the market. A way to do more good, rather than "limit" revenue opportunities. A way to build a stronger ecology, rather than a weaken the defensibility of the business.
I'm a business person that understands the power of networks and community and how a small slice of a huge pie can be far better than a "defensible" market position. This is either naivety or sitting on the edge of a significant disruptive innovation. Time will tell.
Saturday, July 1, 2006
CiviCRM 1.5 Skypecast July 06, 12:00 PST
Learn about features coming in v1.5. Ask questions, and sharefeedback, ideas, tips for using CiviCRM with other users, developersand folks from the CiviCRM core development team. (CiviCRM is the firstopen source and freely downloadable constituent relationship managementsolution. CiviCRM is web-based, internationalized, and designedspecifically to meet the needs of advocacy, non-profit andnon-governmental groups.)
technorati tags:civicrm, civicspace
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
A challenge!
I love it when Holly Ross from NTEN takes me to task for being boring and rehashing the same old conversation. :)
How will the Open Source movement respond to Open API's? Is this a major victory for the sector? Or the wrong kind of victory taking the wind out of the Open Source sails? That's the kind of "State of Open Source Software" I want to hear about.
Respond to Open APIs? Open APIs are a last dieing breath of proprietary software's effort to remain relevant. Without open source, there wouldn't be open APIs, there would be systems integrators charging you 20ドルk to integrate your CRM and your financials.
So I agree that the open source sector can take credit for the victory that is open APIs, mash-ups and the continual reduction in the monetary value of software functionality.
But it is clear there is enough room in the "marketplace" for lots of types of innovations... open source and open APIs. The bottom line is a point that Holly makes in her post... if it isn't easy to use, it will not be used.
No matter how cool the API is.
Friday, May 5, 2006
First Monday Talks about PeopleFinder
So First Monday has a reasonably good article on the Katrina PeopleFinder Project. Interestingly enough, the authors never contacted me, so I should offer a few clarifications.
Networks
This they got spot on... go read Ethan Zukerman's quote. It all gets started from the personal network and rapidly expands to other people's personal networks. I got to Ethan through Jon Lebkowsky, from there we got to the LiveJournal community.
This is an extremely powerful model for network-driven action.
Infrastructure
Everyone should have the technology tools to create massive social change at their fingertips. That is what we are doing with CivicSpace On Demand. If you are interested in using our services or investing in the CivicSpace company, please drop me an email.
The Red Cross
The Red Cross simply was not equipped at that time to deal with the type of technology we were creating or with some random group of people off the Internet. This is changing with a new CTO that is bringing some folks in to support a culture shift around technology. I hope they succeed.
But at the time, there was little in the way of a "relationship" with the Red Cross. I don't think I ever had a direct conversation with anyone at the Red Cross, those communications went on elsewhere in the network. The issue of sharing data was never in question... that is why we build the PeopleFinder Interchange Format (PFIF).
The issue was that Red Cross and their vendor Microsoft tried to create "the single authoritative source" for evacuee information -- katrinasafe. We were in this for people, not technology, so if Red Cross/ Microsoft would have been able to launch a solution and clearly communicate their intentions, we would have helped more people more quickly.
The issues that I saw the community discuss revolved around two things:
- The Red Cross and Microsoft made pronouncements, but never delivered at the pace the PeopleFinder project was delivering. Why stop helping people today, in the hopes of helping them "better" next week?
- The approach the Red Cross was backing was a closed approach that simply funneled data into a single katrinasafe site and did not release any data back out again to people that had innovative solutions to make the situation better. This fundamental philosophical difference is playing out in our society today through issues like SaveTheInternet and Creative Commons content licenses. This was the fundamental conflict. But we were all in it help people find their loved ones... the philisophical questions could be sorted out latter.
Corporate Participation
I think the conclusion that corporate participation or resources are required in an effort of this scale is just plain false. Salesforce.com Foundation was an incredibly valuable partner that was critical to the success of the project.
But the fact we relied on their hardware and software resources actually slowed the PeopleFinder project down by days. Open source software and communities mean that no one has to get permission, people can just dive in an solve the problem. We had perhaps 50 programmers volunteering for us, and solving problems, but only a couple people on the Salesforce side. We had offers of server clusters and all kinds of technical resources.
One problem we faced is we had collected about 500,000 records we needed to get into the katrinalist database, but the technology could only upload a small (something like a thousand) number of records at a time. By the time we were aware of the problem, a high school student in the Midwest released software that fed data into the system in small chunks.
It is this innovation, this mass action, that corporations and a corporate resources are not equipped to understand, interact with or leverage.
I realize now that early in the process I had been culturally-conditioned into believing that big companies and institutions were the only ones with the resources to do really big things. Now I realize that the network scales almost infinitely-- corporations and institutions have limited capacity.
Thursday, May 4, 2006
Mapping Community Data
CivicSpace has some amazing capabilities. A group can take virtually any data and create multiple views like lists and maps. Work with crime statistics, data about local schools, abandoned houses, whatever data you need to create social change.
Zack demonstrates community data mapping in Drupal 4.7 (the CivicSpace upgrade to 4.7 is coming). http://www.zacker.org/screencast-drupal-mashup-machine
A community can manage data easily and put it into reports, maps and other formats at the touch of a few buttons. All with free and open source technology. Pretty powerful stuff.
Heck, there is even some development code that allows you to use CiviCRM as a data source rather than a csv file.
Monday, May 1, 2006
Drupal 4.7 Released
Drupal is the underlying content management system that powers CivicSpace. Combined with CiviCRM, we have a powerful platform for running the online presense of the nonprofit and the behind-the-scenes constituent database.
Drupal 4.7 was built by 388 contributors. We easily have that many techies in the nonprofit sector willing to contribute their talents if they knew the groups they cared about plus thousands of others would benefit. Hopefully they find CivicSpace (Drupal + CiviCRM) a good platform to contribute to.
Read more about Drupal 4.7.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
CivicSpace, here I come...
So I have joined the guys at CivicSpace full time as a Managing Partner after leaving the Beaumont Foundation. I'm responsible for strategy and business operations in the organization.
This is particularly exciting because CivicSpace is poised to make a big leap from good open source idea to compelling, paradigm shifting sea-change. How are we going to do this you ask?
We are going to build a sustainable economy around CivicSpace. In talking with folks, it has increasingly become clear that "the business is the community" and the "community is the business." Folks need health insurance. It takes money to change the world.
And, surprisingly, CivicSpace has seen very little investment relative to its impact (the same is true of CiviCRM). Not sure if all those visionary individual donors and foundations are asleep at the wheel and can't see the thousands (yes, thousands) of nonprofits adopting the technology because it meets real, concrete needs to improve efficiency and expand impact. Alternatively, we aren't communicating the story well or in a compelling way (something about being focused on the needs of thousands of individual groups, perhaps?).
In either case, we'll draw some attention to ourselves and see if we can multiply our impact by 10 (for those following at home, that would be tens of thousands of groups engaging in more effective social change). If any of those investors read this blog, please do send me an email (dgeilhufeATyahooDOTcom).
Back to the business model. We think that there is a big and sustainable business in launching a hosted version of CivicSpace. In fact, we have quietly launched an initial trial of CivicSpace on Demand. But the business is the community and the community is the business.
So we also think we have a model for how the innovation in our business can be harnessed to benefit the larger civic sector. Rather than be a traditional ASP peddling our wares directly to nonprofits, we are looking for CivicSpace Associates. These are folks that deploy CivicSpace On Demand for "customers" (nonprofits, civic groups, political organizations, whatever). Associates could be a business that serves a hundred nonprofit sector clients or just a college student that builds a grassroots community website every couple of months as a volunteer project.
These Associates, as they invest their time and energy into CivicSpace On Demand to create a better experience for end users, end up creating a better CivicSpace open source download [remember we are a social enterprise so we can give away our proprietary advantage for free if it helps the community; our financial ROI stops far short of Porsches-- closer to health insurance for employees].
Our innovation? Create a direct financial incentive to improve the open source software. Since Associates re-sell CivicSpace On Demand to customers with a mark-up for the value added services they offer (set-up, configuration, training, support, etc.), they have an incentive to make sure that CivicSpace On Demand is a great product. Since a lot of Associates are already comfortable with open source communities, they will participate in CivicSpace On Demand the same way they participate in other open source communities since the CivicSpace On Demand code will always be available as the free and open source CivicSpace download.
But the community is the business and the business is the community. So I'm getting ahead of myself and will go back to our initial associates and ask them what the business looks like. They have the final say because they are the ones that know how best to create an economy around CivicSpace On Demand.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Open Source Infrastructure
Chris posits that all infrastructure needs to be "open source" becuase of Doc Serl's point that "You make money becuase of (open source), not with (open source).
It always shocks me how little history gets applied to thoughts like this. The Tennessee Valley Authority (rural electricication), Hoover Dam, the interstate highway system all were infrastructure investments where people made money BECAUSE of them, not WITH them.
The drive for privatization of infrastructure is becuase people don't like the concept of paying a gas tax to maintain the highway system... government isn't as efficient as the private sector, they say. Listen to the World Bank and they will tell you the water provision in the developing world should be privatized since governments have largely failed at providing cheap clean water.
I like Chris's vision of a water system with Digital Rights Management (DRM), you can use the water to drink at one price, but you need to pay extra to wash your clothes.
The point here is about trade offs. Governments are inefficient in one way (pork highway projects for example). The private sector is inefficient in another way (maybe poor people couldn't use the highways if the private sector built them, casue there isn't much money to be made from poor folks).
Open Source, however, overlays a concept of self-organization that both conservatives and liberals should be really excited about. First, those with a need can self organize... if we need a road to be maintained, the folks with the need figure out how to do it (peering aragements between ISPs, the evolution of Apache as the core infrastructure of the web). The big bad government doesn't even really have to be in the mix.
The liberals can embrace open source becuase it is non-exclusive. Poor folks face no finnacial barrier to participating... to making money BECAUSE of the infrastructure.
But corporate control of infrastructure means that in the interests of profits, we need both heavy government involvement (copyright laws, DRM legistations, courts to enforce the stuff) AND exclusivity... you only get to use the infrastructure if you pay the profit maximizing rate.
If I thought for a moment that your average elected official could even understand the arguement I just made or if I thought that corporate officers could look past their own greed long enough to be a citizen, then I would think we are on the brink of a new world defined by opportunity for all (making money/progress/art/ideas/etc BECAUSE of (open source) infrastructure). But I am a little more cynical than that and see the all to likely outcome to be a few corporations making money WITH proprietary infrastructure.
Technorati Tags: open source, infrastructure
Friday, March 17, 2006
The emerging ecosystem
Last night CivicSpace announced a hosted ASP service. For those of you that pay attention to my sometimes borderline rants :) , the ability of nonprofits to access a high-quality affordable ASP is one of the most important factors in creating a sustainable ecosystem around CiviCRM and other open source tools for social change. Nonprofits need a no-brainer and affordable way to access these tools.
Please consider being a brave soul and help them as an alpha tester.
The service will be similiar to Drupal hosting offered by Bryght but will provide the CivicSpace 0.8.3 Drupal distribution. In the future we hope to launch the ASP publicly as a low cost service for the non-profit & advocacy sector, but for now we are looking for a few brave CivicSpace community members to help us test it. Please fill out the form if you are interested in participating and we will be in contact with you shortly.You can sign up as an alpha tester here:
http://civicspacelabs.org/home/asp-alpha-test