CiviCRM

CiviCRM

Initial release	March 2005; 6 years ago (2005-03)[1]
Stable release	4.0.7[2] / October 19, 2011; 23 days ago (2011-10-19)
Written in	PHP 5.2.1+
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Customer Relationship Management
License	GNU AGPL 3
Website	CiviCRM.org

CiviCRM is a web-based, internationalized suite of computer software for constituency relationship management, that falls under the broad rubric of customer relationship management. It is specifically designed for the needs of non-profit,^[3][4] non-governmental, and advocacy groups, and serves as an association management system. CiviCRM is designed to manage information about an organization's donors, members, event registrants, subscribers, grant application seekers and funders, and case contacts. Volunteers, activists, voters as well as more general sorts of business contacts such as employees, clients, or vendors can be managed using CiviCRM.^[5]

CiviCRM's core tracks contacts, relationships, activities, groups, tags and permissions, while its components keep track of contributors (CiviContribute), events (CiviEvent), member lists (CiviMember), cases (CiviCase), grants (CiviGrant), campaigns (CiviCampaign), petitions (CiviPetition), bulk mailings (CiviMail) and reports (CiviReport).^[5]

CiviCRM is deployed in conjunction with either the Drupal or Joomla! content management systems (CMS), and is supported by many hosting^[6] and professional services^[7] companies. Both the Drupal and Joomla! professional associations use CiviCRM. CiviCRM's license is the GNU AGPL 3.

CiviCRM version 4.x supports new versions of Drupal (7.x) and Joomla (1.6.x), while CiviCRM 3.4 supports older versions of Drupal (6.x) and Joomla (1.5.x).^[2] There are a wide and growing number of integration modules with these CMSes to leverage their strengths. A large number of tokens are available for inclusion in html or plaintext emails, or for producing pdf files for printing. Data integration formats supported include RSS, JSON, XML, and CSV. Supported programming interfaces include REST, server PHP and client javascript APIs, and Drupal style hooks.

Two books are available on the software.^[8][9] Extensive admin, developer and user documentation is available on the project site.^[10] There are also active forums^[11] and an IRC channel.^[12]

CiviCRM is used by many large NGOs including Amnesty International,^[13][14] Creative Commons,^[15] the Free Software Foundation,^[16] and the Wikimedia Foundation^[17] for their fundraising. There are also cases of very large record sets being used with one company claiming to have set up CiviCRM with a set of over 3 million constituents.^[18] CiviCRM is also used by Kabissa to provide CRM capabilities to over 1,500 organizations, mostly in Africa.^[19]

CiviCRM downloads are available from SourceForge, where it was "project of the month" for January, 2011.^[1]

See also

• AtollonLagoonCRM
• SugarCRM
• epesiBIM
• SplendidCRM
• Comparison of CRM systems
• List of applications with iCalendar support

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} "Project of the Month, January 2011: CiviCRM". Sourceforge.net. http://sourceforge.net/blog/potm-201101/. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Announcing 3.4.7 and 4.0.7!!!". Civicrm.org. 2011-10-19. http://civicrm.org/blogs/yashodha/announcing-347-and-407. Retrieved 2011-11-06. 
3. ^ "An assessment of CiviCRM for non-profits". Opensourceexperiments.wordpress.com. https://opensourceexperiments.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/an-assessment-of-civicrm-for-non-profits/. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
4. ^ "CiviCRM, Free CRM for Nonprofits". Tmcnet.com. http://www.tmcnet.com/news/2006/04/12/1565802.htm. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
5. ^ ^{a b} About CiviCRM, official site, accessed July 22, 2010.
6. ^ Gregory Heller says: (2009-02-12). "Hosting provider information". Wiki.civicrm.org. http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Hosting+provider+information. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
7. ^ "CiviCRM professional service providers". Civicrm.org. http://civicrm.org/professional. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
8. ^ "Using CiviCRM from Packt Publishing". Packtpub.com. https://www.packtpub.com/using-civicrm/book. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
9. ^ "Understanding CiviCRM from". FLOSS Manuals. http://www.flossmanuals.net/civicrm/. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
10. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}
11. ^ "CiviCRM Forums - Index". Forum.civicrm.org. http://forum.civicrm.org/. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
12. ^ "Participate". http://civicrm.org/participate. Retrieved 2011-11-06. 
13. ^ "Amnesty International's Project Impact". Civicactions.com. http://civicactions.com/projects/amnesty_internationals_project_impact. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
14. ^ "CiviCRM Amnesty International Case Study". Wiki.civicrm.org. 2010-10-25. http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC32/Amnesty+International. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
15. ^ Yergler, Nathan (2010-04-22). "Transcript of Creative Commons CTO talk on using CiviCRM". Yergler.net. http://yergler.net/blog/2010/04/22/civicon-plenary-what-are-we-paying-for/. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
16. ^ "Free Software Foundation: Time for nonprofits to leave proprietary fundraising software systems behind". Fsf.org. http://www.fsf.org/news/nonprofit-fundraising-civicrm. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
17. ^ Wikimedia & FourKitchens support CiviCRM development Wikimedia blog, June 10th, 2009
18. ^ "CiviCRM Solutions". Trellon.com. http://www.trellon.com/services/crm_solutions. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 
19. ^ Ekine, Sokari (2008-03-27). "PBS MediaShift: Africa's Social Media Conundrum". Pbs.org. http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/03/africas-social-media-conundrum087.html. Retrieved 2011-06-13. 

Further reading

• Various authors: CiviCRM manual. Free book (GPL) by FLOSS Manuals (1st ed. May 2009, 2nd ed. May 2010, 3rd ed. March 2011). Covers CiviCRM's core functionality for contacts (individuals, households, and organizations), relationships, and activities, as well as its four main modules: CiviContribute, CiviEvent, CiviMail, and CiviMember.
• Joseph Murray and Brian Shaughnessy: Using CiviCRM. Packt Publishing. Develop and implement a fully functional, systematic CRM plan for your organization Using CiviCRM.

External links

• Official CiviCRM site