Last weekend at WordCamp NYC 2012, I gave a talk on the new CiviCRM plugin for WordPress. I received a lot of great feedback from those who were present on Saturday, but to my surprise a post describing what CiviCRM is appeared on the WPMU site on Monday, and my presentation was included in another of their posts highlighting 12 fantastic presentations from WordCamp NYC this year. It’s exciting to see this response from the WordPress community! Thank you!
The goal of my presentation was to highlight the plugin and give a brief introduction to CiviCRM in the WordPress dashboard and all the features it adds to your website. WordPress provides a simple way to publish content. The CiviCRM plugin integrates the Content Management System (CMS) of WordPress with the Constituent Resource Manager (CRM) functions of CiviCRM, a combination that makes your website a powerful tool for engaging and communicating with your audience. The features include:
- Contact management
- Contributions
- Communications
- Peer-To-Peer Fundraisers
- Advocacy Campaigns
- Events
- Members
- Reports
- Case Management
Using the CiviCRM plugin provides a way to keep visitors on your website. Plus, it’s hosted on your own servers so you own your data.
In 2011, CiviCRM plugin for WordPress was released in beta; it was released officially in January 2012. Both software projects are mature, fully open-source web applications.
Since it’s open source there are no licensing fees, and it can be customized for your organization’s specific needs. The only fees are associated with hosting, consulting & support. There are also no user or contact limitations, so you can create as many profile forms as you require and all the data is recorded in your contact profile so you can get a snapshot of all activity with ease.
See full presentation:
My hope is to see both of these tools used more widely in nonprofits. I’d also like to see more development within the WordPress community to improve the and usability of both tools. What do you hope to see in the development of these applications? Feel free to share your thoughts!