[NGO] what NGOs need in a website [checklist]

[Andrew Burkhalter]

Nate, this is a fantastic starting point as it's a direct connection  
to the places where NGOs are feeling the most intense pains.  Given  
your summary of the corresponding tools it's clear that we've got  
some selection to meet these needs.  Notice that everything comes  
down to content and relationships, which I must say is extremely  
relevant to the business sector in similar ways.

Exploring the Plone4NGOs distribution/service seems interesting.  I  
know there's a precedence for this type of thing in the education  
sector and EduPlone, but I really haven't looked much further to know  
that it exists.

I think the reason this is interesting conceptually to me is that  
sure it builds momentum, but more importantly could lend credibility/ 
provide momentum to more mature/production-proven products.  With 400 
+ products in the Plone Software Center and significantly more in the  
collective and other repositories, the latter is, I believe, going to  
be one of the next emerging challenges in the Plone community.

Note that almost each category has a few options and at least one of  
which is probably in an unfinished state.  Diversity is good, but  
fragmentation should be avoided.

In my 2 years working with Plone, I've never really seen the  
community talk about "endorsing" winners to ensure that a product  
receives the eyeballs it needs for proper testing, documentation, and  
feature-requests.  I know I'd rather contribute to those efforts than  
having to evaluate and track 5+ decent, but not fantastic blogging  
options.

So, my question/thought/comment is this: could the effort put into an  
NGOPlone distribution/service catalyze this type of contribution to  
the Plone community?  Do others agree there is a gap here?

Andrew


On May 31, 2006, at 11:17 AM, Nate Aune wrote:

> in an email from Leda Dederich, she reports the results from her  
> survey about what non-profits are looking for in a CMS...  (see the  
> forwarded msg from Jon Stahl below). see the initiative/survey  
> here: http://www.scoutseven.com/dotorganize
>
> I think if we created a Plone4NGOs distribution/service, it could  
> be hugely popular. below are the things that they are asking for,  
> and some possible solutions from the Ploneiverse.
>
> > The top feature needs identified look something like this:
>
>> Online event calendars/event management and tracking
>
> CalViews, Calendaring
>
>> Email newsletters  (yep, a full 50% of respondents don’t have an  
>> email delivery service that works for them)
>
> HamCannon, PloneNewsletter, PloneGazette
>
>> Volunteer recruitment and management
>
> integration with salesforce.com / SugarCRM
>
>> Mechanisms for feedback from constituents on org goals/priorities
>
> CMFQuestions, PloneSurvey
>
>> Bulletin boards/online forums (this surprised us too)
>
> Ploneboard
>
>> Online donating/donor tracking (again, more than 50% arn’t set up  
>> to accept donations online, even though they’d like to be)
>
> this could be part of the Salesforce.com / SugarCRM integration.
>
>> Mail merge to offline communications /direct mail
>
> salesforce.com and/or SugarCRM can handle this
>
>> Selling products online
>
> PloneMall? CMFPayPalHelper. Spanky is working on a python/Plone  
> wrapper for PayPal's API
>
> > More thematic needs were:
>
>> Integration, integration, integration
>
> Plone needs to do more of this. there are already plugins for  
> Democracy in Action, Whatcounts, and Onenw is working on Salesforce  
> integration.  what about upcoming.org and eventful.com for posting  
> events?
>
>> Setup ease
>
> point-n-click installers are great, but Plone is still tricky to  
> get setup on linux box. a turnkey hosting solution ala Bryght.com  
> would be great.
>
>> Affordability
>
> Plone itself is free, but consultants are probably still more  
> expensive than PHP programmers (Drupal, Joomla)
>
>> Reliability
>
> Has anyone experienced a ZODB corruption?  I think Plone is one of  
> the most reliable systems available. the insistence on unit tests  
> also greatly improves code quality and reliability.
>
>> Training/Support
>
> Joel's PloneBootcamps are a great example of affordable training,  
> but Joel can only do so many of them. I'd like to see more Plone  
> user groups which can assist non-profits at the local level and  
> sharing their resources more readily (slides/videos from  
> presentations), which should be pretty easy to do with a simple RSS  
> feed.
>
> Also, getting Plone.net launched once and for all would probably  
> make NGOs feel more comfortable about choosing Plone and getting  
> adequate support. it's very difficult to find hosting / support /  
> usergroups / consultants via plone.org.
>
> I just got off the phone with the executive director of a non- 
> profit who went with Drupal instead of Plone. I asked her why and  
> she said because there were more non-profits using Drupal so she  
> was more comfortable about finding support. And the hosting costs  
> were considerably cheaper and less complicated than setting up and  
> hosting a Plone solution.  We need these things to change if we  
> want to make Plone an attractive option for NGOs.
>
> Nate