[NGO] [checklist] + a new topic - Membership Base

[Jonah Crawford]

Hi our company provides Plone programming service to a number of NGOs. We've had a lot of success using Virtual Private Servers as this allows us to easily configure a new server for a new client or project in a matter of hours - not days. Presently we're using VPSLink's Ubuntu setup. I noticed they have a number of inexpensive VPS offerings which would more than suit the budget minded NGO. While their data center is in the states I work out of Europe and get excellent speed even as far as Poland and Romania. If you're going to go the VPS route, however, I caution you to stay well clear of Unixshell.com - we've had really *bad* experiences with them which endangered our relationship with an important client. They are not a reliable hosting solution to bet even a tiny part of your company on - fortunately we bounced back pretty quickly. 

Another topic I've been kicking around quite a bit with regards to Plone and NGOs is membership management - we've been using TeamSpace to help one of our clients involve/engage their member base more in their activities. TeamSpace is a really nifty product in that it allows many projects with the same users to be kept distinct from an accounting/oversight perspective. I think it's especially useful for medium to larger organizations and those whose activities require collaboration with outside organizations. 

Last winter we built a referral program for an NGO which is helping them raise more funding from their membership. I'm sure it has come up on this list before that foundations are expecting the organizations they fund to raise more money from their membership base each year. Plone can really show its colors (not just blue and white :) in this department, and from a marketing standpoint this has proved to be a very effective talking point for us.

I would be interesed in hearing what others have done with NGOs regarding membership management, collaboration toolsets and payment systems. Also it would be great to keep business matters - except for the most abstract off list - I think it detracts from the tenor of the conversation here.

Cordially,

Jonah Crawford






On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 10:57:29 +0100, Zahid Malik <z.malik at fry-it.com> wrote:
>On 6/23/06, AHatton at oxfam.org.uk <AHatton at oxfam.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 22:19:21 +0100, Aaron VanDerlip
>>  <aaron at netcorps.org> wrote:
>>
>>  > Zahid Malik wrote:
>>  >>
>>  >> Out of interest what would small-to-medium NGOs class as a reasonable
>>  >> price for Plone hosting services?
>>  > What I have found is that $30 -$50 US per month is what clients in this
>>  > space are willing to pay for shared type hosting.  In addition to Plone
>>  > hosting, clients usually have the expectation of email services being
>>  > included in this price.   This size of org usually does not need the
>>  > resources of a dedicated server.
>>
>>  >Perhaps there is a niche here - NGO-only hosting, that has a few
>>  >pre-configured set-ups (e.g. Plone, Drupal, mail, etc, and backup and
>>  >other admin already set up) for a reasonable price?
>>  >Martin
>>
>>
>>Yes, I think there's potential business model here.
>>In my experience there are many smaller NGO's who would like to start 
>>working with Plone
>>but are put off by the lack of affordable hosting.
>>People like Zettai in the States seem to have done a reasonable job of 
>>packaging
>>  up a Plone hosting solution. But there's no one in the UK as far as I know 
>>doing this kind of thing yet.
>
>This is something that we might be interested in setting-up. We have a
>couple of racks in London (in separate data-centres) and one in
>Prague. We really only do higher-end hosting for our clients but it
>might be worth exploring this niche. If people have more ideas on what
>they would like to have in a package then please let us know.
>
>
>--
>Dr Zahid Malik
>FRY-IT Limited
>503 Enterprise House
>1/2 Hatfields
>London SE1 9PG
>Tel: 0870 760 7634
>Fax: 0709 200 0450
>Web: http://www.fry-it.com
>
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