Plone Costs for Non-Profits (Was Re: [Plone-NGOs] Initial thoughts on a "Plone for Nonprofits" bundle)

[George Lee]

Kai Harris <kai.harris at ...> writes:

> I imagine that my experience is similar to many nonprofits.  We are
> developing in-house and are learning Plone as we go.  Composite
> page-building products should be designed for people like us.  Plone
> developers can build their own custom pages templates without using
> composite products, but I can't and most nonprofits can't unless they
> hire a Plone developer!

I'd like to ask a question of the Plone community which I've gotten some hints 
of. For a small non-profit, budget $100,000-$200,000, is Plone really 
appropriate or sustainable? We're not talking Oxfam (I'm assuming) or the 
government here.

One of the Plone gurus, maybe limi, mentioned Plone catering to the "higher end 
of the mid-level range" of the market. I love Plone and the power it gives; I'm 
also always worried about donating a lot of time to developing Plone products 
for non-profits without really knowing if it'll be sustainable after I'm gone. 
Is the usual practice to hire an outside developer to help with new 
development, maintain simple behind-the-scenes things (backups, dealing with 
server crashes, etc.), etc.? How much realistically should a nonprofit commit 
to say long-term maintenance of a site, if it doesn't care about too much new 
development? How much if it does?

It seems people often don't want to or can't give hard numbers because of the 
varying use cases and requirements, but even a sense of the minimums and 
typical costs would be really helpful. If you want to e-mail me off-list, 
that's fine too although I'd expect this information to be helpful broadly.

Especially after reading in the "Open Source Myths" that "Open Source is 
cheaper" is a partial myth ... I want to really understand these financial 
realities!

Peace,
George