Make an ONLINE VOLUNTEER community

[chuckienorton]

I would love if this software can be used for an ONLINE VOLUNTEER ORGANIZATION where people can register as a volunteer, click which project they want to sign up for, then be in comunication with everyone w/in that project by email/bb/forum/other. There might be project managers (??).  The entire organization will be online.

The online organization I'm creating (called F.I.G.H.T.) is to to help fight against sexcrimes, prostitution, etc. (at www.fightprostitution.com) and it will be an volunteer based organization where projects are listed, and volunteers can sign up for a project (maybe be approved??) then be part of a group that only has limited rights to talk with each other about that project. Ex: would be writing an article (for news blogs) about how craigslist's "erotic services" section is used primarily for prostituion (which is probable), and members of the project would take roles in research, writing, and marketing the article.

What does anyone think about using CiviCRM to implement this?? 

Thanks,
Chuck

[Donald Lobo]

You can do a lot of the above using Drupal Organic Groups.You can use CiviCRM to collect and manage data on contacts in this setup

Check groups.drupal.org for an example and also more information

lobo

[geilhufe]

We've implemented a few of these "type" of sites with CivicSpace On Demand:
http://www.climatechallenge.org/
http://www.goodthingsrunwild.org/

That is also how people use our Groundswell service. A volunteer can go to the CivicSpace website, fill out a webform and get integrated online fundraising, email marketing, online community and a supporter database in about 5 minutes.

Configuring the initial default does take a little investment in terms of learning and time (or you hire a consultant).

All CivicSpace solutions are based on easier-to-use pre-configurations of Drupal and CiviCRM. We are active contributors to the open source communities on which we build our service.

[chuckienorton]

We've implemented a few of these "type" of sites with CivicSpace On Demand:
http://www.climatechallenge.org/
http://www.goodthingsrunwild.org/

Thats Awesome!! Both of these sites are VERY similar to what I'm doing. 

I'm curious, however, as to what options "group owners" will have as to creating forums, blogs, and events specifically for their group. Basically, is everything available to drupal's normal installation available using the civiCRM &/or civiSPACE?

-Chuck

[geilhufe]

If you use the Drupal organic groups approach, then each organic group has an identical functionality set (same forums, blogs, events functionality--- the actual posts forum posts, blog post, events are just for the organic group you specify and could be shared across multiple groups).

Something like CivicSpace on Demand (which gives you a full Drupal install for every site) will allow each site to determine what functionality they will use.

You can build sites like these by downloading and configuring Drupal/CiviCRM yourself or you can hire any number of consultants in the community to do it for you.