Win a Free Copy of Using CiviCRM

[JoeMurray]

The publication of Using CiviCRM marks a significant step for the CiviCRM project. It's the first commercially published book on CiviCRM, and contains 460 pages packed with best practices and easy-to-use step-by-step recipes for important tasks. Using CiviCRM (https://www.packtpub.com/using-civicrm/book) will help you develop and implement a fully functional, systematic CRM plan for your organization using CiviCRM.

To win your free copy of Using CiviCRM, simply post a reply here indicating what you most excites you about CiviCRM, or the hardest hurdle you've overcome in using CiviCRM. Packt Publishing will send a free copy to a randomly selected person on April 15 and another on April 23. Or if you are concerned about posting your email here, send a message to Likesh Bhambhwani at Packt Publishing (likeshb (at) packtpub (dot) com. He'll be delighted to reply and will be posting information on the winners here.

[JoeMurray]

Note that there was an error in the email originally included for Likesh, that is now corrected.

[fndtn357]

I have been developing with Drupal 6 and now Drupal 7. One of my clients is a larger non-profit looking to replace their donor database. They are presently using  Enterprise through Access International and are considering Andar, but I would like to build their new database in CiviCRM and upgrade their Drupal 6 website to Drupal 7 as well. I think your book might be a reat intro for me to look at how a user will interact with CiviCRM, give me some ideas about weak spots I should code more and the best way to integrate it with their website. I have been a fan of PacktPub for some time now and really learn a lot from the purchases I have made so far.
What excites me most about CiviCRM is the fact that it is an enterprise level open-source solution that plays well with Drupal.                 

[kathc]

I started using CiviCRM about 18 months ago to replace an Access database that we used to manage our postal mailings and then integrated a bunch of lists from PHPlist to do email newsletters, and then to collect email addresses and petition responses for  a campaign site.    Most recently, I've been volunteering with a conference that is now using CiviCRM to manage a trilingual registration process. 

I already bought the book (but would be happy to pass a second copy along to other local people considering using civi to manage the same types of data).

[vwright]

I'm very excited about the possibility of deploying CiviCRM for a non-profit I work for which has a pretty involved membership/donor/volunteer structure, including regional chapters of the organization. I have installed it on my dev site, but haven't started configuring much of the structure. I have already been using CiviCRM for a much simpler organization and I really like how it works, but I've only begun to delve deeper into its capabilities.

[saburkett]

We have three implementations of CiviCRM running on Drupal 6 and continue to feel it is the best solution for organizations.  Our first implementation was for a school district foundation who was on eTapestry.  The first data migration was interesting but not difficult.  The second is for an organization who primarily uses it for event registration and tracks which events people attend.  The third and most resent implementation was for an organization who is using it for members only and sells tickets to events.

As we grow our client base, we plan to become more involved with the CiviCRM community! 

Sheila  Burkett
Spry Digital, LLC

[Slovak]

What I like most about CiviCRM is the modular approach - just like Drupal, we've been able to deploy it in multiple instances for a wide variety of uses. It allows for customizations, yet there is no need to reinvent the wheel with each implementation.

Peter...

[davesage]

I'm just starting out with civicrm having had some professional background with another major corporate CRM solution.

I'm most excited about the potential this application has to improve communication, increase engagement with donors and volunteers for the non-profits I'm involved with. I'm also excited about how things are developing and the potential to customise it.

The largest hurdle I've hit so far is continually trying to work out whether a nice module or patch is available for Joomla or not (e.g. the gift aid patch, ACL etc..) - oh and getting my head round groups v. tags :-)

Great app!

[JoeMurray]

Congratulations go to Sheila Burkett of Spry Digital, LLC, winner of the first copy of Using CiviCRM.

There is still time to post here or email likeshb (at) packtpub (dot) com to win the second copy to be given away.

Sheila, Likesh Bhambhwani from Packt will be in touch with you shortly about delivery. Congratulations on your win, and best wishes for more successful implementations!

Cheers,
Joe

[Laryn]

We are a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits with communications. We help manage a CiviCRM installation for one of our partners and have recommended it to many others. We have a potential project coming for Drupal 7 on which I'm itching to experiment with the latest CiviCRM. Beyond the feature set, we love the fact that it is open source and integrates so well with Drupal! I'd love to look through the book.

Laryn
web -at- cedc.org

[asnik]

I'm found CiviCRM just a few month ago and it is very nice suitable for our non-profit project of building the temple of Vedic culture. We are at the very beginning of using CiviCRM and Drupal, however we are exited with usability and logic of the system. Using of GPL software is the key point for our infrastructure. May be we will implement CiviCRM for many other our activities if we got success in first one. Thank the CiviCRM team for enthusiasm and care!

[noah]

I'm using CiviCRM to track program participation and donors for my small nonprofit youth development organization. I'm excited to be participating in an open-source community whose values are so aligned with ours. It is great to see CiviCRM coming into its own, becoming more and more solid and more useful to organizations like mine.

[ken]

I work for a Christian not-for-profit called the City Bible Forum. We create opportunities for city workers to learn about Jesus: who is he, and what are his claims. For many, this is their first opportunity to do so.

We are not a church, but are more like an advocacy group.

CiviCRM is a good fit for us ...

• A complete solution - the beauty of CiviCRM is that it brings together all our contact information into one place
• A growing solution - the CiviCRM team have an uncanny knack of knowing our pain-points and adding features for which we have an emerging need.

Features we use ...

• Relationships - for us relationships with individuals are key.
• Custom data - we use flags on relationships to measure how that relationship aligns with our strategies
• Events - we organise events for ourselves and run them on behalf of other organisations.
• Mailings - these are essential for communicating with our stakeholders.
• Groups - internally we refer to these as 'lists'. We used the 'word replacement' facility to change our UI. (Internally, we use the word 'group' to mean a bunch of people who regularly meet, and the standard term 'group' was causing confusion.)
• Contact types - it's really handy to be able to create contact types that represent structures in our organisation (eg, a team)
• Contributions - being able to process donations and event fees online is a fantastic time-saver

Features we are "growing into" ...

• Campaigns - we are starting to use these for fund-raising and for getting people involved in our programs. Looking forward to 3.4 and subsequent improvements in this feature.
• Cases - some people, after looking at the evidence, are convinced that they should follow Jesus, and we feel we have a special obligation to help them in that. We feel that Cases offer the possibility of improving the quality of our service in this regard, so we're currently looking at this.

As we are a small outfit, we can't contribute significantly to the financing of CiviCRM's development, so I try to 'give back' by being active in the forums and in testing.

Ken West

[zesgar]

I love using CiviCRM!!!  I use it on almost every clients website. No matter how big or how small. It covers all the bases for a basic website to a complex website.  The hardest hurdle for me has been event registrations and creating custom templates and hooks to accomplish tasks for my clients.  I would love to win a copy of this fantastic book so that I can better serve my customers.  My largest client base is church camps and church websites, perfect for CiviCRM.

[empowerment]

What most excites me about CiviCRM is the access point for low-budget and even no-budget advocacy orgs and non-profits to powerful constituent management and advocacy tools... along with the potential for these groups to collaborate on improving the toolset as they go. There's a dire and growing need for global cooperation, for a bottom-up transformation where we distribute power more equitably, and collaborate on the solutions to unprecedented crises. CiviCRM is one of these solutions.

It's been great seeing the different groups that have participated in the Boston CiviCRM Meetups (our next one is Wednesday April 27: http://www.meetup.com/Boston-CiviCRM-Meetup/events/17134064/!) and the diversity of interests, causes, and experiences represented.