CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I've read about half of the big book, but to be honest a lot of it is very intimidating.  For example, I don't know yet what kinds of contacts I will need, types of relationships, groups, whether to use groups or tags or profiles for certain uses etc.  Since I'm the only one working on this (and a volunteer at that), I'm wondering how feasible it is to set up just a few features at first and then add more stuff as we get familiar with CiviCRM. 

Absolutely the usual way. you can even start with disabling the components you don't need (eg. if you don't handle payments yet, disable the contribute component) and enable them later.

From the docs it sounds like if I have improper contact types and groups from the beginning, things can get all messed up.  Is that true?

Well, it's obviously better to do it right from the start, but you can always change things later. Some modifications (eg. replacing one tag by one group) is a few clicks, some (eg. if you choose the wrong type for a custom field) are more time consuming to fix on a lot of contacts.

We are still not able to predict 100% the future and an organisation using civi will evolve in a way we didn't plan and won't fit nicely anymore in the group/contact types/tags... so far, we have always been able to alter civi configuration to handle the changes in the organisation, but might take some manual cleaning indeed.

Some features we are hoping to get from CiviCRM (in order of importance) are:
 - Membership list management
 - Board of Director mailing list, meeting agendas and minutes
 - Events calendar with signup for volunteers
 - Document hosting for policies, manuals and other stuff
 - Tracking volunteer time contributions

By mailing list, you mean you (or a volunteer) sends an email to the board, not that everyone on the board can send an email to board@example.org and everyone receives it, right?

The document hosting might be better to handle directly in WP.

We have a few technical restrictions, first we already have a website implemented with WordPress.  Does that mean that users/members will not be able to have their own accounts to log in to our site?  How can we get volunteers to sign up for events in such a case?  Also we are unable to process any online payments, I looked at CiviMember and the lack of a payment processor made things awkward.  Is it best to avoid CiviMember if we can't do this?  Is there a way to set up CiviMember without any money-related stuff at all?

you can install civi on your main WP site, so it will be the same accounts.
Normally if they are logged in and go to the event registration, their data (email, name...) will be automatically pre-filled on the registration form. That's how it works in drupal, it should work the same on WP.

You can always have the "pay later" option, so the membership payment is handled by cheque, or whatever you use currently.

If your membership is free and doesn't have a specific duration, might be better to use a simple group "members" instead of CiviMember.

Thanks for any advice, I do hope to be able to use this software.  As I mentioned, it is a bit intimidating at first.

It's a fairly complete, and therefore complex one indeed. Check out the events in your region, either a free meetup or a training would be helpful for you to attend and hopefully seeing how others use it and have the opportunity to ask face to face will help you.

Good luck

I will add my 2 pennies here. I agree with both xavier and lobo. In principle, you can start using core CiviCRM and learn as you go along. Be prepared though to accept that you have to retrace your steps a number of times, we have all done that. As lobo states getting professional CiviCRM help will certainly speed up that process and avoid a number of times of doing it all over again....depends on the funding.
Your requirements do not sound like a major problem. I would do the documents stuff in your CMS, as xavier recommends.

Thanks for the advice.  I have contacted a local person who listed CiviCRM in their portfolio about cost.  Our organization does have some funding, but we have a strong DIY culture, so we might try to do as much as possible ourselves.  I will be wary of the "big bang" and suggest at first only implementing a list of contacts with the right contact types and relationships, with simple groups for current members and committees.  If this works, then we will try adding Civi events for our regular events.

I tried looking for local CiviCRM events, but I only found older postings for developper-level meetings, not user-level.  We're in Vancouver Canada, but I guess we would be willing to go to Seattle, again I could not find any contemporary events.  Maybe I am looking in the wrong place?