Contact manager: I'd love some advice

IMHO going with a service like Salesforce or basing your implementation on an existing CMS makes a heck of a lot more sense than coding a bespoke app from scratch. Too many wheels require reinventing when you're writing the whole app from scratch. There's also lifecycle maintenance, documentation and training to consider.

@pcave: SF; really? I just contacted them — and it's true, 10 donated licenses. That's fantastic, thanks for the referral! I'm digging deeper on that front now.

@alan: thanks, I always prefer to stand on the shoulders of giants. I was limiting my search to existing solutions.

I would also love to hear raves or horror stories on CiviCRM or SugarCRM, too.

Thanks!

I'm a big fan of CiviCRM!!! I've been learning Drupal with the idea of providing multi-site hosting of CiviCRM for local nonprofits.

My learning curve problem has been learning Drupal. There are now good materials online for learning CiviCRM. I'd start by skimming through http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm to get an idea of what CiviCRM will do -- "The Book" reads well. Then take a look at the forum -- http://forum.civicrm.org/ -- for example, Pre-installation Questions. The support for CiviCRM is excellent. Responses to questions are quick, complete, helpful, and polite. Check out http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Case+Studies -- where folks have described how they are using CiviCRM. After you've installed it and before you start configuring it, skim through http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Administrator%27s+Guide to get an idea of how you'll want to approach developing the site as an administrator. http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Using+CiviCRM provides instructions for the staff who will be using it. The documentation has improved tremendously since I first started looking at it. They now have documentation online for different versions of the software.

With regard to other CRMs, look at http://nten.org/blog/2007/12/11/2007-crm-satisfaction-survey
If you're an NTEN member, you can download it free. If not, send me email and I'll forward to you my copy.
"CiviCRM was the most commonly used by small organizations."
"Which of the following CRM Products would you be willing to
recommend to others?" -- CiviCRM was highest -- 91.3%

I have an NCTech4Good friend who is a BIG fan of Salesforce. I'm sure she'd be glad to talk with you. See her offer to help folks with Salesforce at http://nccommunities.org/node/119 Trish gave a great presentation at an NCTech4Good meetup last year.

I organize an affinity group meeting for CiviCRm each year at the NTEN conference. We get a good crowd. Last year the room overflowed into the hall. One person came up to me at the conference and said she'd been to our meeting and was going to use CiviCRM -- I think because of the ability to add on features. A lot of the improvements to the software come from users -- sometimes they write code and contribute it, sometimes they fund development.

I have CiviCRM 3.0 running on http://test.nccommunities.org with the sample data that comes with CiviCRM and some suggestions for exploring CiviCRM at http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Exploring+Sample+Data -- I have NOT checked it out since the upgrade but plan to do so very soon. I'd also be willing to give you admin access on the test site.

So now I should say... I'm not using it for a real organization yet. And I should also say that multi-site hosting is not as easy as I thought it would be. BUT I think I'll be using CiviEvent for a conference coming up in June, CiviMember experimentally for RTPnet's members, and custom data for NCTech4Good attendees. Internationalist Books & Community Center in Chapel Hill is using CiviCRM -- see http://www.internationalistbooks.org/index.php?q=civicrm/contribute/tran...

Finally, I've been thinking about starting a local CiviCRM meetup group, but I can't commit to monthly meetings for it. If there's interest, I'd be glad to start a group.

I meant to reply sooner...

There's a standalone version of CiviCRM now, so you don't have to install Drupal just to run CiviCRM. One advantage of using it would be to allow the site to grow to use Drupal later.

http://en.flossmanuals.net/CiviCRM/AdditionalConsiderations says:

Standalone vs CMS

If you are not interested in or ready to consider using a CMS then you might choose to use CiviCRM's Standalone mode. The trade-off here is you won't be able to take advantage of all the CMS's great integrated online features. Alternatively you might install CiviCRM as part of a CMS but not explore the CMS's features until later.

Some examples of organizations using CiviCRM in standalone mode include those that:

* have a CMS other than Drupal and Joomla. These organizations have to create a very customized system that integrates with CiviCRM.
* just need CiviCRM for one specific thing like basic contact or event management and don't need website integration.
* don't intend to use a CMS but want to start using CiviCRM anyway.