Sent from my iPhone
> On 13 Aug 2014, at 12:34, Full Circle Podcast <fullcirclepodcast@???> wrote:
>
> Ok, here's a wide-open question on CRM...
>
> We're a registered charity in the social care space providing training, publications, conferences, workshops; we have members on subscription and sales to Joe Public; we're looking to move up to the next level, doing more in education and with the private care sector.
>
> So yes, we need to manage contacts, invoices, orders, products, events, mailings, prospects, reports and all those good things.
>
> My illustrious predecessor took on a commerical trial of Salesforce and promptly ran away.
>
> One of our Heads of Practice is leaning toward Open Source from cost and licensing concerns and not wanting to go bespoke or re-invent the wheel.
Any software is going to lead to bespoke, you just need to work out which bits do/do not make sence to use off the shelf.
I'd argue you want to start with a mvc based cms (i'm using croogo which sits atop cakephp) this way you can craft/buy bespoke parts, including parts that integrate other services as components or create customised look and feel.
Concrete5 and Drupal etc have similar coventions and have a wide range of off the shelf plugin extensions.
Then for erp functions and training delivery there the likes of tuple and moodle.
there are more than a few other mature topic specific solutions out there, so you can mix and match to get what you need.
but also, dont rule off the shelf services such as those from 37signals. Their client managment tools are good and have developer api's so you can integrate.
by treating each part as a service in isolation and investing in integration. (Its amazing what you can do with ajax, iframes and css;) and you can also farm out the work to avoid vendor lock in.
(i expect if you floated rewards for parts, freelancers on the list would get in touch)
I be happy to call/meetup for a more in depth discussion on strategy and spending a few hours looking into viable open source that match your needs, budget and scale.
>
> And yes, I can run a Google search on Open Source CRM and get back a list of products that may be more or less Open Source and may be more or less 'CRM.'
>
> Anyone want to suggest feasible Open Source CRM that doesn't require a team of developers in-house to maintain it?
no ... the no fuss solution is salesforce!
> Anywhere on the scale of £ less than Salesforce and more than free is an acceptable option.
>
We have a policy of non accountable consulting work is free to charities. If you wanted accountable work we would work out a retainer fee. anything else would be bit size fix price quotes.
> --
> Rgds
> RC
>
> Robin Catling
> Full Circle Podcast
Thanks
Jay Bennie
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