Book Image

Using CiviCRM - Second Edition

By : Hommel, Murray, P Shaughnessy
Book Image

Using CiviCRM - Second Edition

By: Hommel, Murray, P Shaughnessy

Overview of this book

CiviCRM provides a powerful toolbox of resources to help organizations manage relationships with constituents. It is free, open source, web-based, and geared specifically to meet the constituent relationship management needs of the not-for-profit sector. Beginning with broader questions about how your organization is structured, which existing workflows are critical to your operations, and the overarching purpose of a centralized CRM, the book proceeds step by step through configuring CiviCRM, understanding the choices when setting up the system, importing data, and exploring the breadth of tools available throughout the system. You will see how to best use this software to handle event registrations, accept and track contributions, manage paid and free memberships and subscriptions, segment contacts, send bulk e-mails with open and click-through tracking, manage outreach campaigns, and set up case management workflows that match your organization’s roles and rules. With specific emphasis on helping implementers ask the right questions, consider key principals when setting up the system, and understand usage through case studies and examples, the book comprehensively reviews the functionality of CiviCRM and the opportunities it provides. With this book, you can help your organization better achieve its mission as a charity, industry association, professional society, political advocacy group, community group, government agency, or other similar organization and position yourself to become a power user who efficiently and effectively navigates the system.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
15
Index

Functional requirements

In this section, we're going to delve more deeply into the functional areas supported by CiviCRM. We'll be reviewing the kinds of questions to ask, often of a more technical nature that will help in planning your implementation. These topics and questions, in our view, are the top-level broad-stroke issues that should be sorted out before specific workflow matters are examined.

Contact record management

CiviCRM has three basic types of contacts: individuals, households, and organizations. The fields and kinds of relationships that can be created may vary by the type of contact. For example, individuals have first and last names, current employer and job title, while organizations have an organization name, a legal name, and employees. CiviCRM's rich model for storing address, phone, and e-mail information is shared by all three types of contacts.

Contact subtypes

In some cases, it is possible to identify unique constituent subtypes. Contact subtypes in...