Book Image

Using CiviCRM - Second Edition

By : Erik Hommel, Joseph Murray, Brian P Shaughnessy
Book Image

Using CiviCRM - Second Edition

By: Erik Hommel, Joseph Murray, Brian 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 (20 chapters)
Using CiviCRM - Second Edition
Credits
About the Authors
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Working with memberships and daily management tools


As you work with membership records, you will likely want to easily access a snapshot of how your members are trending, search for members by specific type, status, or other criteria, and work with individual contacts and their membership details. CiviCRM provides a host of tools to do these things.

From the main navigation bar, let's do a quick review of the Membership menu:

  • Dashboard: This option provides a summary of current members by type and date range.

  • New Membership: This option lets you create a new membership record quickly.

  • Find Members: This option provides tools for searching through the member records.

  • Membership Reports: This option lists all existing membership report instances created in the system.

  • Batch Data Entry: This option provides tools to enter membership records and their contribution records in bulk. This set of features is detailed in the Accounting batches section in Chapter 8, Fundraising for Your Mission. The only...