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

The big picture and other tools


Membership management rarely occurs in a vacuum. It's most likely that your members will also be your authenticated (logged-in) website users, a primary target for event registrations, and recipients of most of your communication via snail mail, e-mail, or other means.

Let's consider some ways your membership may impact other areas of CiviCRM and review some third-party extensions that may be used with your site and members.

Common functions in CiviCRM

It's not uncommon for member-based organizations to have a "members-only" section in their website. This secure access area will require a Joomla!, Drupal, or WordPress user login account. If you have created a contribution page for membership sign-up, you can include a profile that has the user account creation option enabled. As contacts complete the membership application form, they will be able to create their user account to access the site.

As you work with your members, it's likely that you are primarily...