Database of the future?

PTP's board - made up of a majority of organizers - has decided that the lack of a decent database solution is hobbling organizations as they attempt to grow. From what we're seeing, a major obstacle to successful mobilizing is the lack of an easy to use database in this sector. While there have been products put together in the nineties, as standalone applications they are no longer meeting the needs of organizing as organizations need to straddle both the offline and online organizing environment. Although the vast majority of the people that community organizing works with are off the 'net, organizers still have a need to move up to a platform that allows them to work in both sectors. This need will increase in the next five years. Finding and developing the application is only a part of the project, though. Without training and technical support, it will fail. Consequently, we are going to put together a comprehensive project plan which will be used in a proposal to seek funding from foundations and major donors.

We've got an interest in the CivicCRM project of SocialSource Foundation because, once it is successfully built, it would make a great platform for this project. We still have some homework to do, but we think it's a good candidate and we're glad that they are investing in this development.