[software] NPO software: where we need to go

[Dave Rolsky]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Josh Berkus wrote:

> From looking at Civi, Rapport, Donor.com, and OA, I see that there are
> currently multiple mature options for handling the "Front side" part of
> donor management.
>
> However, what apparently currently doesn't exist is the financials, 
> particularly financials which would accomodate complex arrangements like 
> fund accounting.

Isn't accounting better handled by accounting software. My animal rights 
organization uses Gnucash for our accounting, which works well. This does 
mean that donations ultimately get recorded in two places, but in 
different ways, since we don't track individual donations in Gnucash, just 
Rapport (the original).

I can see reporting on donations by fund being useful, certainly, but 
ultimately I'd look to my accounting software for the state of each 
program's funding.

Of course, AFAIK Gnucash does not have fund accounting features built in, 
but if you're going to focus on building those features, that seems like 
the right place to do it.

For me, my primary interest in a donor management system is intelligence 
about donors which can be used to improve fundraising efforts. I also want 
a system which can track volunteers, but that's pretty much a subset of 
donor management.


-dave

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