If you've been hanging around computers for very long, you probably remember "Goldmine" and "ACT" and their many imitators which were called "Contact Management" applications. Their purpose was to computerize and streamline the many tasks a salesperson must do to build his business. As one of those products said as a slogan, "Business is a contact sport". Salesforce.com is the "web 2.0" version of this idea, brought on-line.

Forgetting for a moment that the same type of guy who loses paper notes, forgets appointments, neglects follow-up, etc. is the same guy who never enters the data for his contacts in the management software, the apps work pretty well.

We've been doing a good bit of work for organizations over the course of the past year. It has been fascinating to observe the groups we've been working with, and others we are wooing.

Most organizations couldn't exist at all without two things: Volunteers and Donors. Quite often the leadership of organizations must spend incredible amounts of time trying to keep the two important constituencies happy. And since job 1 of any organization is its mission, that primary reason for existence, that means that building and maintaining relationships with donors and volunteers is done "after hours"... LOTS of after hours.

We keep a couple of "Sandbox" Joomla sites on our development server, and have been playing with CiviCRM on a couple of them. CiviCRM is software for an organization to automate the "Constituent Service" activities of an organization.

Thus far, every time I pitch a prospect on this software, they're interested, and say they truly need it, but it is always "Phase 3" of the web development, meaning we never get around to it.

I think that's a terrible tragedy. So I'm making a standing offer here: If you are a principle in an organization whose mission is to make a difference in the human condition, anywhere on earth, I will build and host a website for you at my expense - PRO BONO - provided you will diligently work with me in installing and learning to use CiviCRM to benefit your organization.

I think it's a win/win. You'll get a great website gratis, and a great new tool to fuel your group, and I will get a real world client to talk about to other prospects. Oh, I guess you'll have to agree ahead of time to permit the use of your case study to be used that way, but I don't see that as a real hardship. Use the inquiry form here at the site.