SWOT Analysis
Per Birgit Pauli-Haack
Hi everyone,
I am sorry, I won't make it to the Governance Summit. I really had hoped to meet everyone face-to-face. Some of you already met me around NTC and NTEN and It would have been lovely to talk to you again.
Here is my list of Barriers of Growth of CiviCRM. It's in two parts, one is the changed technology landscape in nonprofits the second is the community building capacity of the CiviCRM universe.
The belong in the W and the T side of the SWOT analysis.
Possible Barriers to Growth of CiviCRM
- Changed Landscape in Nonprofits (T)
- Tech Adoption Level of whole organization
- Leadership issues in organizations
- Avoid complexity of implementation / one department at a time
- Collaboration skills among department heads and staff /
- Other systems already in place, hard to migrate and change routines.
- Non-Technical people do what they know
- Volunteer Run Activities - Volunteer Leader selects Technology
- Fundraiser/Marketing driving decisions + Additional services / Data look-up / Ask Reecommendations
- Fragmented nonprofit Technology Stack -No IT Strategy
- SaaS is "easier to buy” then self-hosted software
- CiviCRM in the Community of NPTech (W)
- Recommendation from Community Foundations, Consultants, Development Consultants. (Visibility in Community - Herd Mentality - Community Building)
- Although it’s the CMS with the strongest community and the only platform with a growth rate over the last 10 years, WordPress is still treated like the distant cousin in the CiviCRM universe.
- Community outreach and collaboration with other communities is an after-thought.
- Visibility at Netsquared / NTEN local / Online Communities / NTC / WordCamps
These may sound as strong opinions especially when reading them a little out of context. So approach them with an open-mind and a swirl at the meeting.
As a side note: I'd be willing to put myself on a team working on a few community building strategies and tactics, if such a team would surface. I am also aware that community building is not a Core Team function, but an all volunteer endeavor. it does needs tthe buy-in, the support and the collaboration of the Core Team, in terms of access to members, partners, etc. and website.