What does it mean to work with a CiviCRM Partner? A short introduction into the world of Partnership’s and CiviCRM.
To Partner or not to Partner that is the Question…
Partnership has many meanings, be it a work partnership or a romantic partnership, family partnerships or business partnerships. But one Question that keeps reoccurring on our Ambassador Calls, and new client meetings is, “what does it actually mean to work with a CiviCRM Partner?”
If you are looking at this from the perspective of someone wanting to work with CiviCRM, use it for your charity, non profits, small business, you already may have some understanding of using open source software as using something which is free. However, it’s as free as a kitten someone once said, the kitten needs feeding and looking after and that’s the role of the Partner with your CiviCRM.
The great thing about a Partner is they can take any kind of scenario and make CiviCRM work for you, a tailoring service which requires skill and experience. (That’s your vet with the kitten)
You might be starting from scratch, you might already have a CRM but not using it efficiently and need advice, you might want to change your system completely. You might need a tailored system which possibly only existed in your head and is currently using many excel sheets to show for, and you need to get rid of it all to be simplified.
Most Partners will need an initial meeting, with preferable pre-questionnaire to fill out, this will give them an understanding of the requirements of your system, what you currently use it for and what you are looking to do, this will also help them start to think about pricing.
It might be you already know what you want in your organisation and are asking for a Partner to tender for the work.
With either option there will be the following stages:
Discovery Stage: This is really important and gives the Partner time to effectively assess what your organisational needs, and if you already have a system in place, to see what on your current system is working, or not for you.
Depending on the size of your system, discovery stages can take anything from a week to a month to determine what’s best. You cannot skip this stage. It’s really important and will determine how the system will be built, and developed. It will also help to be able to give a more accurate estimate for the build process.
Implementation: Depending on the size of your organisation, this should be broken down into stages/phases. This could include getting your CiviCRM up and running, which could take only a couple of hours. It may also include importing data you may already have, finding out your training needs for your organisation so that everyone uses your system efficiently.
It may also include the building of forms, be it complex or simple, a members portal setting up and setting up rules to allow more automation for memberships. You may also have some really specific needs, such as Whatsapp integration for your members’ events. Many of the Partners have been involved in contributing to building extensions and maintaining extensions you wish to use, so you are turning to the experts to implement what they have made effectively, a real positive of open source.
Hosting/Maintaining and Support: This is the caring of the kitten, the hosting means, all your data is kept safe, secure and updated as there are security releases (2-4 times a year). It also includes monitoring of the site in case it goes offline, and managing bulk emails. Your hosting cost depends on the demand you’re making on the server.
As time goes on you might decide you have new needs, the kitten turns into a cat and has a litter of kittens. This is also something your Partner can help you with and the journey of your CiviCRM develops with this.
The great thing about partnerships in any form, they can change and if you are not with the right partner, or your needs change you can change Partners too, just take your data with you.
Below are the different criteria of Partners:
- By Country, which helps understand your language and culture (how you do business).
- By Developer – This can be useful if you have a system that needs development work and has scope for new projects.
- By Spark – you might use CiviCRM Spark instance, and just need support with this system in doing your imports and getting all your forms in place.
- By CiviAcademy – you might see this feature as something useful for inhouse training or ongoing learning. Some Partners offer this for free as part of using their services.
- By Partner type (the size of a Partner will determine if they can support your needs) you might have a small Munchkin kitten or a large Maine Coon cat.
The Breakdown of sizes of Partners:
CiviCRM agencies are the largest service providers usually have several developers and implementors in the team. Bringing together a diverse skill set to deliver a full spectrum of CiviCRM related services for larger organisations. They have the capacity and structure to support the most complex, large scale projects.
CiviCRM implementors are typically mid-sized organisations with broad expertise. They are well suited to managing both smaller implementations and complex projects simultaneously. Implementors can also scale their capacity efficiently by collaborating with other partners, making them flexible and adaptable to evolving project needs.
CiviCRM professionals are smaller providers with specialised skills and focused service offerings. They deliver highly personalised support and are ideal for organisations with clearly defined needs and smaller projects.
They are all CiviCRM Experts!
For example: you might have a small project/charity and want to use Whatsapp integration for your events as you see this as something essential. You might search for a partner who is a implementor and active developer to help get that essential integration working for you.
All in all, to grow your kitten and take care of it, it’s pretty amazing that there’s many different partnerships out there that can support you with your CiviCRM needs and help your organisation grow.
