{news} Comments welome on this- GP-US Proposal: ID 327 - Creation of an On-Line, Open Source Donor Database with Managed Permissions

Mon Nov 26 08:11:44 EST 2007

Dear Greens,

  Please read this proposal and post any comments to ANY National Committee Person or the FORUM list serve  (NEWS listserve is NOT the place).

  I am leaning toward voting for this.

  Tim McKee
  Nat Com. for CT

  You may join the FORUM list serve at ctgp-forum at ml.greens.org, 

voting at gpus.org wrote:
  Date: 26 Nov 2007 05:05:02 -0000
From: voting at gpus.org
To: natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org
Subject: [usgp-nc] Discussion Has Begun on GP-US Proposal: ID 327 - Creation
of an On-Line, Open Source Donor Database with Managed Permissions

Discussion has begun for the following proposal:

Proposal ID: 327 
Proposal: Creation of an On-Line, Open Source Donor Database with Managed Permissions 
Floor Manager: Jody Grage, jody at gp.org 
Discussion Dates: 11/26/2007 - 12/03/2007 
Voting Dates: 12/04/2007 - 12/10/2007 

Voting ends at Midnight Pacific Time

The GP-US strives for consensus, which involves several steps,
taken in order..

Clarifying questions and responses from the group making the proposal.
Airing of concerns and discussion about how to improve the proposal
by taking into consideration those concersn
Call for consensus on the final proposal.

Background: The Green Party of the United States currently depends on an
in-house Access based databse (db). The db has evolved over the
years to be a great tool for recording donor, candidate,
officeholder information; and for reporting on the progress of
fundraising programs. The drawback to it, however, is that the data
file is not online, and the software used to access the data is not
open source. This limits the number of people who have access to
valuable information. Another drawback is that on-line donations
must be entered twice since there is no seamless way to transfer
payments from online fundraising system (DiA), to our current
database.

Early in 2007, the Steering Committee approved a plan to investigate
what it would take to move our donor database out of Access, and
into an online, secure, open source database with managed permissions.

Immediate Benefits:

a.. Staff and Contractors to access and modify data from a remote
location
b.. Automation of phone turf for Phone Bank Program, will cut down
on time spent sending turf to canvassers and allow for expansion of
program
c.. State Green Parties to access supporter information quickly,
instead of waiting for the national office to send
d.. Automatic data transfer of online contributions from online
fundraising system (DiA) to the donor database, will cut down on
time spent on data entry at national office
e.. GPUS will own the database program, data will reside on our
current server

Long Term Benefits

a.. Since the program will be constructed with Open Source
software (CiviCRM/Drupal), we will be able to build on to it and
modify as needed
b.. Replacement of subscription based online-fundraising system
(DiA) using existing applications available through CiviCRM
c.. We can use existing open source CivicCRM tools to transfer
pages of our websites into a Content Management System

The data would be accessed, via managed permissions, by an
interface, mirroring the current donor database's interface. The
interface will retain the same reporting functions as the current
Access donor database.

This will be a multi-step process. We would eventually like to make
this tool available to state parties, making the contact info for
supporters in their state available. This will make it much easier
for states to have real-time lists of campaign volunteers, etc. It
will also save the national office time generating and sending
reports.

Proposal: GPUS will contract with OpenConcept (www.openconcept.ca), a
progressive company whose client list includes the Green Party of
Canada, to rebuild the donor database.

OpenConcept will:

a.. Set-up a database in CiviCRM/Drupal on our server
b.. Customize CivicCRM to match our custom Access fields
c.. Import Data to CivicCRM to Access
d.. Create an import process for online contributions
e.. Create custom CSV reports to match federal requirements
f.. Set-up managed permissions for the database
g.. Set up other CivicCRM components if time allows
h.. Provide basic training on use of CiviCRM

The cost of the project, to be completed by 1 January 2008, will be
$5,000. OpenConcept will be paid $2,500 upon passage of this
proposal and $2,500 upon completion of the project.

Resources: CONTACT: Jody Grage jody at gp.org 

References: 

Full details are available at:

http://gp.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=327

Please send your comments to natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org.

Thank you and have a wonderful day!
--The GP-US Voting Admin

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***********************************************************************
  Tim McKee
  Manchester CT
  Home-860-643-2282
  Cell-860-778-1304
  Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT.
  BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/

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