CMS and Non-Profit woes.

[njdubois]

Hello fellow PHP Freaks!  I need some guidance on an issue I'm dealing with.  I have a Non-Profit Association client, and we have been trying to get setup with a system to manage all the doings for the organization.  The issue really comes down to the end cost of all the services in both time, cost and a combination of the 2.

 

We have a list of the things we would like to do, adding and modifying content from a back end, displaying the content on the front end, and a feature rich process to get data out of the system.  I really like Drupal+civicrm but it would take me a long long time to figure it out all and get it up and running.  I could also do a custom setup, but that would take just as long and I feel silly re-inventing the wheel.

 

There are a lot of services that can setup and provide the type of services that we need, but they see Non-Profit and they assume that there is a bank account with a balance containing a lot of zeros.

 

We are not hot on hiring a free lance type person to handle this as we need results.

 

So... what do I do?  I wish there was a service you could get in contact with that would recommend something, but everyone we talk to is tied to a service and of course they want you to use theirs.

 

Does anyone have experience in setting up this kind of system for a non profit client of your own?  What worked, what didn't?  Who did you absolutely not like?  What did you learn in the process?  How did you find the choice you went with?

 

Thanks in advance!

[QuickOldCar]

I've done work for non-profit organizations...but that doesn't really matter much.

 

I think you have the right idea going with a premade cms like drupal and add any modules you need, possibly minor additional coding.

 

In the past have set up many wordpress ones and the amount of plugins and themes for free usually gets the job done. Simple for them, usually is a read me or tutorials they can learn from their own free time.