Today ‘s announcement of MPower’s first user-developed product innovations marks another milestone not only for our company, but more importantly for the nonprofit community. We’re now delivering on the promise of open source CRM for charitable groups in a very tangible way.
The innovations we’re announcing and planning to incorporate into our product include: a comprehensive event management system that integrates with MPower; an application that provides mobile access to donor profiles in MPower; and integration with Enterprise Suite, one of the best solutions for shopping cart and eCommerce functionality (you can read about all of this in greater detail in our Aug. 7 news release).
There’s now a new paradigm for nonprofits based on collaboration, sharing and the best lessons each organization has learned. But it goes one step further because, for the first time ever, organizations are giving their innovations openly to the nonprofit community. Not simply the “how to,” but the actual software applications and integrations that have helped them cut costs, improve efficiency and raise more money. This is the beginning of the most powerful long-term pay-off of the open source CRM model for the nonprofit community.
Because MPower is open source, organizations are free to develop the features and functionality they need without waiting on their vendors’ slow-moving product roadmaps or paying those vendors large customization fees. These innovative groups also submit their product innovations to the entire community of MPower users. We at MPower follow strong product governance guidelines and submit all contributed innovations to a rigorous quality assurance process. We then document the new features and functionality and provide full ongoing support for them as part of the MPower product and code base.
Now you get total freedom to develop your own innovations and/or use and benefit from community innovations that meet your needs, all with full MPower support and at zero additional cost. MPower users get the power of top developers who daily are adding new features and functionality to address real-world problems unique to nonprofits. The result: product quality and velocity unmatched in the history of charitable organizations.
Now that is what I call a “win-win” situation that will allow all of us to be more efficient and effective in making the world a better place for everyone.
