The irrefutable momentum of open source platforms as the right solution for nonprofits – as well as Fortune 500 companies – continues its exuberant pace. Although the old software model still dominates at most nonprofit organizations — due to the clawing grip of legacy systems, entrenched costs and fear-driven hostage tactics of proprietary vendors, the savviest insiders in the nonprofit marketplace understand this model is dying.
One of the most significant validations of that for me is the decision of Bryan Klann to join the MPower team as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. There is no one I have met in the past six years who better understands the confluence of nonprofits’ unique needs, limited resources and need for best-of-breed software so they can reach more people, raise more money to fund important programs and services, and ultimately fulfill their missions. Bryan is both a visionary and a practical implementer who drives real results for organizations.
While Bryan could choose to work with just about any company in this space, he has chosen MPower. The heart of that decision, Bryan told me, comes from his fundamental belief that open source constituent relationship management (CRM) is the right model for nonprofits both today and tomorrow. This is due to the cost-savings, robust feature set, and freedom that comes from the ability to expand the software’s functionality and adapt to changing situations and needs exponentially faster than any proprietary system.
Empowering nonprofits is something Bryan has been passionate about for well over a decade. In fact, Bryan helped pioneer a partner eco-system for nonprofits with Sage Software that uses service partners to design, deploy, support and extend the software. Unlike the other major players in the nonprofit software space, Sage did not try to lock-in clients with full dependence on the company for all support and services. Rather, Sage empowered nonprofits to choose from a range of partners to serve them. It is one of the reasons Sage has become the leading provider of fund accounting software to charitable groups (and why Sage is one of our valued partners).
So, when someone like Bryan steps away from the old model because he believes that the open source model is not only the best, but really the only, model to serve nonprofit organization’s long-term strategic CRM needs, I can’t help but be a little exuberant myself as well as humbled.
