ProSpeak: A Layman’s Guide to Understanding Today’s CRM Solutions for Nonprofits

Open CRM starts with full-featured platforms and applications, and allows you to adopt the functionality, interface, flow and processes for your organization’s unique needs.

The bottom line when you cut through all the noise is that there are three levels of openness for nonprofit CRM software:

1. The Mail Slot
The narrowest form of openness, this is analogous to the small, covered slat in a front door. Some don’t consider it “open” at all. A software company creates a portal to allow very specific types of data from a very specific source to pass into your system. Usually, you pay the vendor to build and install this functionality, or it’s the result of a partnership between vendors to produce integrations or connectors. An example is integrating a CRM system and an accounting package so transaction data passes directly into the system for reconciliation and compliance.