Hey everyone! I'm Max, and I'm excited to share that I've started working at a charity called Spinal Cord Injury Alberta. A little about me: I got injured four years ago which left me a quadriplegic with limited hand function. I'm pretty tech-savvy, though!
Currently, the charity's data is scattered across various platforms, making it really difficult to manage. We have files on a drive, a clunky CRM, and use Teams and OneDrive—it's a total mess. After discussing it with the board, we decided to get proposals for a new website and CRM. One proposal suggests creating a site with Drupal and CiviCRM, but the price tag is $110,000 CAD, which seems steep to me.
I feel like this is a project I could potentially tackle, but I'm looking for advice on what I need to consider or any alternatives before I dive in. The website would include contact pages, blogs, events, and classifieds. I've already set up a quick site with WordPress and CiviCRM, but I'm unsure about what I might be missing. Thanks for any insights!
4 Answers
Just a heads up, tackling a medical record CRM can be tricky for someone who's just starting out. You might want to team up with someone who has experience in that area to avoid any legal issues later on.
Are you planning to overhaul the entire site? If so, doing a thorough content audit would be a smart move. Consider using something like Airtable or Google Sheets to organize everything. Don't forget about permissions and payment systems for donations, as those can get complicated. Non-CMS pages might create challenges too, so keep that in mind!
I’d rather not redo everything. I think keeping the current website and integrating CiviCRM would be best. I agree about the audit, though; collecting info has been a struggle so far.
As a Drupal developer, I can assure you that using Drupal with CiviCRM is a solid choice for your needs. The $110k might not be unreasonable depending on the features included, especially if there are health privacy laws you need to adhere to. Focus on ensuring you understand all legal and business requirements first, then choose your platform based on that.
The big concern here is the legal side of things. You could be dealing with personal medical info, which comes with strict regulations. I'd recommend figuring out what your site absolutely needs to cover legally. Then, when speaking with contractors, see how they plan to handle these requirements. It's crucial to have some liability coverage in any contract if you decide to hire someone.
Yeah, I’ve had that in mind too! Thanks for the advice. 🙂