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What is CiviCRM?

CiviCRM is a web-based constituent relationship management (CRM) system built by and for nonprofit organizations and NGOs. It helps organizations record and manage information about the people and organizations they interact with. More than an address book, it brings donations, events, memberships, activities, cases, campaigns, mailings, and other interactions into a single system that integrates with open source content management systems (CMS).

CiviCRM focuses on the needs of nonprofits, NGOs, and civic sector organizations, supporting communications, community engagement, activism, outreach, and donor management.

As of 2019, over 11,000 non-profits use CiviCRM. CiviCRM currently manages over 303,000,000 contacts, 265,000,000 donations, and 42,000,000 event registrations.

CiviCRM is Free/Open Source software. There are no license costs or user fees for downloading, installing, or using it. You can view and modify its source code and distribute copies of the original source to any person or organization.

Because CiviCRM is web-based, many users can access it at the same time from different locations. It was developed with the international community in mind and supports translations and multi-language options.

Thinking of CiviCRM as an address book

One way to understand a CRM is to imagine a personal address book with more capabilities. Each time you call someone, it could record the call and a brief description of the conversation. It could decide whether to ask that person for a particular favor based on whether they did it for you a week ago, then schedule a follow-up meeting. Later, you could ask, “What were my interactions with Ji Lao?” or “How many people helped me this month?” and see the history.

Now imagine organizing a dinner party for everyone you met during the previous year. You could write an invitation and have your address book email it. It could handle guests’ RSVPs, record who is vegetarian, and tell you two nights before the event how many people to expect.

Organizations need this kind of help even more. Meetings, phone calls, and other contact can be hard to remember over time. Knowing more about the people and organizations you interact with helps you target messages to groups interested in particular topics, observe their reactions, and adjust future interactions.

What CiviCRM can do

CiviCRM is modular. In the simplest set-up, you can:

  • Record basic contact information, such as name, home or postal address, email address, and phone number.
  • Define relationships between your contacts.
  • Send emails.
  • Keep a record of your interactions with your contacts.

Components and extensions let you do more, such as sign up members for your organization, take event registrations, receive donations, or distribute grants. See the Components and Extensions chapters for more information.

Working with a website

CiviCRM works with a content management system (CMS), a tool for creating and managing websites. Most websites these days are based on a CMS.

CiviCRM integrates with Backdrop, Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. Through this integration, website visitors can renew their membership, sign up for events, request email updates, and donate money. You can also share parts of your CRM data, such as event information, with website visitors. Read more in the Website Integration section.