CiviCRM misconceptions: “It’s easy”

When you first try out a live CiviCRM demo, it's looks pretty nice.

Everything is set up for a hypothetical organization with hypothetical needs, and it all runs quite smoothly.

This leads to CiviCRM misconception #4: "It's easy."

Sure, CiviCRM makes a lot of things much easier than they might have been, and you can get a lot done with it.

But expecting it to be “easy” is probably a mistake.

As with anything, you'll need to do a good bit of work to shape it to your needs.

• Set up compatible hosting.

• Set up outbound email services and payment processes.

• Tweak the configuration to sit your needs for memberships, events, contributions, and more.

• Import existing data from other systems

• Development a training plan for you and your team

• Implement a permissions scheme that gives staff only the access they really need

• ... and more.

In short, you'll have to make CiviCRM work for your real-world needs, not just the hypothetical needs of a hypothetical demo organization.

And, as always, you'll have to make hard choices about which goals you'll pursue — and which ones you won't — and how your CRM can support this goals.

But of course, that's always true, whether you're using CiviCRM or not.

All the best,
A.