Global Reproductive Health IT Support list

["Tor De Vries" <TDevries AT engenderhealth.org>]

To add to my colleague's comments... I am currently reviewing CMS systems for 
EngenderHealth, as well.  I strongly suggest that you take a look at your 
strategic communications/marketing plans, content development workflow, 
online fundraising issues and long-term support budgets before choosing a 
CMS.  A CMS focuses on managing *content*; don't confuse that with managing 
*communications*, or even meeting the needs of your audience/visitor. This is 
not just an I.T. decision.

Typo3, Drupal, Plone are all very powerful, with various levels of learning 
and adoption required.  As Bill mentioned, we use Typo3 for some of our 
bilaterals, but the interface has been described as "designed by geeks for 
geeks", so our non-I.T. staff are frequently frustrated by it.

There are much simpler CMS's available that may actually do everything you 
need (Mambo/Joomla comes to mind, which I've used at prior organizations) 
though you may sacrifice some flexibility.  It depends entirely on your 
communication needs.  And there are a huge number of commercial CMS's 
available (Cascade, ADXSTUDIO, e107, Enginuity, etc.) that may provide 
specific features that are lacking or unimpressive in the open source world 
(though you could always develop them yourself and return them to the OSS 
community!).  Finally, there are expensive all-in-one solutions such as 
Convio, Kintera, Blackbaud, GetActive, etc. that blend a CMS with 
fundraising, email management and ecommerce tools, all working together (and 
synchronizing with your offline constituent databases).  (...and by 
"expensive" I mean over $30,000, though that is may be cheaper than 
enterprise solutions from Vignette, Microsoft, etc.)

You may find the following sites useful:

CMS Review -- http://www.cmsreview.com 

CMS Matrix -- http://www.cmsmatrix.org 

Nonprofit Matrix -- http://www.nonprofitmatrix.com 

Open Source CMS -- http://www.opensourcecms.com 

CMS Directory -- http://www.cmsdirectory.com 



Hope this helps.




Regards,
Tor de Vries





--

Tor de Vries, MFA
Web Producer at EngenderHealth

Phone: (212) 561-8538
Email: tdevries AT engenderhealth.org
Web: http://www.engenderhealth.org


>>> wlester AT engenderhealth.org 1/23/2006 10:36:33 AM >>>
Stan,
 
For our bilateral projects, we've been using an open source CMS called TYPO3. 
While it may not be the best CMS out there, it certainly has met our needs. 
Here's an example of a web site set using templates we designed with TYPO3:
 
http://www.aware-rh.org/ 
 
http://www.typo3.com/ 
 
Now, if I were to do this again today, I would strongly consider DRUPAL or 
PLONE A good friend of mine (who's tech recommendations I really respect) at 
ONE/Northwest has become a PLONE guru. He has nothing but good things to say 
about both products. I've attached a thread from the Riders-Tech listserv 
which discusses some of the products.
 
Hope this info helps.
 
Cheers,
 
Bill Lester
 
 
 

--------------------------
 
William A. Lester
CIO/Director of Technology
EngenderHealth
440 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
(Office) 212.561.8002
(e-Mail) walester AT engenderhealth.org 
(URL) www.engenderhealth.org 
"The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."

>>> smierzwa AT popcouncil.org 1/20/2006 10:49:37 AM >>>

Hello.

Hope you are all are doing well.

We are beginning to evaluate content management systems for use on our web 
sites at the Population Council.  We are eager to move to a full DB driven 
model for managing our sites content, and I am querying this list to 
determine if any of you have already undertaken such a project.  If you have, 
would you please share what product and technology you selected to provide 
CMS?  Are you content with the selection?  

Thank you and best regards,

Stan

Stanley J. Mierzwa
Director, Information Technology
Population Council
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
New York, New York  10017
(212)339-0538
http://www.popcouncil.org 

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