[NCUC Finance] Hosting the NCUC E-Platform

[Brenden Kuerbis]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 10:52 AM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

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> *From:* finance-bounces at lists.ncuc.org [mailto:
> finance-bounces at lists.ncuc.org] *On Behalf Of *William Drake
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> If we're talking about savings $100-$150 a year but that would involve
> much more effort on the part of already busy volunteers, my vote is to
> respect peoples' time and spend the extra bit of money.  Viewed in relation
> to other expenditures in our budget, this doesn't seem unreasonable.
>  Of course, fully document etc.****
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> *[Milton L Mueller] Haven’t seen the proposal yet, but from what I’ve
> heard the “e-team” is talking about BOTH more money AND more time.*
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*As Wilson said, the VSP requires sophisticated programming in the initial
> stages, whereas Ning is an established platform and one simply needs to add
> and manage content to it. This is not to say that a greater investment
> isn’t worth it; another $250/year is not a big deal imho. My main concern
> is being stranded.*
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* We have one historical episode of enthusiastic volunteers creating a web
> site and then losing interest and leaving us to start over again. *
>


That is my concern as well, but I don't think it is a problem if we choose
our platforms wisely.

In a message to the EC, I just conveyed that we should go with the VPS and
suggested the following:

Content management platform [My suggestion: install an instance of Word
Press, point ncuc.org to it, and use this as the public facing website for
NCUC.]

Constituent relationship management platform [My suggestion: install
CiviCRM <http://civicrm.org/go/features> and dump "the member list" (after
cleaning) into it, making it the "official" membership registry going
forward]

Email listserv platform [I believe we've already agreed to install Mailman]

These are all platforms that, once installed, are well known and easy to
manage.  Integrating them will take ironing out our business processes and
a bit a technical know-how, but shouldn't be to onerous given the
skill-sets on the current e-team. And once that is done it's (hopefully)
smooth sailing...


-- B




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