MPower Systems, which sells software for constituent relationship management (CRM) and fundraising for nonprofits, has announced that the company is moving to an open source software model, making its product available to all nonprofits without license fees.

 

Additionally, users will have access to MPower's source code so they can develop features and functionality to meet their organizations' individual requirements. It's available at www.mpoweropen.com.

In conjunction with the MPower Open announcement, the firm also is changing its name to MPower (dropping "Systems") and introducing a new graphic identity.

Karen Jacobs, Vice President of Finance at Precept International, an MPower client, called the move "as important a development for nonprofits as the Internet, which has become a critical tool for cultivating constituent relationships and driving fundraising."

Hundreds of nonprofits already use MPower's fully-developed, full-feature software to manage such tasks as donation processing, fulfillment, event and volunteer management, call center and mail processing activity tracking, and major donor relations.

 

Although based on a relatively young model of about ten years, open source products and companies are "clearly emerging as leaders in all areas of technology," MPower officials say, from operating systems (Red Hat Linux) to databases (MySQL) to Web servers (Apache) to business CRM (SugarCRM (News - Alert)).

 

Speaking of SugarCRM, in January Intelestream announced the release of SugarMaps, a plug-in integrating the Sugar Suite line of CRM applications with Google (News - Alert) Maps technology. It provides a module where maps and place marks are displayed according to user-determined criteria.

 

"This is unlike anything that has been developed for the Sugar Suite," states Jason Green, founder and CEO of Intelestream. There have been mapping functions available with Sugar for a long time, Green says, but this app has "the ability to draw maps from reporting results and geographical radiuses."

 

In other words, a user can generate a custom report displaying all prospective accounts in the hospitality industry employing 100-500 people within a 25 mile geographical radius of, say, Indianapolis. The module will display the results with each account indicated by a place mark whose color and/or size vary according to preselected criteria. Driving directions can next be printed using each account as a waypoint.

 

"I am unaware of any other technology capable of doing these sorts of things with Sugar," Green says.