Organizers' Collaborative

FOR RELEASE
Wednesday, February 15, 2006

CONTACT: Rich Cowan or Cathy Hersh
EMAIL: odb2006 <at> oc-tech.org

Roxbury, MA, February 15, 2006 – At a session held this morning for local nonprofit leaders, Organizers’ Collaborative (OC) took the wraps off of the 1.0 version of its open source database for nonprofits, the Organizers Database (ODB).

Today's event, at the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, was attended by consultants, trainers, and nonprofit leaders working with over 100 community groups in Eastern Massachusetts. The event included training sessions to show participants how the software can be customized in just a half hour to serve the needs of many small-to-medium sized nonprofits. Attendees received CDs of version 1.0.

The event was the culmination of four years of effort by Organizers' Collaborative to create a free software program that can perform the key tasks of expensive, proprietary fundraising software. Prerelease versions of this program have already helped dozens of local nonprofits. Local groups using the prerelease version include:

Oiste: Mass Latino Political Organization - Boston
Mystic Learning Center - Somerville
Chelsea Green Space and Recreation - Chelsea
Boston Asian Youth Essential Service - Boston
Agassiz Village - Lexington
Southwest Boston CDC - Boston
Cape Gay & Straight Youth Alliance - Hyannis
Union of Minority Neighborhoods - Boston
PACE Child Care Works – New Bedford
Central Square Theater - Cambridge

These groups have used ODB to trim the costs of managing members and donors, freeing up valuable resources that they can use to carry out their missions. “It really is a miracle how well it suits our needs! I am a huge fan and tell everyone I know about it," said Eve Lyman of Boston Mobilization.

To demonstrate the flexibility of ODB, participants customized the software for three groups: the Urban League, the Network Training Academy Institute, and the Cambridge Eviction Free Zone.

ODB 1.0 is designed so that a novice computer user can download it, set it up on any Windows computer in under five minutes, and perform major customization without a consultant. By contrast, commercial donor software often requires days of specialized training. The program is designed to help nonprofits easily track membership and donations, print fundraising letters, and categorize their members. The 1.0 version includes 50 special features requested by users of the prerelease version.

ODB is entirely open-source software licensed under the GNU free software license, developed by the Boston-based Free Software Foundation. OC is making the source code available to consultants today at http://organizersdb.sourceforge.net. This allows users and developers to contribute to the continued evolution of the software. End users may also download the installation program for ODB 1.0 (the binaries) at the newly redesigned ODB web site: http://organizersdb.org.

The Urban League event is part of the Organizational Divide Initiative (ODI), a two-year project to bring technology access to inner-city nonprofits in or near Boston. The project is run by the Organizers’ Collaborative, a membership organization dedicated to making technology easier to use for people working for social change. The ODI project is supported primarily by a grant from the Boston Foundation, and has also received funding from Haymarket Peoples Fund.

OC will make another 1.0 Release available in April of 2006 that will ship with additional custom user reports, based on the contributions of reports from the ODB community.