Folks on the core team recently engaged with our partners recently in a spirited conversation about an updated mission statement for the project. We went through several iterations to come up with something broad enough to help with setting direction - but specific enough to be meaningful. We'd love to get your comments and incorporate them into a final version ...
CiviCRM Mission Statement (draft)
The Software
CiviCRM will continue to serve the needs of "third sector" organizations of all sizes (non-profits, government entities, membership associations, advocacy groups … ). Our goal for the next few years is to continue to improve the software and its infrastructure, particularly in the following areas:
1. The software is easy to learn and use.
2. Distributions for various sectors are developed to facilitate adoption and shared innovation.
3. The platform is developer friendly i.e. easy to customize, extend, and contribute back improvements.
4. Technology infrastructure and reliability is improved with every release.
5. The user interface works smoothly across different platforms and devices.
6. Integrators can modify workflows for clients easily.
7. The platform integrates well with the wider world via well-defined and comprehensive APIs.
8. Accurate and up-to-date documentation is available for both end-users and developers.
The Community: Partners, End-users and the Core Team
CiviCRM is moving towards a community built, managed, marketed, financed and supported open source software project. Over the next few years we envision seeing a lot more super active contributors at many of our partner shops. This will enable us to follow a plan similar to "Drupal's battle plans" where different folks from different shops spearhead different initiatives that will be merged into future releases.
We see the CiviCRM core team playing more of a facilitator role for various activities - including release management, coordinating larger development initiatives, code review, infrastructure, community management, marketing, fundraising, documentation, conferences and sprints.
We are excited to see the blossoming of face-to-face and online community spaces including meet ups, regional conferences, webinars, and hangouts. These spaces enable community members to learn, collaborate and innovate together. We will continue to cultivate an engaging, welcoming and fun community where people from many different backgrounds and with a variety of skills can participate and contribute effectively.
The Bottom Line
The project will strive to be transparent and accessible. The software will be distributed under a FLOSS license, AND …. a key measure of success will always be the social good that the project generates.