I am trying to add some simple reporting functions to an existing wordpress site for a small, low budget membership organization. The org is run by it’s members, and I am one of them, so we rely on the various expertise of the members for stuff like this.
In my day job, I build sites for large membership associations, so I know what I want, but the software I use costs more than their entire annual budget.
I would like to utilize the relational database for membership and event functions. For example, it would be nice to have a membership form that would write to the database, and then have reports to do things like pull mailing lists, renewal lists, a member directory.
Ideally, I’d have a member table, relationships, annual dues table, event registrations, and a custom demographics table.
I’ve looked at things like CIVICRM, and that seems like it could work for managing members and collecting dues, but it doesn’t seem very widely used, and I’m not sure I’d be able to simplify the admin sections enough for other volunteers to be able to use. Maybe I just haven’t seen a good example of it in use.