The blog and every other form of communication has been pretty quiet the last couple of months here at appiChar Central. Since we really started to push things along after Christmas the world of supporter360 has moved along massively. Where to start? Probably easiest with a summary:
- We’re now implementing around 25 organisations with supporter360 across the globe including some really big names which we’re adding to all the time. First ones are in Australia, the UK, NZ with a few other countries looking likely over the coming months.
- We estimate that by the end of this financial year (the Aus one, so end of June) we’ll have 50 or so organisations up & running or in the middle of implementation. After that it’s anyone’s guess but given we’re keeping pretty quiet at the moment and we don’t have a massive installed base telling everyone how amazing things are…it should be exciting when both those factors change around completely very shortly.
- Our partner model is really taking shape and it looks very much like we’ll be working with some of the best names in the business to implement supporter360 out into the world – something we think is really exciting for the sector as it’s opening up things to some really great technology companies that previously had no easy way in to work with NFPs.
- When we got to a stable base product at the beginning of the year we were able to start on some of the more exciting areas of the system – some of the higher level functionality that will be what takes supporter360 up to the next level (see Regular Giving and Moves Management as a couple of examples). Absolutely loads more to come on that front!
- The UK side of things is really taking shape with Gift Aid now looking really good and a couple of really big wins over there – top 20 UK organisations. We’ve also got some really big partnerships coming in the next few months over there (I’m paying a visit in April if you’re over there and fancy a catch up).
- We’ve added some really awesome talent to our teams in the UK and Aus and have some more on its way in over the coming months – some serious experience of the NFP sector and also some really talented people on Force.com.
- Some great partnerships with other tech companies that have great solutions we are looking to roll into supporter360. Our approach has been to do as little as we can ourselves, if someone else has created something awesome why not bring it in if it makes sense and we can? We think the end result works out far superior to one company trying to do everything (with the associated lock-in that usually brings).
- Salesforce keep doing really cool things like rolling great functionality into the product like the analytics reporting functionality (and plenty more) which is more and more making the Force.com platform look like the only game in town for many organisations.
All told we’re feeling like it would be hard to be in a better place…we’re getting interest from all over the place from small organisations right up to the biggest of them all. As ever there’s a stack of work for the team to do but they’re also all seeing the changes taking place internally and the pressures easing as new people come on board and start to push things forward.
Keep posted, we don’t plan to be quiet for too much longer so I get to spend a bit more time on the bit I really love…making a noise about something or other 
