NYCPHP Meetup

[David Roth]

I have a project I'm prosing for a new non-profit and I think Joomla  
may be well suited for it. I'd greatly appreciate any opinions on this  
such as "David, here are five extensions that do most everything you  
asked." Or constructive comments like, "Wouldn't your time be better  
spent not trying to cram this thing down Joomla's throat and instead  
use X?".

[Short pre-ample:]
A non-profit group is forming and building a membership. They have a  
list of people they would like to become members, but they don't have  
contact information for them. So the concept was to set-up a web site  
which would both manage the membership database and make it easy for  
new prospects to join and associates of theirs update their contact  
information and be able to send them an invitation to check out the  
web site, update their own contact information and join the membership.
[/Short pre-ample:]

The primary requirement for getting things started is to have a  
"Looking for..." section. This would list the prospective members by  
name and what information is missing, for example:

	Mickey Mouse 	- Need Phone Number and E-mail address
	Donald Duck		- Need Postal mailing address.

	The visitor needs to be able to select a name displayed, supply the  
information and confirm their update via e-mail confirmation.  Of  
course, there is a concern about security here and to prevent  
malcontents for entering rubbish. I've not thought about how to solve  
that yet, because we would like to be able to do this without  
requiring visitors to register unless it's a simple registration. Or  
maybe an audit feature, where the new updates don't take effect until  
they are reviewed by the Admin. I'm certainly open to suggestions on  
how to handle this best.

The membership is expected to be in the thousands and they will want  
to be able to send e-mail newsletters and alerts to everyone. What are  
people doing for this, so it gets past the mailers so it isn't flagged  
a SPAM? Are you using something like Exact Target  (http://email.exacttarget.com/ 
) or are you able to have the e-mail sent out N number of messages  
every X seconds according to your service providers restrictions?

Although not discussed yet, I imagine as things progress they are  
going to want to be able to do accounting functions for the membership  
such as tracking payments and sending out reminders. Of course, that  
can be another module down the road which would key this existing  
database.

So tell me straight is this good for Joomla? Anything out there so the  
wheel doesn't need to be re-invented? Or is this a job for a good PHP  
frame work?

Thanks in advance to any kind souls that offer helpful suggestions!


David Roth