My startup [0] works with a lot of companies that are non-traditional, as you put it, and gives you the tools to design a CRM (and other business tools) that actually suit your business, if you want to check it out

[0] https://noloco.io

What features were you missing? Currently Im part of a team making a CRM based on more niche kind of customer and were trying to retrieve more information about what other CRMs lack

> We are a bit non-traditional

I'm curious to understand more.

Do you mean you're non-traditional in how you track Pipeline and working a customer through your sales funnel to Close?

(which I am struggling to understand what could be non-traditional about that)

Or are you referring to something else?

Genuinely curious, which is why I ask.

Because we aren't a business :)

We are academic group who is looking to increase collaboration both in industry and academia. While we have "products" (which we don't sell), we also have other initiatives like an education program. We also may want to set up a consortium with industry, which may include them giving us money, but not in a "buy a product or service" sense (but still needs to be thoroughly tracked).

So I'd really like a platform that holistically tracks people and our engagement with them. Some of this is done by traditional CRM, but the focus on selling products & services is too narrow.

Some desired features:

* Tracking our contacts, so we don't forget to follow through on something (CRM generally does this)

* Tracking people through time. If/Where they did their PhD, postdoc, are they in industry now. CRM I've looked at tend to be very fixed-point in time.

* What their research interests are and have been. Are they in an area we are looking to expand into? What conferences do they typically go to?

* How they have engaged with us before. Was it through an educational workshop? Did we mentor them in a mentorship program? Just someone we met sometime and seemed interested? People can be part of multiple groups.

* If they are using our projects, how are they using them? We are looking for good stories to give to our own funding agencies (and for general marketing).

* If they are interested in giving us money, what is the status of those talks?

If there's a better term for software that does this kind of thing, I'm very open to ideas. This isn't a strength in academia, as is pretty obvious, and I'm very new at this :)

Super interesting. Thanks for sharing the detail.

The trouble that you’ve probably felt is CRM are sold to sales exec and as such, focus on sales exec needs.

You’d be better served not with CRM, but a personal contact management system.

Something like https://www.monicahq.com/

Oh that looks interesting! Thanks for the recommendation, I will give it a look.

civicrm https://civicrm.org/ is more non-profit oriented, so that may be worth a look.

https://civi.plus is our cloud hosted version civicrm which includes a huge number additional features specifically for associations and membership organisations. Feel free to check it out!

You seem in a unique position with respect to needs and opportunity. So many organisations go looking for a tool mainly to quench a vague desire to systematise. The temptation is to think, "we can't be so different, surely there's a solution out there that already solves this problem". Reuse, not reinventing wheels, all fine and good... but in fact the "problem" is ill-formed and before you know it you end up fitting what you do, and your horizons, to a tool not of your making, adapting what you do to someone else's paradigm.

So why not build it? Sounds like you have the academic and research resources. It's just entities, relations and timelines. There's a thousand ideas out there in games, logistics and asset tracking that are so nearly what you want and can be adapted. Many now well known tools only evolved as a side effect of another niche business need, to scratch a singular itch.

Sounds like you need Association Management Software (AMS).

There are a few built on salesforce but there are others that are standalone, and they all implement CRM in some way.

That was a class of software I have never even heard of, but could be it. Thanks!

Do you think something like this would work for a non-profit?

Do you host it yourself, what database is used?

I've done some work for a homeless advocacy group that uses Salesforce, it keeps track of donors as well as information on clients.

Sounds like you need SalesForce NPSP https://www.salesforce.org/products/nonprofit-success-pack/ which is free forever if you qualify for their NPO program

That's how a lot of companies in the educational space use Salesforce and other customisable CRM.

Where does Salesforce get data on info like where a contact got its PhD from or what their interests are?

I've been using https://clay.earth for this - it does #s 1-2 by default, and the rest can be done with notes on a particular contact. More people focused than lead focused so might work for what you need

Consider Attio. Unaffiliated but a very happy user, also with a fairly unique business to keep track of.

> We are a bit non-traditional

That's what your standard business says and it is often business with bad practices that say that

LOL, that struck a chord. And the way things are is for historical reasons. Man, I wish I had a dime for every time I hear this.

That's my main frustration every day too. The vision for what we're building is very clear but it takes time to build it right. We'll get there :).

Checkout Frappe CRM (https://github.com/frappe/crm). It is built on a customizable web framework and there is a reasonable community as well.