Welcome to PowerBase!
CiviCRM for organizers
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Features

CiviCRM, hosted, setup and supported by the Progressive Technology Project, can handle all of your organizing data collection needs, together, in one place. Our staff, with decades of combined organizing experience, is always available to help you organize your campaign and use CiviCRM to its fullest.

Organizing

Keep track of online and on-the-ground engagements with your constituency, including phone banks, walk lists, meeting attendance and more.

Fundraising

Manage offline and online donations, phone banking, pledges, and even track grant proposals.

Communications

Send mass email and SMS messages, print mailing labels and keep track of who has received which communications

Advocacy

Manage online petitions (including sending an email to a constituent’s target, based on their address), import/export to and from the VAN voter database, and collect contact info.

Membership

Handle your membership with online or offline membership signup, automatic renewal notices, online payments and multiple membership types.

Events

Organize your events using online and offline registration, multiple pricesets, early registration, and discounts.

What is PowerBase?

The PowerBase project brings the popular open source CiviCRM database to organizers using independently run servers, fully owned and controlled by the Progressive Technology Project. We host, configure, maintain and support all aspects of CiviCRM so you can easily use its full-featured toolset to help you build and engage your constituency both online and on-the-ground.

Progressive Technology Project

Progressive Technology Project (PTP) is a nonprofit with deep roots in working with social justice organizations working in people of color and low income communities across the United States. We are committed to strenthening organizations by helping them build their capacity — skills, practices, and understanding — to integrate technology strategically into the life of their organizations. PTP owns all our hardware - we are independent from Amazon, Google and other major corporate titans, with all income derived strictly from Powerbase fees and foundation grants.

PowerBase

PowerBase is more than simply a CiviCRM database. It’s a web-based platform with an integrated system of hosting, training, coaching, consulting, and support provided by people who understand the field of organizing. PTP partners with each organization every step of the way: from initial set up to planning the first campaign to measuring the effectiveness of the outreach. PTP is ready to be an extra set of hands to help its organizing partners manage organizational change and make societal change. When PowerBase is adopted by a critical mass of organizations as the standard database for organizing and advocacy, the gains go well beyond the work of individual organizations.

CiviCRM

When PTP launched the PowerBase project, our first step was to undertake a scan of the existing open source database tools to see if there was a toolset that we could build on. Our scan showed that CiviCRM was the best fit for the project, and so when you use PowerBase, what you’re using is a version of CiviCRM, prepared by PTP, that is designed to meet the needs of organizing and advocacy groups. CiviCRM and PowerBase enjoy a close working relationship and in fact much of the code PTP commissioned in the creation of PowerBase has been included in core modules of CiviCRM.

Pricing

PowerBase offers a flexible pricing plan depending on your needs. All PowerBase sites must choose both a hosting plan and a support plan.

Hosting

PTP installs PowerBase on PTP-owned and managed computers in specialized facilities in multiple locations around North America. Our Hosting levels are designed to give large and small organizations responsive service at an appropriate price.

Up to 10,000 contacts $1380/year
Up to 30,000 contacts $1725/year
Up to 200,000 contacts $2300/year
More than 200,000 contacts Contact us

Support

CiviCRM is complex and powerful software. Through PowerBase support, we navigate you through the complexity, offering advice on the best ways to accomplish your organizing strategy and working around some of the rough edges that are often present in free software projects.

PTP has its origins supporting community organizing and we’ve received some initial grants to launch this program particularly for community organizing.  These grants are winding down, so we encourage community organizing groups to participate at the highest level they can afford, because your investment helps us help the movement as a whole.  PTP is committed to providing knowledgeable and efficient services to all PowerBase users no matter what Technical Support plan they may have.

SETUP COSTS: Regular setup fees are waived for Partner Level support. Other support plans will be billed a flat start up fee of $425.

DATA MIGRATION and OTHER ADDITIONAL FEES: All support plans may incur additional fees for importing existing contacts or advanced setup tasks charged at $120/hour. All costs will be clearly specified before we begin.

Partnership Level Unlimited phone and email support for one year. Plus, when you first start PowerBase, you receive four trainings tailored to your needs. $3395/year
Basic Level 25 credits of support, each worth 15 minutes, for use over 6 months. Plus, when you first start PowerBase, you receive four trainings tailored to your needs. $575/6 months
or
double it for $1150/1 year
Per Incident Level Pay per request. $140/hour

Testimonials

Read what organizers are saying about PowerBase

  • Sandra Youdelman

    Executive Director, Community Voices Heard

    As we’ve grown as an organization - and needed to manage more and more relationships in our organizing, communications and fundraising work - PTP has been an essential partner in CVH’s success. With PTP’s support, our work becomes more effective and is made easier - providing us with a database that is adapted for and by organizers, as well as the necessary training and support that goes with it. We’re constantly learning together and advancing our cause; we couldn’t have done it without them!

  • José Gonzales

    Director of Data Initiatives, Research, New York Communities for Change

    PowerBase has allowed us to create a realistic landscape of our membership and its characteristics. Because we are able to quantify the amount of members we have and document where they live we are able to put forth an actual number that illustrates the support the organization has and therefore our political power. We are also able to qualify for funding through grants because of the same numbers. The database is flexible and expandable in a way that has allowed us to become the central clearing house for the records for a large labor campaign. Because we’re able to import and then match records from various sources we are better able to find the best information for the childcare provider joint signature project that NYCC works on with the United Federation of Teachers.

  • Jeremy Saunders

    Co-Executive Director, VOCAL-NY.

    When I came to VOCAL (formerly known as NYC AIDS Housing Network), the entire organization was on a handful of excel sheets and no regular outreach or meetings were happening. We set the meetings and hit the streets, but without PowerBase allowing us to manage all the contacts, the people who showed up and those who didn’t, and the issues that most resonated with people, we never would have been able to build an organization that is truly at the forefront of ending AIDS, the drug war and mass incarceration in New York.

  • Take your organizing to the next level!

Contact us

Please fill out our form to schedule demo.

Or, email: support@progressivetech.org or call: 1-612.351.3479