[consulting] CiviCRM / Drupal integration expert

[Sheryl]

Matt Chapman wrote:

> Do other share my experience that the CiviCRM market is actually
> vastly different than the Drupal market? I observe several factors
> that make me think so:
>
> 1.) I've seen very competent Drupal developers royally screw up
> CiviCRM work, due to ignorance of the vast difference between the two
> systems.

I find this an interesting discussion myself, for rather parochial
reasons.  I'm a sysadmin who has installed Drupal for work and has
actually written a plugin once upon a time.  I'm also involved in a
non-profit which has very little money but would like to have some of the
things CiviCRM seems to offer on their website.  They don't have the $$
for something like convio.

I found someone who would donate a VM (apparently CiviCRM doesn't play
well on a multiuser system) but it sounds like CiviCRM may be too much for
us (I worry about how they're going to get help if I become unable to
continue supporting them for some reason).

> 2.) I find it very difficult to locate competent CiviCRM developers
> who are eager to work on CiviCRM. (Most of us who do CiviCRM work
> don't enjoy working with the software.)

Wow.  I very seldom hear that about any package.  What's wrong with it?

> 3.) There is relatively little overlap in the learning curve for
> Drupal as compared to the learning curve for CiviCRM. I.e., once
> you've learned Theming, Drupal DB abstraction, Forms API, Views,
> Drupal permissions, and i18n, then you have to learn Smarty, PEAR:DB,
> QuickForm, Profiles, CiviCRM ACLs, and a completely different i18n
> system. And OOP PHP. CiviCRM really doubles the required knowledge
> base for a successful project.

Yup.  CiviCRM looking less and less likely.

> 4.) With few exceptions, I have been successful in charging as much as
> double my 'Drupal rate' for CiviCRM work, or generally increasing my
> catch-all rate when a project involves CiviCRM.
>
> And yet, despite #3 and possibly because of #4, I see more and more
> people interested in CiviCRM at each DrupalCon or Drupal event where
> the topic comes up.

Interesting.  If our non-profit had that kind of money I'd get them hooked
up with a commercial hosted CRM solution instead of CiviCRM.  I guess I'm
not understanding the attraction.

Sheryl