Re: Cohousing Digital System
From: STEPHANIE FASSNACHT (fassnachssc.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 10:45:43 -0800 (PST)
We at Village Cohousing in Madison WI use Gather / Mosaic for all our 
scheduling, and Dropbox for our file storage.


> On Feb 12, 2020, at 5:48 PM, Heidi Beke-Harrigan <hbekeharrigan [at] 
> gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm with a newly forming cohousing group in Columbus called Central Ohio
> Cohousing and we also have a digital system question.
> 
> We're very grateful to the folks at Gather who are allowing us to explore
> their platform. I find it well designed and think it will serve us well
> once we are needing to manage the cohousing daily activities of living.
> 
> In the meantime, we need to create a website, consider contact management
> software and additional platforms to help us successfully get to the formed
> community stage.
> I searched the Cohousing-L archives and was able to find reference to
> management software such as My Green Condo, Bazinga, Basecamp etc. that's
> been useful to folks once a community has come together, but not so much
> about what has helped as communities form and deal with attracting
> potential members, managing work and contacts, etc.
> 
> We're trying to decide between meeting basic immediate needs with a free
> website using Wix, for example, or balancing the long term needs of members
> only web page
> access, payment processing, membership mailing and contact etc. through a
> more comprehensive package like WIld Apricot.
> 
> Is this a topic that has already come up and is in the Cohousing-L archives
> somewhere? We're grateful for any tips or experiences you care to share.
> 
> Best,
> Heidi Beke-Harrigan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 11:56 AM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <
> cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
>>> On Feb 10, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Chris Terbrueggen <
>> christopher402 [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Greetings, I would like to know if any cohousing communities are using
>>> internal membership software that has at least 5 contributors that are
>>> administering it.
>> 
>> I think you might have better luck finding a system that many cohousing
>> communities use so if you have a problem, you can contact another
>> community. Finding 5 people in my community who would go near overseeing
>> any computer based system would be impossible. I’ve tried. Some do computer
>> work all day—installing, fixing, programming, spam detection, etc.—so they
>> are totally uninterested but will confer.
>> 
>> To monitor a system that people are dependent on is something most people
>> don't want to do. I’ve not been able to find anyone who will be second
>> chair to our email discussion lists. It isn’t a big job but when someone’s
>> email is hacked or a list isn’t working, it has to be fixed quickly. Email
>> hacks get our whole system closed down by our ISP. With so many people
>> working at home now, this is crisis time.
>> 
>> Gather is the best I’ve seen and most predictably sustainable on their end
>> because it is supported by a cooperative that includes more people than
>> work directly on the software. And it seems fairly easy to learn so many
>> members could be familiar enough to troubleshoot. Or call someone at
>> another community.
>> 
>> Sharon
>> ----
>> Sharon Villines
>> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
>> http://www.takomavillage.org
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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