DemocracyInAction.org recognizes the value of technology in progressive and environmental movement building and part of the organization’s mission is to help organizations collaborate starting with the use of technology. We think open source software and the collaborative use of technology can have a part to play in this.
"The collaborative use of technology not only saves on the huge duplication of expenditures, but it promotes the use of standards which will make the technology more sustainable in the future."
It is often through the outreach, linking, and integrating powers of technologies that mission can be extended beyond any individual organization’s reach. With a collaborative use of online advocacy tools, we will be much more likely to reach broader populations and be more transformative.
The collaborative use of technology not only saves on the huge duplication of expenditures, but it promotes the use of standards which will make the technology more sustainable in the future.
Open Source Philosophy
We embrace open source technology and we are an open source platform. We are in the process of building a community of support around our code to constantly enhance and improve it so it will always be on the cutting-edge.
We believe open source software is less about the technology and more about a methodology that promotes an ethic of collaboration and philosophy of openness. In fact, the best open source projects are based on practices which integrate a set of principles with a set of tools.
However, we don't believe that open source software is a silver bullet. In our experience working with nonprofits – few have the resources to even implement basic technology right out of the box let alone support technical people to develop and maintain their applications.
We care more about making technology accessible to grassroots organizations so they can spend less time and resources on technology and more time on strategy.
We've taken careful consideration in building a system that can grow and be modified to suit the needs of many different kinds of organizations both nationally and internationally.
Architecture and Integration
Our technology is a Java web application running on Apache Tomcat and Apache web server, with a MySQL database. We run our primary cluster of RedHat Enterprise servers at a co-location facility, all running RedHat Enterprise Linux, and monitored daily for security patches and software updates.
Integrating with 3rd party software and other technology applications is central to our mission at DemocracyInAction.org. In addition to our standard content management and web features, DemocracyInAction has plug-ins available for many industry leading content management systems, including Dreamweaver (and the Macromedia Web Suite), CVS, and Mambo.
In addition to the products we have already integrated with, DemocracyInAction deploys an extensive Web Developer API that allows web designers and people with no knowledge of server side code to integrate custom products tightly with DemocracyInAction services. In addition, there is a Javascript API that allows client browsers to retrieve data directly from our servers, for live display of current news, blogs, or issues.
For working with external databases, DemocracyInAction provides an extensive data import suite that allows importing of large numbers of supporters, contacts, message recipients, groups or lists, transactions, and more. The system also has dozens of reports and data exportable in multiple formats.