Hey, everyone has to be a first-time buyer sometime.

For anyone just getting his or her bearings, feeling asea amid the cacophonous web 2.0 suq, a basic orientation to evaluating CRMs. This isn't meant to read as marketing copy, but I need hardly add the caveat [emptor] that we're an interested party ourselves.

The text below reprints my draft of an article that appears in the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet's new publication "Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book of Politics. A Guide to CRM in Politics.".

Enjoy. Or if you prefer, you can get the text below as a .pdf.

Just as every army travels on its stomach, every NGO travels on its data. For fundraising, advocacy, case management, communications, and every other way a nonprofit touches its community, good information has always been the lifeblood of the third sector.

Two spring D.C. mucky-mucks of interest for online advocate types have early-bird registration deadlines approaching.

The March 15-16 Politics Online Conference of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet has $375 registrations through Dec. 29.

NTEN's Apr. 4-6 Nonprofit Technology Conference has, through Jan. 15, member and non-member prices $200 cheaper than it'll cost at the door.