We got a lot of positive feedback on this over in the CivicSpace community, so I'm cross-posting here-- please join us if you can on IRC to chat about eCommerce/Donations within Drupal/CivicSpace at 5pm Pacific Time today (Wednesday) before the general CivicSpace IRC meeting at 5:30pm.
It's at #civicspace on irc.freenode.org
We're holding this chat because a lot of people have recently and independently approached us with problems and/or proposed solutions to various eCommerce issues for CivicSpace, and we want to get everyone talking to each other.
The immediate goals of the chat are to get a status check on everything that is going on in the realm of Drupal/CivicSpace + (payment processing, donations, auctions, eCommerce, etc.), and determine what if anything CivicSpace can do to facilitate collaboration going forward (e.g.: mailing list, how-to knowledgebase on CSL.org, bundling modules in to CivicSpace release, regular IRC meetings, or perhaps nothing at all, etc.). More context below:
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There has been a good deal of discussion of late on this list about various flavors of transacting money in the context of using a CivicSpace site... donation processing /eCommerce/ ticketing/ auctions, etc. And no wonder-- it's the lifeblood of many a non-profit and all political campagns, and the primary revenue stream of the online organizing ASPs of the world like Kintera ($200MM market cap and falling, by the way). We want CivicSpace to help make it easier and less expensive for non-profits and campaigns to get their lifeblood, and a better experience with more control for individuals who are interested in supporting their preferred communities, organizations, and candidates.