Open source political campaign management software?

Question

Does anyone know of any active open source projects working on political campaign management software?

I looked on sourceforge but didn't see anything relevant from the queries "political", "politics", "donations", "campaign", or in the categories "accounting", "politics" or "voting".

I'm involved with a political campaign that is currently paying out the nose for some horribly designed SaaS (whose Name i Guess i should Protect, ahem) to basically just keep track of donations people have made now, donations people have made in the past, donations people have pledged to make, contact information, the way they will likely vote, etc.

It's a bit much to manage in spreadsheets, but doesn't seem like it's something complex enough that political campaigns should have to pay for (especially low-budget local ones).

I'd love to help out if such a project exists, or start/revive one if it doesn't.

Any hints, places to look, etc are much appreciated.

Answer 1

I don't know of any exactly. However, you could probably use some off the shelf open source solution that is not targeted specifically as campaigns. Perhaps you could use many kinds of project management or even bug tracking type of applications to help. As far as tracking donations, you should be able to find some open source project to fill this need, even if it is not that specific. You could even write this without too much trouble if needed.

Edit, here is one CRM project that purports to work with campaign management:

http://sourcetapcrm.sourceforge.net/

Answer 2

Drupal CMS has modules which can probably help. Although I don't have any experience in using these modules you can look at CiviCRM.

A search at drupalmodules.com also revealed some other modules.

Answer 3

CiviCRM is a Drupal, Joomla or standalone software package to help nonprofits.

It can:

1. run mailing lists
2. subscribe members
3. process donations
4. manage event registration and payment

It shoudl be suitable for a political campaign

I work with CiviCRM a lot

Answer 4

Hi,

I'm the creator of Voter Universe, a new open source web application for helping political campaigns and political organizations analyze and interact with their voter data. The application is still in active development, but we expect to have our first production release in October 2009 as well as the launch of an affordably priced hosted service.

The first release will not include donor management, but that functionality is a high priority item after the first release.

I created a screencast a few weeks ago in advance of starting to spread the word about the application at Netroots Nation. You can view the screencast at our website, http://www.voteruniverse.com

Jason Lantz

Answer 5

Microsoft have recently launched specially for political class. Check out for Microsoft Townhall. Login with username 'demouser' and password 'demopassword'

Regards James David

EMarketing Blog