Recently we met up with Charles
“Chic” Naumer, co-founder of CiviCore, the company that programs the online
giving technology for GivingFirst.org. We appreciate the ideas they share to
help us enhance the site. Their work and dedication to GivingFirst is
indispensable, and we are grateful to them for being the technology sponsor of
Colorado Gives Day this year.
What is CiviCore?
Our company builds web-based database applications for the
social sector. This includes databases for managing volunteers, donors and
client outcomes. Our products are customized for each client’s particular need.
When did CiviCore
start and where are you located?
My business partner, Rich Rainaldi, and I co-founded
CiviCore in 2000. Our office is in the heart of downtown Denver and we have
over 350 clients in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America and Australia.
How did you get
involved with Community First Foundation?
Community First Foundation hired us four years ago to build
the GivingFirst platform. It has been a great experience to see the success of
the GivingFirst website in terms of both the enthusiasm it has created for
online giving in our community and the benefit to all the nonprofits we care
about in our community.
What do you do to
prepare for Colorado Gives Day?
Our biggest focus is to prep for the amount of transactions per
second that will come through GivingFirst in a 24-hour period. Last Colorado
Gives Day we had up to 6 transactions
per second and more than 20,000 donations in one day. We are prepared for t
these bursts of activity in a short amount of time. Also, we recently migrated
GivingFirst to a new “cloud based” environment that will make the site more
efficient and cost effective.
What will your team
be doing on the big day—December 6?
Our entire team is very excited to be a part of the great
success of Colorado Gives Day. We won’t
be getting a lot of sleep on December 6th. We will be monitoring everything for all 24
hours —transactions coming in, payments being processed, system performance and
general traffic metrics. Last year Community First Foundation met its goal of
$1 million very early in the morning. We were thrilled to see the donations
coming in and our system handling eight times the expected volume so well. We
were really prepared last year, so we have a leg up this year.
How do you help
ensure the site is secure?
Security is a very important. We have considered security throughout
development of the GivingFirst system. To ensure our systems are secure the Giving
First system was recently tested by an outside, third-party security firm. It
is always nice to have an outside opinion when it comes to security and this
audit gives us added confidence our systems are secure. Additionally, all of CiviCore applications
are hosted at a top tier hosting facility with state-of-the-art physical and
software security mechanisms in place.
Do you have a
favorite GivingFirst feature?
I am very excited by Fundraising Pages--the individual
campaign pages. Last year, I setup a campaign page for my favorite nonprofit,
The Anchor Center for Blind Children, and raised more than $2,000. It is very
gratifying to be able to utilize this functionality to generate an even bigger
benefit for the organizations you care about.
What do you like
about GivingFirst?
It’s made a big impact in Colorado. We’ve been really
excited by its value—making online giving available 24 hours a day, every day
in Colorado. It gives nonprofits in our community infrastructure that they otherwise
would have had to build themselves. Now when our Colorado clients need an
online donation system, we can direct them to GivingFirst. We love to be able
to support our Colorado-based clients so cost effectively! Clients in other
states just don’t have this option.
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