By Africangeek on

I am developing a website/portal for a large group of Civil Society organisations (CSOs). The portal is aimed eventually accommodation all the NGOs in the country.

I am a joomla addict and would like to use joomla for this project.How my instint tells me drupal is better for this project

Below I list the features expected.
If it was you would you use drupal or Joomla?
If I use Drupal what modules would I need. I have been learning Drupal but cannot say I can kick ass yet
Please advise

The portal will seek to document;
Best practices
Innovative technologies
Lessons learnt
Policy Papers
Tools for CSOs- Eg for monitoring & Evaluation etc
Events Calendar.
Free emails accounts for stakeholders. (using google apps)
Relevant documents collected from stakeholders. (should be able to download directly)
should be able to post Videos uploaded on you tube for example

It will also consist of news updated daily,
human compiled and updated directory for all CSOs in the country
Forum
Photo Organizer
Social Networking community for users
Blogging service for users
Newsletter.
Each CSO should have their area where they can post info about themselves
Should be able to form discussion groups around different themes
Create and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
Arrange meetings, set schedules, and publish event information.
Instant message with co-workers and make PC-to-PC voice calls for free.
Preview calendar and docs, add gadgets and search the web from one place (integrate with Google APPS probably)
customizable user roles and permissions
tools members can use to self-organize
Very attractive and functional interface.
Intuitive navigation since some users are green in IT.
The ability to evolve as the community evolves
A light system since some users will have a slow connection and use dial up with very little width
there should be only one log in for all services
Notice I have pick some features which i know exists in one or both CMS.

Let me have you views
Feels stupid that my first question on this forum is so egocentric

Comments

sajalkayan’s picture

sajalkayan commented

Asking this question on a Drupal forum will get 100% votes for Drupal...

In my(Drupal noob) opinion, Drupal would let you do all those things, in fact 50% of what you have listed can be accomplished by the module CCK itself.
Like i mentioned at this post, the beauty is you can use the taxonomy system to cross reference posts and o magic with it.

Say you have a category for a CSO, now they post a page on "Best practices" you can easily have these pages to automatically list this new page.

1) "Best practices" globally of all CSOs
2) "Best practices" in a particular city..
etc...

If im not wrong, Drupal was made keeping community websites and user generated content in mind.

- Sajal Kayan

Africangeek’s picture

Africangeek commented

Glad to hear that. I have been going through all the modules and am a bit convinced Drupal is the way. I ask the same question on Joomla and one experienced joomla user told me the same. Guess I will go with Drupal the hard work now begins. Thanks for the CCK tip. Now I know where to start.

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

I have set up sites for a number of NGO's here in Sweden and abroad, a couple of things I would recommend taking a look at are CiviCRM and Organic Groups.

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