My colleague Steve Andersen recently penned a short article entitled “Some Observations on Nonprofit Software” that lays out a few of the core assumptions we hold about how software tools for the nonprofit sector can and should play nice together.

The core of the argument goes like this:

• Missions are serviced only by engaging constituents to action
• Engagement activities aren’t unique to nonprofits, so the tools aren’t either
• The best way to build software for nonprofits is to find tools that successfully addresses most of your needs and then add the nonprofit-specific functionality
• Software targeted at a larger market than nonprofits will improve faster than software specifically for the nonprofit market
• Software that has open Application Programming Interfaces makes the “build-on-top” model work
• There is a market for nonprofit-specific software that serves a defined function and is accessible via robust APIs

Go read the whole thing.

(The article supports comments, so you can leave them there if you like)