I think you are completely aware why back end systems languish, but allow me to elaborate for you.

In my limited exposures to fundraising and synagogue administration (two separate experiences), I perceive progress is not made any faster than a key leader wills it.

When my synagogue first went to personal computing for the administrative system, it was soon settled that Apple Macintosh’s would not be in the mix and monitors would be gray-scale and not color. This is about the time DOS was still prevalent and Windows was becoming interesting. These were cost savings but completely arbitrary and disregarding of trends and science (the human capacity to get more information out of color displays) in the latter case. But a complete fit to the chairman’s (a very competant executive of a tech company) view of the world.

When my university employer was discussing a full blown alumni web site, we saw the bells and whistles in demos and could not determine how to proceed because we really didn’t know what was most important to our prospective audience nor what would justify the expense. Leadership was rightly focussed on the close of a capital campaign but the alumni board wanted some attention to this languishing issue.

So are you certain of your audience (who they are, what they need and what they want and the difference between the two) and the priorities on the organization’s part (generally saving money or increasing revenue and hopefully both)?

At another university the change over to client-server from mainframe alumni and development system was as much a product of the desire of the university to rid itself of the mainframe operating and maintenance costs as much as anyone thinking the new software was.in some way a salvation.

I understand third-hand that one Jewish Federation group had a fine administrative system that also allowed other federations to outsource access and work. The demise of the hardware vendor seems to have broken those relationships and the consulting firm that implemented the system was not involved further with that federation or any other. At least I never heard more about it.

So do relationships continue to thrive if the infrastructure is ignored or did the infrastructure fail to evolve because the relationships were not thriving?

Since volunteerism is encouraged in both universities and synagogue venues, the resources obtained aren’t necessarily the resources you need. Nor will minimally salaried positions draw people with cutting edge skills.  If we could build systems that acted the same only better after ten years, this wouldn’t be so much of a problem. But developers want to keep trying new paradigms and forgetting old ones until they resurrected in the next full generation of methodologies and tools.

So I hope you appreciate what I wrote and I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time in the reading.