Artist and Educator JJ Tiziou Uses CiviCRM to Foster Community in Philadelphia

JJ Tiziou is an artist and community organizer in Philadelphia. He sought help from Tadpole Collective after his prior CRM platform (Artful.ly) was abruptly discontinued. He chose Tadpole & CiviCRM because working with open source software aligns with his community values, and those of his project Walk Around Philadelphia, a pilgrimage experience around the city’s edge that JJ facilitates.

Tadpole worked with him to set up detailed registration forms for these events, which allow people to sign up to join group walks, or check off sections of the route that they complete in their own time.
In addition to the events, JJ uses follow-up surveys to collect feedback from participants about how to improve the program. The CiviCRM system that Tadpole built allows him to automatically email event participants with links to the feedback surveys, as well as create reports that can be shared with grantmaking organizations that provide funding – helping him further grow the program.

JJ has seen enormous interest in these walking events since their launch, and his CiviCRM system has been instrumental in supporting this growth. In the next phase, we will help him build a dedicated website for the Walk, with new features to support the initiative as it evolves from an artist’s project into a small organization that is embracing the entire city.

Challenges

• A need to gather and organize detailed information
• Data access and privacy concerns

Impact

CiviCRM’s robustness and versatility continues to provide new ways to expand his program offerings