A content management system (CMS) is a system used to manage the content of a Web site. Typically, a CMS consists of two elements: the content management application (CMA) and the content delivery application (CDA). The CMA element allows the content manager or author, who may not know Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), to manage the creation, modification, and removal of content from a Web site without needing the expertise of a Webmaster. The CDA element uses and compiles that information to update the Web site. The features of a CMS system vary, but most include Web-based publishing, format management, revision control, and indexing, search, and retrieval.

The Web-based publishing feature allows individuals to use a template or a set of templates approved by the organization, as well as wizards and other tools to create or modify Web content. The format management feature allows documents including legacy electronic documents and scanned paper documents to be formatted into HTML or Portable Document Format (PDF) for the Web site. The revision control feature allows content to be updated to a newer version or restored to a previous version. Revision control also tracks any changes made to files by individuals. An additional feature is indexing, search, and retrieval. A CMS system indexes all data within an organization. Individuals can then search for data using keywords, which the CMS system retrieves.

A CMS system may also provide tools for one-to-one marketing. One-to-one marketing is the ability of a Web site to tailor its content and advertising to a user’s specific characteristics using information provided by the user or gathered by the site (for example, a particular user’s page sequence pattern). For example, if you visit a search engine and search for “digital camera,” the advertising banners will advertise businesses that sell digital cameras instead of businesses that sell garden products.

In order for you to find a suitable cms solution that is also free, you can go to Opensourcecms, there you can take the cms systems for spins and check out what is best suited for you NGO.

WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS available, it is used primarily by bloggers but it can still be used as a general CMS – it is available for free from WordPress.org. Let me start by listing the pros and cons of WordPress.

Pros

• It’s free!

• Fast and easy to installation.
• 1000′s high quality themes and plugins.
• Good visual content editor.

Cons

• More suited to blogs than general websites.

• Below average SEO.
• Attracts spambots.
• Frequent patching which can also be a good thing.

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS available and it gained its popularity for a reason – it’s a great CMS (and it’s free)! While some aspects are not perfect such as SEO, they can surely be improved by a plugin developed by their huge user base.

Here is good article about wordpress for NGO’s and Non-profit organizations and Top 10 WordPress CMS Plugins for NGO’s and Non-profits

Drupal

Drupal is a free open source content management system available from drupal.org. Designed for mid to high usage sites Drupal is a powerful and expandable system.
Pros

• Free

• Highly scalable
• Very expandable
• Large support base

Cons

• Steep learning curve

• Lack of themes
• Confusing terminology
• Requires customising

Drupal is incredible powerful all round system, it has been developed to be modular and easy to adapt to almost any situation, it is used by large organisations such as the onion for delivering articles, but can just as easily be used to create web2.0 based applications. Underneath the front end of the system is an expandable system allowing programmers and module developers to hook into the core system without having to recode any vital files. However Drupal has a sharp learning curve and would perhaps not be suitable to webmasters or bloggers who just want to get it up and running as quickly as possible.

Joomla

Joomla is a popular CMS, or Content Management System. It is open source software and is used for a wide variety of websites, and also intranets. It is available for free under a GNU or General Public License. It is useful for creating a variety of websites and can easily handle a variety of content: static pages, blogs, polls, news feeds, and search features. Joomla is recognized for its ease of use as well as for creating fantastic looking web pages.

Pros

• Free

• Easy to add articles
• Great selection of tutorials

• Cons

  • Complex

  • Poor seo
  • Long learning curve
  • No automatic update function

  Joomla is an excellent CMS system that enables those with very little developing experience to create their own sites. The system works out of the box, but we advise for you to add some more functions to make your Joomla site more robust and functional. Note that a buggy extension can break your website, so test everything before you decide to use it.

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