Good morning, My name is Nicole Davis, and I am writing to you as the head of a newly formed organization, Kinect LLC, designed to take the lead on the Tendenci Open Source AMS Software Project <https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci> and expand our presence again in the digital world. Founder Ed Schipul as of late 2021 has been planning his exit strategy, and given the organization's bootstrapped funding, I think both Apache and the project could largely benefit from being in an incubator program as notable as Apache's.
*A little history about the company:* Ed Schipul actually founded Schipul the Web Marketing Company in 1997, but after listening to the needs of many of his local and global clients in the nonprofit and association sectors, he pivoted and turned his company into a more niche software - this is when it became known as Tendenci. In the early 2000s, Tendenci was taken open source for contribution from open source developers, and Ed schipul chose to follow the "benevolent dictator" path of reviewing and approving all code commits/pull requests internally before they are added to core. Tendenci also has a small core team with a lead software engineer, developers and a lead designer. Tendenci Open Source AMS is an association management software that is flexible and scalable to the extent that it can provide for small startups (typically using the open source code) and large enterprises with complex and unique needs. Written on a *python, django postgreSQL framework*, it has well withstood the test of time and ever changing tech, and it is used by hundreds of organizations, both hosted and non-hosted (by us). However, we are looking to provide more for our open source community and clients given the shift in remote work and education. *Recent updates in the code:* Since 2021 under my leadership we have launched a very successful Chapters and Chapter Memberships (in beta) module, so associations have cost-effective measures to manage chapters under their organization, yet allow chapter leaders a measure of autonomy to manage their memberships. It has proven to be a huge success for a client who manages 200+ chapters. *Future plans:* We now look to online education and training, so we can provide for those organizations who have seen a large shift in their membership base to remote work and study. Our plan is to create a system that can be somewhat self-contained within the software, yet also integrate with an LMS or MOOC for ease of use. Tendenci, having been around since the early 2000s, is a robust, mature software, but also has SO much potential for becoming an even greater asset to the nonprofit and association sectors if it is backed by something other than bootstrapped funds. Our mission to "Connect and organize the world's people. Do good" seems to be very well aligned with the types of projects Apache looks for. I would love to know if this is a project Apache envisions being part of the Apache Foundation. For more information, I am available at this email address or by phone: (281) 497-6567 (office) (832) 618-3645 (mobile) Kind regards, Nicole Davis, Team Tendenci LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-davis-vise/> (281) 497-6567
