Tendenci Open Source Is Written in Python, Not PHP

Dear Community,

A quick reassurance: Tendenci is built with Python and Django, so the PHP-specific vulnerabilities announced on October 21, 2026, do not directly affect the Tendenci application.

Our team stays attentive to security updates and keeps our community informed. You can follow our development and published fixes on GitHub – that’s the beauty of open source!

Thank you for your trust and for being part of the Tendenci community.

The TendenciDEV Team

Historical: Tendenci Open Source Donor Management Roadmap

It is beautiful to read how much tendenci the open source AMS software has evolved since 2013 – when this article was released. Enjoy reading and it is never late to transition to open source with Tendenci! -S.R🐾

Tendenci has come a long way since it was started in 2001. I didn’t have a choice back then so thus began (at the time – we are now open source) a proprietary system. But we work mostly with Associations and Non Profits. They/You (and I can attest first hand after volunteering with several nonprofits over the years) don’t want proprietary – you want OPEN SOURCE!

So what is our roadmap for Tendenci, now completely open source, for donor management?

I have to say we weren’t feeling the urgency on the donor management part until recently. Why? Because Blackbaud (Nasdaq BLKB) acquired Convio and removed the only viable option. And now they are shutting down Common Ground. Not cool. (Side bar: Word is Convio used to advertise “Common Ground, because we’re not Raiser’s Edge.” If that is true or not, it’s still funny and was always a comment that came up at NTEN or Techsoup meetings over the years.)

Tendenci is written in Django and Python and will remain open source. We are adding a basic GPL CRM with modifications for donor management first. More importantly we are integrating Tendenci with the Salesforce Foundation and the NON-Profit Starter pack through their open source connectors and well documented API.

We are prepared and qualified. We have a former employee who now works at Salesforce, we use Salesforce ourselves, and quite frankly they seem to care about the non-profit world. We at Schipul are “all in” as they say as are Tendenci powers the majority of our clients are non-profits.

What can you do now to get ready?

If you want to get ready to fully integrate your Tendenci site, hosted with us or self hosted with the open source community version, a good jumping off point would be contact the TendenciDEV Team for a free consultation! Tendenci’s Fundraising and Donor Management is all you need so you can start accepting online charitable donations now! Everything you need in one system.

I’ll try to keep everyone more up to speed on our roadmap, it’s been a crazy year. But make no mistake, we are building an open system that will reduce the costs of advocacy and non-profit associations and foundations by a factor of 10 compared to Raiser’s Edge. (WE HAVE DONE THIS ALREADY!) All you need is tendenci, and tendenci is also 100% customizable and flexible.

There is hope. (Programmer? – join us on github! http://github.com/tendenci/tendenci ) And in case you can’t tell, I’m excited about this! – Ed Schipul, 2013

Historical: HOW TO USE DJANGO-SQL-EXPLORER IN TENDENCI MMS

tendenci6megamenu.png

December 28, 2025
This wonderful insightful blog post about how to leverage the Django SQLExplorer on your Tendenci site was written back in 2015 when Tendenci v6 was released. What tendenci version is your site on? Yes, you can access the data you need with Tendenci’sĀ SQL Explorer Data Analysis Tool right from your website! Read this blog to learn about it. -S.R.

February 7, 2015
Tendenci 6 ships with the excellentĀ django-sql-explorerĀ fromĀ ePantry. This means you can export anything at any time and build any report you want whenever you want. Absolute 100% anytime freedom of access to your data. #JOY #FREEDOM #ROCKS

First a warning. If you choose to use a direct query tool know they are dangerous. You are doing so at your own risk and could possibly corrupt your database beyond repair up to and including requiring a dba to come in and repair it at a cost of thousands of quid. So…. BE CAREFUL.

SQL explorer is a way to directly query your site through the user interface. It is for superusers only and we recommend disabling it by default (see disclaimer above.) But if you are still reading here is the lightning version.

  1. Login to your Tendenci6 site at /accounts/login/
  2. Navigate to /explorer/
  3. Click on playground and test out some queries. For example here are two
    1. “select tablename from pg_tables” – without the quotes to list all 300 tables in your database
    2. “select * from articles_article” – list all articles including expired and inactive etc.
  4. If you like the queries click “new query” and name and describe them and click save.
  5. Click on the SQL explorer icon top left and your back at the dashboard with icons to download the results of your queries.

Visually when you add the URL /explorer/ to the end of your site path you will see something very similar to this.

django-sql-query-dashboard.png

First note the icon on the right to Download CSV so you can download all of whatever that query is for.  If you don’t see any, no worries – that’s what this post is about!

So let’s write a basic sql statement.

django-sql-playground.png

And then when you click “New  Query” you will find this interface and you can carefully name and describe your query so you know what it does later.

creating-new-tendenci-query-for-csv-download.png

 

1) ALL Interactive users:

SELECT  u.first_name, u.last_name, u.email, u.username, u.is_staff,  u.is_superuser, p.salutation, p.company, p.position_title, p.phone,  p.address, p.address2, p.member_number, p.city, p.state, p.zipcode,  p.country, p.url, p.sex, p.address_type, p.phone2, p.fax, p.work_phone,  p.home_phone, p.mobile_phone, p.notes, p.admin_notes FROM auth_user u  INNER JOIN profiles_profile p ON u.id=p.user_id WHERE u.is_active=True  AND p.status=True AND p.status_detail='active'

Copy Paste Version:

SELECT u.first_name, u.last_name, u.email, u.username, u.is_staff, u.is_superuser, p.salutation, p.company, p.position_title, p.phone, p.address, p.address2, p.member_number, p.city, p.state, p.zipcode, p.country, p.url, p.sex, p.address_type, p.phone2, p.fax, p.work_phone, p.home_phone, p.mobile_phone, p.notes, p.admin_notes FROM auth_user u INNER JOIN profiles_profile p ON u.id=p.user_id WHERE u.is_active=True AND p.status=True AND p.status_detail=’active’

2) ALL memberships:

SELECT u.first_name, u.last_name, u.email, u.username, u.is_staff, u.is_superuser,
    p.salutation, p.company, p.position_title, p.phone, p.address, p.address2, 
    p.member_number, p.city, p.state, p.zipcode, p.country, p.url, p.sex, 
    p.address_type, p.phone2, p.fax, p.work_phone, p.home_phone, p.mobile_phone,
    m.membership_type_id, m.renewal, m.certifications, m.work_experience,
    m.referer_url, m.referral_source, m.join_dt, m.expire_dt, m.renew_dt,
    m.primary_practice, m.how_long_in_practice, m.application_approved,
    m.application_approved_dt, m.areas_of_expertise, m.home_state,
    m.year_left_native_country, m.network_sectors, m.networking,
    m.government_worker, m.government_agency, m.license_number,
    m.license_state, m.status_detail
FROM auth_user u
INNER JOIN profiles_profile p
ON u.id=p.user_id
INNER JOIN memberships_membershipdefault m
ON m.user_id=u.id
WHERE u.is_active=True
AND p.status=True
AND m.status_detail <> 'archive'

Copy Paste Version:

SELECT u.first_name, u.last_name, u.email, u.username, u.is_staff, u.is_superuser, p.salutation, p.company, p.position_title, p.phone, p.address, p.address2, p.member_number, p.city, p.state, p.zipcode, p.country, p.url, p.sex, p.address_type, p.phone2, p.fax, p.work_phone, p.home_phone, p.mobile_phone, m.membership_type_id, m.renewal, m.certifications, m.work_experience, m.referer_url, m.referral_source, m.join_dt, m.expire_dt, m.renew_dt, m.primary_practice, m.how_long_in_practice, m.application_approved, m.application_approved_dt, m.areas_of_expertise, m.home_state, m.year_left_native_country, m.network_sectors, m.networking, m.government_worker, m.government_agency, m.license_number, m.license_state, m.status_detail FROM auth_user u INNER JOIN profiles_profile p ON u.id=p.user_id INNER JOIN memberships_membershipdefault m ON m.user_id=u.id WHERE u.is_active=True AND p.status=True AND m.status_detail <> ‘archive’

3) ALL corporate members:

SELECT cp.name, cp.address, cp.address2, cp.city, cp.state, cp.zip, cp.country,
    cp.phone, cp.email, cp.url, cp.number_employees, cp.chapter, cp.tax_exempt,
    cp.annual_revenue, cp.annual_ad_expenditure, cp.description, cp.expectations,
    cp.notes, cp.referral_source, cp.ud1, cp.ud2, cp.ud3, cp.ud4, cp.ud5, cp.ud6, 
    cp.ud7, cp.ud8, cm.corporate_membership_type_id, cm.renewal, cm.renew_dt,
    cm.join_dt, cm.expiration_dt, cm.approved, cm.admin_notes, cm.status_detail
FROM corporate_memberships_corpprofile cp
INNER JOIN corporate_memberships_corpmembership cm
ON cp.id=cm.corp_profile_id
WHERE cm.status_detail <> 'archive'

Copy Paste Version:

SELECT cp.name, cp.address, cp.address2, cp.city, cp.state, cp.zip, cp.country, cp.phone, cp.email, cp.url, cp.number_employees, cp.chapter, cp.tax_exempt, cp.annual_revenue, cp.annual_ad_expenditure, cp.description, cp.expectations, cp.notes, cp.referral_source, cp.ud1, cp.ud2, cp.ud3, cp.ud4, cp.ud5, cp.ud6, cp.ud7, cp.ud8, cm.corporate_membership_type_id, cm.renewal, cm.renew_dt, cm.join_dt, cm.expiration_dt, cm.approved, cm.admin_notes, cm.status_detail FROM corporate_memberships_corpprofile cp INNER JOIN corporate_memberships_corpmembership cm ON cp.id=cm.corp_profile_id WHERE cm.status_detail <> ‘archive’

4) All users in a specific group (replace <YOUR GROUP ID> with your group id)

SELECT ug.name, u.first_name, u.last_name, u.email, u.username, u.is_staff, u.is_superuser, p.salutation, p.company, p.position_title, p.phone, p.address, p.address2, p.member_number, p.city, p.state, p.zipcode, p.country, p.url, p.sex, p.address_type, p.phone2, p.fax, p.work_phone, p.home_phone, p.mobile_phone FROM auth_user u INNER JOIN profiles_profile p ON u.id=p.user_id INNER JOIN user_groups_groupmembership ugm on u.id=ugm.member_id INNER JOIN user_groups_group ug on ug.id=ugm.group_id WHERE ug.id=<YOUR GROUP ID> AND ugm.status=True AND ugm.status_detail='active'

Copy Paste Version:

SELECT ug.name, u.first_name, u.last_name, u.email, u.username, u.is_staff, u.is_superuser, p.salutation, p.company, p.position_title, p.phone, p.address, p.address2, p.member_number, p.city, p.state, p.zipcode, p.country, p.url, p.sex, p.address_type, p.phone2, p.fax, p.work_phone, p.home_phone, p.mobile_phone FROM auth_user u INNER JOIN profiles_profile p ON u.id=p.user_id INNER JOIN user_groups_groupmembership ugm on u.id=ugm.member_id INNER JOIN user_groups_group ug on ug.id=ugm.group_id WHERE ug.id=<YOUR GROUP ID> AND ugm.status=True AND ugm.status_detail=’active’

 

Contribute back your brilliance to the rest of us? Have you written some good queries for Tendenci using the amazing  django-sql-explorer from ePantry? Post them on the Tendenci Community Site for others to learn and share with!

Please do be careful. Remember the warnings above. Using a live sql tool on a relational database for anything besides SELECT queries is ill-advised. It really is your live data on a live site SO BE CAREFUL!

We believe this level of access to the superusers on Tendenci sites is empowering. We like knowing people can download any of their data when they need it. And perhaps contribute back some suggested new reports to the Tendenci Community as a whole!

Because Tendenci is part of the Django community and we couldn’t have brought this functionality to you without others in the community “giving first.” We may have added it to Tendenci, but that’s ONLY because of the generosity of building and making it available by others. Explorer is brought to you by the power of collaborative open source software (THANK YOU ePantry!)

Note this is a cross post from our help files. See the Help File for the latest accurate info at: https://www.tendenci.com/help-files/how-use-django-sql-explorer-tendenci/

Tendenci Transformation – The Right Choices for the Future

May 17, 2015

The future is bright for Tendenci! We’ve had a lot of crucial conversations lately about decisions that we made between 2006 and 2010. Yup, really. We are explaining now about how we are possibly too far ahead of the curve and why if you give it a bit of time, it will make you look like a rock-star.

MobileGeddon being a great example of how our early adopters are benefiting the absolute most!

 

Top39-Programming-Trends-700.4
Python for the Win!

Source: Python is Now the Most Popular Introductory Teaching Language at Top U.S. Universities

We started using Python, the programming language named after Monty Python, in 2004 if not earlier. We first tested Pinax in 2008 if not earlier under J who was running our programming team.

We used Python extensively in our old environment to move files and push out content to our sites. Tasks that are now done by Puppet and Chef and Docker-Compose. We rolled our own using Python on Windows.

So for the curious, that explains why we have this huge depth of knowledge on Python programming dating back to when nobody heard of it. We’ve had to train numerous graduates of Tech, UofH, Aggies, Rice, Penn State, etc, what Python even was!

But that is all ancient history. Why? Because Python is now number 1!

Top39-Programming-Trends-700.4

It’s hard to predict the future. We started out writing our own compete web framework in ASP. We were too early in 2001. PHP soon arrived and, being basically identical but open source, the outcome was PHP won. It should have, and did, win. We were too early. But with timing there is also a bit of luck.

I’ll do another post about GIS and mapping and why our move to strictly Postgres with GIS enabled is working out so well. Another post. And I’ll edit this one with links soon. Just needed to get the content out.

Screen Shot 2015-05-12 at 3.28.36 PM

Bootstrap3. – Because we know that we take gambles on technology and they have an impact. On you. And that is serious business. We take it seriously as evidenced by our decision to shut down Windows in line with Microsoft’s EOL policies. These are hard choices. Crucial Conversations. We’re the messenger.

And we CARE about YOU. Our clients. The future is bright. We picked our technology future amazingly well. Too well, so now perhaps our problems is more one of resources. And we’ll work through that.

Thank you. If I can leave you with one thought – it is this. THANK YOU! For those who stuck with us, WOW, um… our position for search and the future is crazy good. Open Source means freedom. Results mean donations and sales. Software means sustainable business models.

We appreciate you. Yes closure for some was hard. We wish you the best. We appreciated your time with us while it lasted longer than a Honda. As some depart and some charge forward, I’m especially excited about those who chose to charge forward.

We, you and us, we didn’t “guess” right. We did our homework and validation came ironically on April 21, the same day mobilegeddon hit and our Tendenci 6 clients jumped up in the search rankings. Luck? Hard work? I don’t know.

What do I know? I know how to serve. I serve y’all.

#peace

Ed

 

Upgrade to the Latest: Tendenci OSS v15.3.5 on GitHub

tendenci v15.3.5

Tendenci OSS v15.3.5 Released – July 3, 2025
We’re excited to share the latest updates in Tendenci OSS version 15.3.5! This release brings improvements to newsletters, donations, memberships, events, and more. Here’s a quick overview:

Newsletter Enhancements

  1. Admin backend now makes newsletters searchable.
  2. Cloned newsletters now automatically assign an owner.
  3. Newsletter generator updated to toggle group vs. members-only views.

Donations & Payments

  1. Updated donation form for a cleaner, consistent design.
  2. Combined ā€œdonate to entityā€ and preset amounts into a single list.
  3. Added regional tax options.
  4. New setting to specify required fields on donations.

Membership Updates

  1. Corporate membership add/edit forms refreshed.
  2. Exports now include membership type and profile names.
  3. Membership auto-renewal fixes to prevent missing numbers or duplicate entries.
  4. Added 20 new UD fields for corporate membership applications.

Event & Directory Improvements

  1. Converted datetime spans to semantic time elements in event views.
  2. Added registration_open filter for event lists.
  3. Committees settings added for root URLs and labels.
  4. Directory pricing now supports label fields.

Other Enhancements

  1. Staff access added to report links in the top menu.
  2. Invoice view now shows ā€œbill to companyā€ for corporate memberships.
  3. File add process now waits for required fields before blocking UI.
  4. Other small fixes and performance improvements.

This update v15.3.5 continues our focus on improving usability, reporting, and data management for Tendenci users. Special thanks to JennyQ for maintaining and safeguarding the software for over 15 years, and to all other contributors for their valuable work.
Woof! šŸ¾šŸ¤“šŸ©µ

BECAUSE PER USER AND ADMIN PRICING ENCOURAGES YOU NOT TO GROW YOUR ORGANIZATION

Ed Schipul and Tendenci

At Tendenci we don’t believe in charging by the user or admin. Tendenci is built on the concept of distributed authoring. There are multiple people on your board and many committee chairs. Shouldn’t each leader in your organization have the ability to post their own articles and manage their own events? Certainly! This sets us apart from other AMS options in the market, as we do not charge any admin or user fees because we want you to grow.

Leverage Tendenci, the only Open Source software solution that enables you to populate your CRM with prospective members, industry contacts, supporting partners, and existing members without worrying. Achieve maximum engagement through your Tendenci website, which offers affordable and transparent AMS options – specifically tailored for Non-Profits and Associations around the world.

Read more here: āž”ļø https://www.linkedin.com/company/60615/admin/feed/posts/

Tendenci Clients Doing Good – Hong Kong Response to Mask Ban – Baker Institute

To stop the spread of misinformation, you need actual information, intelligence, subject matter expertise combined with critical thinking. Do that and the result in knowledge. Hence it makes our team happy, not taking a position either way, but to see that our software can facilitate dialog about tech from silicon valley to human rights issues in Hong Kong.

We are the paper the newspaper gets printed on. Some stories need to be talked about in a safe place without the influence of Facebook or Google or Twitter, etc. One of those clients is The James Baker Institute for Public Policy. This post was automatically blocked by our firewalls for a number of IP addresses, I can only assume because of it being a hot topic.

https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/hong-kong-mask-ban/

While I have not read the report in its entirety, it is interesting to see that it IS still possible to have a place on the Internet, free of trolls, where actual thoughts can bubble up, and freedom can be expressed.

The PDF is available at https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/3db31746/bi-report-121819-china-maskban.pdf

Score one for open source, freedom of speech and freedom in general.

blog.tendenci.com

Tendenci OSS joins new Stripe Partner Program

Tendenci Open Source AMS joins new Stripe Partner Program to bring more commerce online and increase the GDP of the Internet!

Tendenci – The Open Source AMS,​ an internationalĀ Open Source provider of Association Management Software‘ to global organizations (languages),​ today announced that it has joined the Stripe Partner Program as aĀ Verified AMS Open Source Stripe Payment Partner.

With only 3% of GDP online, Stripe’s goal of the program is to increase internet commerce by helping NGOs and companies start, run, and scale their businesses.

Read More!

tendenci with Stripe for all of your payment processes
ā€œWe’re thrilled to be one of the first to join Stripe’s Partner Program,ā€ said ​Ed Schipul, Founder and CEO a​t Tendenci​ – The Open Source AMS.

https://blog.tendenci.com

Tendenci AMS API Integration

Python Rules

OCT 2023 UPDATE: For information on accessing Tendenci data via API please see our GitHub discussion at https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci/issues/1023

For more on The Open Source AMS integration via API visit our AMS API Helpfile

Tendenci – the Open Source AMS is unique in that it is fully open source. However at times people would prefer to use an API to pull specific information. For that Django has several API integrations for your Association Management System such as:

django-tasty-pie is a REST based API to your AMS
https://github.com/django-tastypie/django-tastypie
The Django Rest Framework is also something the Tendenci community has been discussing switching to it as well.
http://www.django-rest-framework.org/

API’s aren’t mutually exclusive after all, right? You have options.

There are legitimate reasons to use an API. Examples include integration between a legacy mainframe system, ecommerce, or a development team that has chosen a different platform such as .NET or PHP.

Tendenci doesn’t meet all of the functional requirements for everyone by design. Instead we work with great technology like machine learning. The open AMS community isn’t focused on reinventing the wheel. It just doesn’t make economic sense for a non-profit, or even a for profit company, to reinvent Amazon.com or Ebay.com. This is particularly true if you are causes-based association or non-profit given the expense.

Does Tendenci AMS work with other providers? Absolutely. Any provider with an API or that supports SSO or RSS or has their own technology like google tag manager.

Non profits don’t have money to waste. Therefore we aligned our product to major industry supported technology.

Our technology stack as of 2018 is:

  1. Tendenci
  2. Django Web Framework
  3. Javascript and jquery
  4. Bootstrap CS
  5. Python Programming Language
  6. Postgres Database with GIS
  7. Docker Containers
  8. Ubuntu

For more on The Open Source AMS integration via API visit our AMS API Helpfile or read up on everything Tendenci Works With. Or if you aren’t into open source, there are definitely alternatives to Tendenci.

If you do pick an alternative, we suggest you consider Security FIRST and go from there.

What a DDoS attack to an Association Looks Like

The following graphs show what a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on an association looks like. The names, rates and volume of the association have been blurred for security reasons. We are thankful to AWS for their own defenses in front of ours, whichĀ  help us mitigate these issues.

responding to ddos attacks as best we can
active response to mitigate attacks

Note: TheĀ  graphic above, is filtered for a 24 hour span for one client. The infrastructure is in place, and highly redundant, so we can monitor and keep our clients safe. For clients in the US or hosted in other countries (we have multiple Tendenci clouds as needed.)

Note 2: Make no mistake –Ā If a bad-actor has the budget – they can and will purchase enough bots to take a site down. This is well documented. Even our resources at AWS are limited in what they can handle. Budget (yes BUDGET) accordingly.Ā