Hi, I am researching developing a website for a non-profit foundation.

They have a general requirement for an internet presence, and will
also be sharing information resources and coordinating requests for
proposals in a grant-making process.

I believe that a low- to mid-range content management system would
enable them to participate in the development and maintenance of their
own site and provide the potential for cost-effective expansion in the
future.

They currently have a purely Microsoft IT infrastructure, and I would
prefer to keep complexity (i.e. other operating systems, application
servers, databases) to a minimum, so a CMS that ran with IIS and SQL
Server with a .NET extension development environment would be ideal.
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I have tried to research this question myself through searching Google
Answers and cmsinfo.org, etc., and understand a lot more about content
management systems, but I am still looking for more comparative
information about the different CMS that fit my requirements.

I am looking for a CMS that provides:
1.	Content management framework
2.	Use of templates
3.	Menu management
4.	Content editing tools through the client?s browser
5.	Modules for forums (ideally multiple), news, document download,
document upload (ideally), mailing lists, and newsletters.
6.	Multi-language content management
7.	Ability to create custom modules (ideally in Microsoft .NET languages)
8.	Runs on Microsoft Windows Server, IIS, and SQL Server.
9.	Licence costs of less than 20,000 US dollars (the smaller the
better as this is not a commercial site).

I have seen Open Source systems with most of these features but using
MySql and Apache or other alternatives, which is not a bad thing but
these are not supported in the IT environment (Plone seems to require
a fair amount of technical input, and Typo3, which looks very easy to
use, requires MySql).

I have also seen various systems that offer just content management,
without the ?community? features (Microsoft Content Management Server
and Sharepoint Portal Server seem to require a lot of integration work
and web development rather than offering an ?out-of-the-box?
solution).

I did find SiteCore (more expensive, especially when you start adding
modules) and SiteSage, which appear to meet my Microsoft and modules
criteria, and I would consider a ColdFusion-based solution as this
integrates with Microsoft SQL Server (although the ColdFusion licences
need to be considered in costing).

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So, if someone can provide a list of four to six CMS applications that
meet these criteria then I would be very grateful, especially if they
can add an opinion based on personal experience or comparative pros
and cons!
Many thanks in advance.

Use:
1 Microsoft Content Management Server Standard Edition ($7000 - but
charities will get good discount) 
http://www.microsoft.com/cmserver/default.aspx?url=/cmserver/evaluation/overview/introcmsSE

2. The CMS Wizard http://www.cms-wizard.com/ for the site 'out of the box'

Use Plone,
it is very usable and easy to learn. It is realy good for the
non-profit foundations.

I highly recomend Typo3. The Dababase Abstraction Layer is under
development, and with a donation that would approximately equal the
purchase price of the Microsoft product, you would be able to directly
fund the development of the DBAL. I think that the original estimated
cost of development of the DBAL was around 20,000 Euros, but a lot of
that has been funded in one way or another already (mostly pro-bono).
As a not-for-profit, you would be making an impact on others in your
situation by paving the way with your funding.

More importantly, you would be making the Typo3 community larger. This
will by default increase the availability of modules, tools and
developers available to you. In other words, funding Open Source
software has huge residual returns in my opinion.

Here are a couple Typo3 links of interest:

<a href="http://typo3.org/documentation/mailing-lists/dev-list-archive/">Development
List Archive... search for "dbal"</a>
<a href="http://typo3.org/documentation/mailing-lists/dev-list-archive/thread/52756/?tx_maillisttofaq_pi1%5Bsword%5D=dbal&tx_maillisttofaq_pi1%5Banswered_only%5D=0&tx_maillisttofaq_pi1%5Bmode%5D=1">Thread
on DBAL development</a>

However, there are also these possibilities:

http://www.sitecore.net/home.aspx
http://www.metaqueue.net/products/appcms.html
http://www.contentxxl.com/

...and you should of course look here:

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/matrix

--gabe