Need Support Services

[hopkinsa]

We are a set of neighborhood organizations within a community. We are considering purchasing vBulletin to set-up communication tools for 90,000. We envision this as a tool to reinvigorate local "grass roots" democracy within the community.

We are envisioning 3 hierarchical layers (precinct, neighborhood, community-wide). We would like each neighborhood and each precinct to have some control over their individual "look and feel."

We are looking for a "service" that is affordable, who could assist with the initial setup (including database design), and then "administer" the technical issues. We are expecting that after setup this would involve approx 8 hours per month.

We are on the west side of Los Angeles.

Questions
(1) How should we specify these services?
(2) How can we maintain affordability?
(3) How much should we be prepared to budget?

Thank you,
Arlene