Gene Austin

My “batteries” are almost back to 100 percent after the Convio Summit. What a fantastic week with our clients and partners. I mentioned in my “chat” with the crowd at the opening session that the innovation in the Convio client base is 10x what it was just a few years ago. Our clients are truly setting the pace for how the NP sector is engaging supporters and constituents in new ways. On NonprofitLive.TV I was asked to look into my crystal ball and tell the world what things look like in 5 years. I gave the best answer I could, but frankly, it is impossible to see that far ahead. Just comparing the work of our clients and partners at our Innovator Awards ceremony from two years ago is an apples to oranges comparison. They have embraced our Open strategy, our knowledge of the web and partnered with us on best practices and they still want more, which we intend to deliver. They have committed teams that are using the medium to motivate and drive passion out of their constituents that we haven’t seen before.

I am sure at the end of 2009 glasses of bubbly will be raised across our market in hopes that the tough times are in the rear view mirror and that 2010 will provide a return to growth in philanthropy. And yet, while times have been tough from a monetary standpoint, the Convio client and partner base has in many ways made 2009 a great year.

As we conclude our 10th Anniversary, I want to thank our clients, partners and the nonprofit community as a whole for your support, insight and acceptance of Convio - it has led to our mutual success. On behalf of the entire Convio family – thank you!

We recently celebrated the first birthday of the Connection Café blog. When we launched the blog, we committed in the very first post to "writing about the issues you care about and the topics that can help you succeed online." Based on the exceptional month-over-month growth in visitors and steady stream of insightful comments, our team of bloggers has been successful – and the future is even more exciting. While the blog is not about us, I did want to publicly thank our team for their commitment to providing the market with insight, ideas and lessons learned, for having the courage to share some of the mistakes made and for celebrating the success of our clients and partners. As CEO I get to brag about our people, so I wanted to make sure you saw this story in Social Computing Magazine about Connection Café.

Having just returned from AFP International conference, I had the opportunity to talk with executives and other professionals in the nonprofit arena about integrating offline and online channels, engaging donors in more compelling ways and to share ideas and listen to concerns about the ever changing world of social media.

In both the for-profit and nonprofit world, executives spend some of their time (ok, maybe much of it) worrying about the image and reputation of their organization. Like many of you, I was excited about the prospect of our blog but anxious about the "what ifs." Our talented team, solid strategy and collaborative and open community of readers helped overcome that quickly.

To many this brave new world of user generated content is cause for concern - concern about the potential loss of control or a fear that employees will spend more time in the virtual world than in their real jobs. I think every executive feels anxiousness at some level or another (see "My Boss Doesn’t Get It" post). I can tell you that based on my experience, that of the clients I talk to and that we have worked with, the value of embracing social media and user generated content far out ways the risk at this point in time. And, while nonprofits are still in the early stages of harnessing this world to drive revenue, the value from an awareness and branding perspective is clear. The ability to move passionate people to take action with and for nonprofits is steadily growing. And I promise we’re here to help you embrace it.

As I mentioned earlier the future is very exciting. Today, new technologies and applications are aligning around people and ideas like never before. Be it out of necessity from the economic situation or simply because people are looking for better more efficient ways to use technology to support their mission, I find that people and organizations are more open to innovation and new ideas than ever before. I ask you to share your ideas, tell us what you want to hear more about and engage in the conversation. We’re here – ready to listen, to share and to discuss the people, ideas and technology that are fueling the industry we serve.

Thank you for a great first year!

From the time we first decided to go forward with our Charter Program for Project Aikido, we’ve spent a great deal of time here at Convio deciding on a significant and meaningful name for our new and first-of-its kind Constituent Relationship Management offering. This new solution has the potential to change the nonprofit space as we currently know it by providing a simple way to access constituent data, a single view of all online and offline information and new levels of flexibility and immediacy never before available to the nonprofit sector. We wanted a name that reflected these novel ideas and the fact that this new product breaks through the boundaries of traditional donor management. 

As we researched the various options, one thing became very clear: all organizations want a common ground on which they can work to further their missions.

And so I’m pleased to announce Convio Common Ground ™ as the official name of our new CRM offering. To us, this represents:

• The “common ground” of an open platform versus a proprietary system. We believe an Open platform invites more innovation and more opportunities for nonprofits to make the CRM their own.
• The “common ground” of a solution supported by hundreds of partners and add-on apps versus a single vendor. No vendor can serve all needs, so we believe in working with an ecosystem of experts that can help clients be successful and further improve the product to meet each organization’s unique needs.
• The “common ground” of understanding the full constituent relationship versus just a small slice. Donors are just one slice of your organization and the value of building a central bank of information within your organization for all program functions and constituent development is key to your efficiency and success.

Common Ground will offer nonprofits the choice to adopt an actual open, Web-based CRM solution tailored to the unique needs of nonprofits rather than an older on-premise choice best known for being a “cost of doing business” than a tool for enhancing relationships and driving results. By harnessing the Force.com platform, Common Ground will also allow nonprofits to collaborate in real time and access salesforce.com’s AppExchange. Innovation will come to you not only by Convio, but a whole community of providers focused on the same thing, giving you more choice in deploying solutions. This new approach can help you reduce costs, raise more funds and understand your supporters like never before. That’s common ground that we all share.

Two years ago we embarked on a research project with hundreds of clients and non-clients alike to look at how the market has evolved and what nonprofits expected as the 21st Century was unfolding. The strategy and creativity of our clients, combined with our pioneering products that empower nonprofits to use the Internet to drive results, was clearly providing new and innovative ways for nonprofits to engage  constituents.  While it is clear the world is evolving, you told us time and again that you wished that your donor management systems would evolve as well. In short, nonprofits want a modern constituent management system that encompasses all the media that their constituents are involved with – the Web, direct marketing, events, social media and other channels.

The feedback is clear - the traditional, proprietary, on-premise donor database vendors have created a system in which the value proposition is backward. Donor management systems have become a “cost of doing business” versus an engagement mechanism to help you truly build and manage relationships.

Today, working with the Force.com platform from salesforce.com, our clients, partners and the market, we introduced the Charter Program for a new constituent relationship management system that recognizes today’s world and tomorrow’s promise. Code-named Aikido, this modern offering recognizes several key elements we heard from the market:
1)    constituent management is a multi-channel endeavor,
2)    organizations are managing more constituencies and channels than ever before,
3)    nonprofits need more openness from their donor database/constituent management systems so that they integrate easily with leading online constituent relationship management tools like Convio’s, 
4)    nonprofits need affordable, full-featured solutions that have a pricing structure that matches their operational needs, and
5)    organizations need scalability and flexibility, while at the same time reducing the IT costs, burdens and headaches of the legacy approach.

The Aikido project not only delivers on those needs, it expands the choice and options for the nonprofit community. Because we have developed Aikido on top of the Force.com platform, clients will be able to access one of the technology industry's largest networks of developers and consultants to help you create and deliver business applications that meet your needs.  Combined with the expertise and experience of Convio, the nonprofits we serve and the community of Convio Fusion Partners and salesforce.com developers, the Aikido project makes it easier to translate your ideas and needs into deployed applications in less time. We think our approach, which puts you in control, is the right move for the world we live in.

The Aikido Charter Program represents the latest in innovative ideas and technologies that is changing the way nonprofits access, share and derive value from their most important constituent information regardless of the channel in which the interaction occurs. We believe this is a milestone day for the industry. We invite you to learn more by signing up for updates on the Charter Program and Aikido at http://www.convio.com/crm.

We look forward to sharing more as we proceed and as always, we welcome your feedback and insight.

Gene

I too am at the NTEN conference this week and yesterday Fred Waugh and I slipped away to go visit a new client of Convio’s, The National World War II Museum. Frankly, I was blown away at both what they have amassed (a C-47 hanging from the ceiling in the main entrance as one example) and their vision for the future. Stephen Watson, COO, and Paul Parrie, Director of IT,  hosted us and gave me some insight into their vision of the future. While there certainly are statistics, tanks, weapons, and jeeps galore, the main theme of the museum is to remember what arguably was the most important event in the last several hundred years.

The youngest vet from WWII is now 81 and many of them are at the museum for first hand accounts of their missions and memories. The team at the museum is dedicated to making sure that we never lose sight of why WWII needed to take place and how a country that was fresh off of a recession had to amass the spirit and commitment to take on such a daunting task. This was a war that involved little debate, but nevertheless it was one that taxed our country beyond belief. What is particularly exciting about their vision is how focused they are on the generations behind us Boomers. They really want young people (all of you non-boomers!) to understand the commitment, leadership and sacrifice a country made in a truly world struggle.

The Museum is in the midst of a $300M capital campaign to expand their footprint in the Museum district in New Orleans. They are building a theatre where a 25 minute movie (executive producer Tom Hanks) will depict key events of the time complete with a Stalag tower and dropping temperatures and snow for the Battle of the Bulge. Since Katrina, their visits are down 40% but beginning to re-build. Needless to say,they could use our support and it is worth every penny.