Thursday morning at the Convio Client Summit in Austin, Texas, the opening session (sponsored by Care2, by the way) consisted mainly of the keynote speech by Convio CEO Gene Austin.
Some highlights…
- Austin noted that Convio now has almost 1,300 clients, after the acquisition of GetActive earlier this year. These nonprofit clients collectively have raised more than $1 billion over the years, using tools provided by Convio and GetActive, he said.
- Austin’s main themes were: Integration with GetActive; new “Open” initiative; and Convio’s upcoming IPO
I. GetActive Integration
Austin said integration is continuing. Very few GetActive clients have left, following the acquisition of GetActive. Convio has no plan to discontinue the GetActive platform. Thirty clients have transitioned so far from using GetActive to using Convio instead. Seventy such transitions are planned this year, he said. Austin identified two features of GetActive that have been added to Convio’s toolbox. They are: 1) the new CMS; and 2) the “multicenter” module tailored to confederated organizations (national groups with local chapters)
II. Convio’s new “Open” platform initiative
Austin said the “New Internet” (thanks for not using the overused phrase “Web 2.0”) requires nonprofits not to focus entirely on bringing people to the nonprofit’s site, but to expand this focus to include taking the NPO’s mission outward to other communities on the Web.
There are three main parts to Convio’s Open initiative, he said:
- API’s enabling innovation matching an NPO’s unique requirements, leveraging Convio’s eCRM platform
- Extensions enabling you to tap into social networks like Facebook
- Connectors, to third party databases such as Salesforce.com, Raiser’s Edge, Team Approach, etc.
As Austin prepared to do a live demo of Convio’s new Facebook application, he won major laughs by reading “mixed” messages from his 18-year-old son and 20-year-old daughter (both in college) expressing their mostly-appalled reactions to the fact that their dad had set up a Facebook profile and asked to be their Facebook “friends.”
As part of doing the demo of Convio’s new application, Austin noted that Convio reportedly is offering additional extensions for nonprofits to tap into audiences on Google, Flickr, Plaxo and YouTube, as well. In discussing the new Convio “connector” to Salesforce.com, Austin said it was easy to build this connector because Salesforce has published its API openly. This means that “We know how to take data from [Saleforce] and how to provide data to it,” he said.
The result is that the connector for Salesforce.com is “the strongest integration we’ve done,” he said. By contrast, Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge platform does not have a published API, he said, and this forces Convio to do more work and improvisation to achieve integration. The result is that it’s not as strong an integration, he said. Austin urged those nonprofits that use Raiser’s Edge as their donor database solution to pressure Blackbaud to publish and open up their API.
III. Convio’s Upcoming Initial Public Offering
Austin said Convio is going public in part because investors in the company have waited a long time for the “recognition and reward” that they deserve, and an IPO will create a liquidity event to make this possible. Austin said that the IPO is a milestone, to be sure, but only a step forward toward making Convio a great company.
IV. Message from Sheeraz Haji
After Austin’s presentation, the audience watched a video message from Sheeraz Haji, the outgoing president of Convio who was CEO of GetActive. Haji could not attend the event in person because his wife just gave birth to their second child, and he said he was going to be busy changing diapers.
Haji celebrated the accomplishments of the past year, which he said were:
- Bringing two great companies together
- Making Convio more “client-focused” than it’s ever been
- Launching Convio’s new partners program
- Opening up Convio’s product to make it more innovative; and
- Filing for the IPO.
So why is he leaving Convio?
“I’m looking forward to a break, and spending some time with my family, before launching a new venture,” Haji said. But he stressed that he planned to stay “engaged and connected to” Convio, noting that he will still be on the board of directors of Convio, as well as NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. Haji thanked GetActive’s clients, staff (“such a talented, committed team”) and partners.
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