Purple Patch Blog

Where does the Convio acquisition leave Blackbaud users?

So, one week on from the big announcement that Blackbaud is buying Convio (see our previous post), and people everywhere have been furiously blogging and commenting about what it all means. Some are asking questions, some are showing signs of fear, and some are just plain gossiping! Here are a few we enjoyed:

• The Agitator – Any colour you like as long as it’s black
• Nonprofit Force - The Convio-Blackbaud merger - one customer's perpective
• Appichar – Blackbaud/Convio: a match made in heaven or hell?
• Event 360 – Why I’m optimistic about Blackbaud’s acquisition of Convio

What we haven’t seen so far is very much serious consideration of what it means for a charity that has a Blackbaud product right now. Here in the UK, that is predominantly The Raiser’s Edge 7, since Blackbaud’s wider range of products (such as Enterprise CRM, BBDM and eTapestry) are less well established.

At Purple Vision, we work every day with clients who use The Raiser’s Edge. Most of our team have known it for many years as client-side database managers and practicing consultants. We’ve put in a lot of hours, and we know it to be a robust, reliable and trusted fundraising database. But we also know that the foundations have started to creak of late, not only with the announcement last year that development of RE8 has been discontinued, but also with the emergence of smart new alternatives. And now that we learn Blackbaud is buying Convio, organisations that use The Raiser’s Edge will be thinking about succession planning for their CRM system. A scary thought, but one that needs to be considered by anyone who is serious about ensuring excellent stewardship as well as real efficiencies.

Although Blackbaud’s product plans are not yet known, it seems clear that they have absorbed their emerging competitor because of their technical know-how; they understand that the future of fundraising lies ‘in the cloud’. This trend is accelerating, and we think it means that RE7 could soon be retired.  That’s OK for future clients, but existing customers will need to work out how to replace it. Just think about that for a second; it’s huge!  Imagine your CRM system – not just the database, but also the people and processes behind your strategy – taken out of the equation and replaced. And think about the project that will need to be built to support the process – business case, SMT buy-in, trustee engagement and support, scoping, project team, resourcing etc., and then the migration project itself. Are you ready for that? Can you afford not to be?

We’re not trying to be alarmist. Really, we’re not!  No matter what size your organisation is, it’s daunting, but not impossible. We work with many nonprofit clients, and can think of a number with projects already underway that this will affect:

• One large charity, looking to move up from RE, is not too far down that road – luckily they can stop and reassess now – or at least pause – to see what happens.
• Another client is just setting out to integrate its website and operational database with RE. They might want to take a step back and rethink that, as the risk of building a system based on an ageing product is a significant one.

What next then, and how best to proceed? To be honest, it is too early to tell. We recommend that anyone using The Raiser’s Edge should “pull up a chair” and watch as this acquisition (still to be approved by the US authorities) unfolds. The effects on the UK charity market will be real, profound and imminent. At Purple Vision, we’ll be keeping our eyes and ears open and, as always, we will be on hand to help charities that need guidance and support. Your CRM strategy should never, ever, be just about the database. That piece of technology represents your supporter community, the very heart of your organisation. Fail to protect it at your peril!

 

Meet The Raiser’s Edge 8: It’s called Convio Common Ground

There was surprise and excitement yesterday when it was announced that US nonprofit technology leader Blackbaud will acquire rival software firm Convio. The $300million price tag represents a 49% premium over Convio’s market value, so somebody really wants to make sure the deal goes through!

Few people in the UK have even heard of Convio, which up to now has provided fundraising and CRM solutions in the US and Canada, including 29 out of the top 50 charities.  However, last year Convio acquired Baigent Digital, a leading web agency in the UK, and are expected to launch here in the next few months.

So why pay out so much cash to buy out a rival?  The simple answer is they had no choice. Blackbaud has not delivered the much vaunted upgrade to its ageing flagship CRM product, The Raiser’s Edge, whereas Convio’s Common Ground, building on the massively successful salesforce.com platform, has become the solution of choice with its modern, cloud-based software oriented to the needs of digital fundraisers and online supporters. So Blackbaud bought Convio before Convio overtook them.

“That’s a shame”, you may say, “Convio never fulfilled its destiny and usurped its rival!”  But such is the nature of public companies in the software business.  Rumour has it that this wasn’t the first time Blackbaud tried to buy Convio. When faced with an offer they can’t really refuse, boards of directors sooner or later recommend shareholders to sell. 

So, what does all this mean?  Less choice, perhaps? At the top end of the market there is keen competition for the biggest international clients, and it will be interesting to see how Convio’s new Lumimate system shapes up against Blackbaud’s EnterpriseCRM.

But what about the quiet majority – charities working hard to build positive and beneficial relationships with their supporters?  Having supported Blackbaud technologies and clients for many years, at Purple Vision we think this deal could be a good thing, and here is why: Readers of this blog may remember a few weeks ago we reported Blackbaud Marketing VP Jana Eggers explaining on YouTube how the company had abandoned development of RE8, and instead described the company’s various other tools in a kind of mix-and-match solution.  That was a sad day for Blackbaud; both the company and its many thousands of customers deserved a lot better.  But now the solution that they need may be coming their way after all. Convio’s Common Ground has been described as “Raiser’s Edge in the Cloud”.  If this turns out to be true, it could be a tremendous kick-start for digital fundraising, and a great opportunity for fundraisers everywhere.

 

The Americans are coming!

By Steve Thomas

To be precise, more Americans are coming! In the UK we already have dominant CRM solutions from Blackbaud and ASI, and soon they will be joined by US competitor Convio.

Earlier this year Convio bought Baigent Digital, the well-respected UK digital agency focusing on non-profits. Since then we haven't heard much - no doubt they are preparing their plans and products for the UK market. What can we expect when they launch here? Judging from the products and services available to US fundraisers, some very interesting things could be coming our way.

To find out more, we subscribed to Convio's US mailing list and this week a newsletter arrived about their main CRM tool, known as Common Ground. Convio products make use of the powerful SalesForce platform, and with Common Ground they claim that users get straightforward, easy-to-use tools to create, launch and manage fundraising campaigns direct to their social media sites.

A single, integrated solution delivering a true 360-degree view; all securely hosted in the cloud for a fixed monthly fee. No servers to manage, no technology snags and no integration headaches – all you need is a browser and you are away. That is quite a promise!

Watch the video for yourself here.  It lasts 6 minutes. This is a tantalising glimpse of how a CRM system should be – we look forward to seeing what it will look like when it becomes available to UK fundraisers. We’ll keep you posted – watch this space.

That was the (fundraising) week that was...

by Dawn Varley (@nfpdawnv)

Sunday evening, and thinking about the new week ahead... Or rather, I should be but I feel I've only just recovered from the week that just was. Don't get me wrong, it was a fabulous week as I spent a full three days at the Institute of Fundraising National Convention, with over 2,000 other fundraisers, talking about all things fundraising (or rather, not quite all things fundraising*). But all the listening, pondering, agreeing, questioning, tweeting (I made it into the top 10 tweeters - 2 months ago I didn't even see why I should be on twitter...), networking, 'small world-ing' and more meant it took its toll on mind and body. So, if you didn't make it, or indeed even if you did, I've shared some learnings below that I hope will make you think - as they did me. And read on after that for how the week ended!

• Ken Burnett, Alan Clayton & Giles Pegram CBE (fundraising royalty - shouldn't be allowed in the same room at the same time) held an amazing 'pull no punches' session entitled 'Think BIG!' in which they told us all that 'fundraising is [currently] a very shallow profession'; that we have sub-contracted out talking to our donors; and that we should stop apologising for fundraising'. WOW. Alan Clayton encouraged us all to be a lion/lioness fundraiser, who isn't afraid to roar - and who certainly doesn't move around every 18 months. Fundraisers need to 1) Make Decisions; 2) Commit yourself; and 3) Invest long-term. A lot of what was said I fully agreed with, and look forward to roaring re fundraising strategy very soon.
• A session on 'Naked ROI' (no disrobing involved) looked at the oft-talked of, and little understood/defined, 'Lifetime Value' (LTV). John Baguley (IFC) and Charlie Keep (Freedom from Torture) gave a brilliant session on understanding the value of your donors (financial and non-financial, as campaigning/event activity counts!) , what is important and what not (organisation dependant) and how to calculate it. The maths blew the mind a tad, but real food for thought and a great reminder that to work all this magic you need good data, which requires a decent CRM system, and required joined up thinking with your fundraising strategy. Easy then...
• Two great sessions came from different angles on the new fundraising buzz phrase in town 'crowd-sourcing'. Nick Burne from Think, Ed Whiting from WeDidThis.org.uk, and Tamasine Johnson from the National Trust's 'MyFarm' project were out and proud about it, and Tamasine was especially honest about what has (as yet) failed to translate into a real success for the NT (a foray into social media, and on a topic which has done more to alter perceptions of the NT than raise money - Ken Burnett would call that a fail, as per the 'Think BIG!' session). Ultimately crowd-sourcing (or crowd funding) means going to wider public to support/fund/power projects and make them happen. This is micro-projects with people power, vs mega-projects run by organisations. Interesting take on things, but I may be with Ken on the effectiveness of it vs 'traditional fundraising'. Depends on how you value engagement in your LTV model perhaps (see what I did there?)
• The next day AJ Leon (LaC Project), a 'rogue fundraiser' from the US, held a session about 'unfundraising'. This quickly unfolded to me as a very closely related cousin to the 'crowd-funding' theme stated above - by involving & inspiring others to be evangelical about your project, spread the word, etc they then do the fundraising for you. The idea works on a micro-project model, reports in real time from the projects concerned (a $100 'back alley' phone was handed to village resident so he could blog - he did, and it so worked), and allows supporters to sign-up to a project and be part of a project community. Hmm, I see how it works, I see how it inspires, and I see how small projects are easy to move - but that vs the experience of organisations who have been doing this for years, with the infrastructure, the experience and the ability to get economies of scale? I think my gut tells me to stick with the old school method, in terms of maximising beneficiary reach. But if you're talking engagement and empowerment of supporters, then I guess you go the other way. Interesting indeed, in terms of what social media means for fundraising.
• The last session to mention here was from another fundraising guru, Adrian Sargeant, and Jen Shang ('Professor of Philanthropic Psychology' - only in America!), about using psychology in fundraising asks. So you call up to join/make a donation and you are told 'Mary joined last week and gave $300' - in the hope that this will make you up your game against a simple 'how much would you like to donate'. And it did increase uplift, giving an average gift of $112 against the no-prompt control of less than $100...But at what cost to the donors self-esteem? Maybe I'm a sensitive soul, but would it be better to let the donor decide rather than make them feel bad about not being able to give $300? Discuss. Prompts, communities ('symbolic social identity') and smilies (male response rates saw significant increase when a row of 'smilies' lasered on response form. No such uplift for the ladies!) all figured in this interesting, but to me, slightly manipulative, session. But hey, I'm sure you're just going to tell me that's what fundraising is all about...

* So, great convention. Lots learned, lots to consider and lots to take back to the office. BUT. One thing really stood out to me - and it's the * bit. Whilst fundraising was considered from almost every angle, what seemed lacking across all three days was time dedicated to the systems that underpin matters under discussion. Technology didn't get a look in, aside from social media and fundraising software/methods such as online & SMS. What about where your donor data resides? Does your CRM reflect your fundraising stategy? How do you tie all the streams of donor info together? Etc, etc. Still waiting for sessions on the above. Maybe next year. In fact maybe Purple Vision should start writing the session pitch right now.

To see how it all unfolded this year search for #iofnc on twitter.

Oh, and as for how the week ended after 3 full days of fundraising at the start... with the News of the World implosion - and subsequent offer to charities for free advertising space and/or donations of revneue to 'good causes'. How's that for a trustee challenge, ethical-dilemma, short-term gain vs long-term reputation, fundraising question? And with a response required in 24 hours. Twitter and online debate forums lit up like Christmas trees. Brilliant, but exhausting.

You simply can't take the fun out of fundraising. Love it.

Iris – The Next Generation (and no Klingons in sight!)

The IRIS NFP World conference this month was the Launchpad for software vendor Iris NFP to finally unveil its new-look range of CRM systems for non-profit organisations. And they look good, with potential to challenge strongly in the middle and upper end of the market. On the other hand, the cost to upgrade could prove to be too high for many existing users.

Having spent several years buying up various smaller developers, Iris has finally settled on a three pronged strategy. For the medium to large charity there will be IntegraNG and CareNG. Integra will deliver membership functionality with Care having a stronger focus on fundraising. Meanwhile, for smaller organisations who don’t have such complex requirements (or big budgets), there is Donor Strategy, which comes in various versions for charities, membership organisations and schools.

There has been much speculation about if and when Iris would choose to bring together its two main products in a single technology platform, and now we have the answer: the new NG product range is an updated version of the Iris Care. This decision is not a surprise since Care is already a more modern and flexible solution than the ageing Integra. So now, although they are the same behind the scenes, the two NG systems sport different features, depending on whether you are looking for charity functionality (donations, sponsor me, legacies, financial processing) or membership tools (CPD, subscriptions, examinations).

As many Iris customers know, support has been a problem in the past 12 months or so. The scale and simplicity of a single technology base and a vendor committed to development and support is an encouraging step forward. Martin Carter, the new Head of Support for IRIS, said he has been hiring staff and building capacity so that there is now a single integrated team handling queries for all of their products. Let’s hope things continue to improve. If you are an Iris user please let us know if you’re feeling the benefit of these changes yet?

For anyone interested in the technology, Iris has selected the latest implementation of Microsoft’s .NET framework – version 4. The NG software should be easily accessible via web services, which means that other developers, in particular web developers, should be able to access the data in the NG system and integrate it with a wide range of third party applications. Interestingly, by shifting further towards .NET Iris has followed their rival Blackbaud who announced their commitment to the same technology (their so-called Infinity Platform) back in 2009. However, don’t assume that the gap is as great as it may sound, because Iris has the advantage of many years of Care development in earlier versions of .NET, and Blackbaud has been slow to bring to market the new version of its market-leading product, The Raiser’s Edge.

So, this all sounds like good news. Iris has got its act together and the playing field has been levelled for anyone considering a new CRM system. But what about the options if you already have the current versions of Care and Integra? Happily, there is no charge to adopt the new versions of the software – they come for free, as long as you are up to date with Iris’s annual licensing and support scheme. However, the process of upgrading will not be free, with various costs (and risks) associated with planning and managing the migration to a new system. The migration path will be much easier for existing Care clients as they are already familiar with the .NET framework. For Integra users, it will be a much steeper learning curve, with a lot of work to translate, import and restructure. Estimates for the amount of consultancy time needed to upgrade start at around 30 days for smaller implementations, which is not a low cost upgrade!

With all the operational changes and retraining, for many users this will feel like an entirely new system, with all the associated headaches (and the benefits of course)! This may not be an entirely attractive prospect, but ultimately you have no choice! Iris has announced that their current products will be supported until 2015, but after that they plan to progressively withdraw support from the old Care and Integra, with clients expected to move across the new platform.

Overall, we think this is a welcome development. Iris NFP has staked its future on NG, which appears to be a much better product with vital improvements to integration and flexibility. New customers have an good option and existing customers can lok forward to the prospect of significant enhancements. We look forward to seeing the products in more detail and we will keep you posted here.

What is the point of the Single Supporter View?

At the IoF IT Group Conference yesterday, I was involved in a discussion on the "single supporter view". As the debate progressed, it became apparent that some people were talking about IT and database intergaration, whist others were re-examining the concept itself.

Especially in light of new ideas in online fundraising based aroud social networks, I wonder if the accepted wisdom of the centralisation of data, also known as the 360-degree view, is still valid?

Are you in favour or not? And what's the point of it anyway?

To prompt discussion, I've created a LinkedIn poll. Please cast your vote at:
http://polls.linkedin.com/p/38072/pkouv

And/or simply post your thoughts here ...

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck … it must be The Raiser’s Edge!

The Raiser’s Edge version 8 revolution is coming (in 2010 we hear).

Using an all-new ‘Infinity’ platform based on Microsoft’s .net technology, Blackbaud’s flagship product will be transformed into an open and accessible tool that integrates with a growing range of third party solutions, especially online tools.

When (and if) existing users choose to accept the upgrade to version 8 they will automatically adopt the new technology, but to ease this transition it will be built to look and feel (and quack) much like the current beloved product.

But the big change comes for larger players. The same Infinity platform will be used for a new product called Enterprise CRM. This will enable Blackbaud customers to mix and match different solutions to suit the needs of the whole organisation – including back office, local branches, head office, web, service delivery, marketing – all in one joined up architecture.

This is important because it takes a big step towards the holy grail of the 360-degree customer view and total relationship management. In future, you will be able to look at an individual and see not only their recent donations and communications preferences but also their history of services used, online interaction and any other relevant links to your organisation.

Our sources at Blackbaud liken their new technology to lego!  Buy the simple model and it comes out just like the picture on the box; buy the big kit and you can build it the way you want.  Crucially, it all fits together all the time.

“Bring it on” I hear you cry!  But Blackbaud are not planning to launch these new products until they have credible anchor clients up and running successfully.  We have all read that Oxford University is the first high profile early adopter, and we hear that others are likely to be announced in the next few weeks.