Convio’s Common Ground takes donor management to the cloud with Force.com

What’s the fastest way to build a new cloud computing solution? Convio, which uses the power of the Internet to help nonprofits reach more people and raise more money to support their missions, recently asked itself just that. With its initial online fundraising, advocacy and email marketing products—built with Oracle and Java—the company pioneered cloud computing for the nonprofit sector. When Convio wanted to add a CRM system to help nonprofits use donor information more effectively to raise money and advance their missions, the company decided to use Force.com. “We launched Convio Common Ground™ CRM in 2008,” says Tom Krackeler, vice president of the Common Ground division, “Using Force.com was common sense.”

An uncommon business

Convio was formed in 1999, when cloud computing was still in its infancy. Company founder Vinay Bhagat, an experienced software executive, clearly saw how the Internet could support scalable, highly accessible, distributed service delivery. When he wanted to build a solution to help nonprofits more efficiently and effectively manage their donor relationships, he immediately decided on a cloud computing model.
 

Bhagat’s choice was a great match for the nonprofit industry. Many leading nonprofit organizations have a national footprint and need to coordinate operations on both a national and a local level. With cloud computing, it’s easy to roll out centralized services to many offices—with different computer systems—without a lot of staff and overhead. The subscription-based cost model also has lower up-front costs and less risk, which works well for the nonprofit business model.
 

Convio’s first offerings took advantage of everything the cloud has to offer. The company’s online fundraising, advocacy and email marketing tools can be easily configured and rolled out to chapter offices without hardware installation and maintenance. Information is centralized in the cloud so it can be easily accessed and shared, and is always up to date.

Something in common

Convio’s early products, built with Oracle and Java, were designed to integrate with the offline donor databases typically used by nonprofits. But as Convio’s business matured, customers increasingly needed greater flexibility and integration than their existing databases offered. Most of the database products on the market suffered from inefficiency, a lack of innovation, and high maintenance costs. According to Krackeler, “Working with legacy offline databases is hard and painful.Organizations feel trapped by systems that were not built to be open or easily integrate, and didn’t anticipate the multiple channels and technologies through which constituents and organizations can now engage and build relationships.”
 

Because of the inefficiencies and challenges legacy technology was causing nonprofits, Convio decided to add a database system to its product portfolio. It considered continuing to use Oracle and Java, but quickly decided to use the Force.com cloud platform instead. “We felt the salesforce.com functionality was outstanding,” explains Krackeler, “And it met a lot of our requirements right out of the box. The rate of innovation was very fast, and salesforce.com has a lot of tools for ISVs that would let us build using rapid iteration, with low up-front costs.”
 

He continues, “Salesforce.com also has a strong commitment to nonprofits—not only through the Salesforce.com Foundation, but also through its special nonprofit pricing and the strong ecosystem of partners that can help us do nonprofit work. It was a sensible partnership that provides choice and value for the sector.”
 

Anything but commonplace

Developing a donor relationship management system with Force.com was fast and easy. According to Krackeler, “It took two people just 2 months to do a working proof of concept of our Common Ground tool. Based on that prototype, our executives felt confident making a larger investment. We grew the team to five people, and 8 months later we shipped Common Ground V1.”
 

“It would have been an order of magnitude—probably 10 times greater investment and expense—if we’d built on any other platform, including the tools we’d used before. Nothing else could come close in helping us deliver what we’re building for nonprofits—or allow us to continue to iterate so easily.”
 

Krackeler continues, “With Force.com, we were able to give customers a tool that’s better, cheaper, and more open than what they were using before. We can focus on the business logic and meeting the customer’s needs—without burdening the nonprofit with the hassles and headaches of hardware and upgrades that detract from their efforts to fulfill their mission. We’ve had four major releases so far, and are continuing to innovate.”
 

Working for the common good

The first version of Common Ground was launched in September 2008 and is the fastest-growing part of Convio’s business. Today, there are more than 200 midsize and enterprise nonprofits using it to manage constituent relationships. Common Ground’s large and diverse client base includes organizations focused on issues such as animal welfare, the environment, health, higher education, social services, international relief, and public affairs.
 

According to Krackeler, “Our numbers clearly show that nonprofits appreciate an open, cloud-based solution with a broad partner ecosystem, over a closed, client/server system in which they’re dependent on a single vendor. Flexibility and extensibility are two of the key reasons they like Common Ground—and our other products—so much.”
 

Krackeler plans to add functionality that will help users tap the power of the cloud to execute offline and multichannel campaigns, and make it even easier to connect Common Ground to more third-party products and services. He says, “Clients are giving us wonderful feedback. They’re saving money by eliminating infrastructure, training, and maintenance. Plus, they’re more efficient in the way they handle fundraising. The donor database is their primary investment, and they’re looking forward to being able to make it do even more.”

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