A colleague forwarded the following email from a vendor and asked how I think a potential buyer should respond.  I’ve redacted the message to anonymize the vendor: Dear ____, I thought you might be interested in a recent analysis of low cost fundraising software, conducted jointly by independent organizations Idealware and N-TEN. If you are [...]

Tags: Donor Databases, Nonprofit Management, Nonprofit Technology, Software

Last year the big news in my industry was Blackbaud’s acquisition of Convio and the merger/acquisition of Datatel and Sungard Higher Education (now called Ellucian).  2013 is off to a bang with Accel-KKR’s acquisition of Sage’s Nonprofit Solutions Group and iModules acquisition of Harris Connect. The Sage staff I’ve talked to can’t comment publicly until [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Alumni, Databases, Donor Databases, Software

I’ve been using Tungle for years to share my calendar with colleagues and clients.  It allowed them to view my availability online and propose meetings as if we were all on the same calendaring system.  Unfortunately, RIM bought Tungle in 2011 and it started to decline.  Appointments would no longer sync reliably with Outlook, I’d [...]

Tags: Software

According to the Foundation Center’s analysis of data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics, there are approximately 1.5 million nonprofits in the U.S. According to the Q&A that Idealware conducted with Blackbaud, approximately 400 nonprofits are using the version of Common Ground that’s being killed. That’s about .026 percent of U.S. nonprofits. Obviously, if [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Databases, Donor Databases, Fundraising, Nonprofit Technology, Software

Yesterday the news was that Blackbaud had laid off 50 employees it acquired when it bought Convio in May.  In what was said to be an unrelated development, they also announced the departure of Gene Austin, the former CEO of Convio. Today the news is that Blackbaud is killing off Common Ground, one of the [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Databases, Donor Databases, Fundraising, Nonprofit Technology, Software

Blackbaud completed its purchase of Convio.  The next adventure starts today, as we wait to see what the future holds for their various systems.

Tags: Advancement Services, Databases, Donor Databases, Email Marketing, Fundraising, Nonprofit Technology, Online Fundraising, Software

The Department of Justice signed off on Blackbaud’s acquisition of Convio last week, and it looks like the deal will close this week.  This is just the beginning of the story.  I expect that it will take at least several months, and probably several years, before the dust settles and we know what’s left behind.  [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Cloud Computing, Databases, Donor Databases, Fundraising, Nonprofit Technology, Online Fundraising, Software

Google: It’s great that they keep innovating, and of course not every idea will work out.  But Google’s record of killing off products makes me nervous about my reliance on them.  Here are some defunct products I remember (and here are some I never tried. Even more. Still more.): Desktop Google search (still working if [...]

Tags: Software

Idealware is updating its 2009 report on low-cost donor databases.  If you’re a database vendor and want to be considered, fill out the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RCHJNGC  I assume their criteria will be similar to what they used last time, which was a starting cost of less than $4,250 in the first year and at least [...]

Tags: Donor Databases, Software

I get a lot of emails like the following from small nonprofits: We desperately need to get a new donor database and most of them are totally unaffordable!! Looking at the Idealware Low Cost Database report, I find that there are so many considerations that it is quite complicated to make a choice. I am [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Donor Databases, Nonprofit Technology, Software