SaaS Featured Article

Convio has launched its Aikido Charter Program for the company’s new, open, Web-based constituent relationship management (CRM) system to track all constituent interactions across all channels, both on and offline.

 

Built on Salesforce.com's (News - Alert) Force.com Platform, the product is designed to offer an on-demand solution that will easily integrate with other open systems to provide powerful tools to help nonprofits to focus on their mission, fundraising, advocacy and communications results instead of managing and maintaining software and technology.

Code-named Aikido, the product is currently deployed by selected nonprofit organizations and is expected to be generally available in the second half of 2008.

 

"Nine years ago, we pioneered the use of Software as a Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) to help nonprofits build relationships and drive results using the Internet," said Gene Austin, CEO of Convio, in a Tuesday statement. "Our clients have asked us to bring our experience and expertise to tackle the limitations, hassles and headaches of their legacy donor database systems. It became clear that the lack of innovation from vendors meant that organizations were simply paying to store and maintain information. Aikido will help them use data to raise money more effectively and advance their missions."

With this new offering, nonprofits can enjoy feature-rich donor management and gift tracking capabilities; advocacy and volunteer management features; a single view of constituents and better interaction management; a system built on an open technology platform, Force.com; a pricing structure that matches the operational needs of nonprofits; ability to reduce IT costs and burdens; and access to numerous third-party applications within salesforce.com.

Aikido Charter Program participants have the opportunity to provide feedback on the product’s functionality and usability. Members have already been involved in the testing and creation of the software. The Charter Program insight and feedback has been critical to driving the product’s initial success.

"Aikido is an affordable way for me to manage constituent relationships compared to my previous system," said Alan Graham, President and Founder, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, in Tuesday’s statement. "Being built on open technology also gives me the freedom to choose the appropriate software applications, without worrying about integration headaches."

"The flexibility of the system and the ability to customize virtually every aspect of the product is very impressive," said Rem Hoffmann, President, Exponent Partners, in the statement. Exponent Partners helps nonprofits use information technology to carry out their missions more efficiently and effectively. "When clients need or want changes, the combination of Convio's expertise, experience and the flexibility of the Force.com platform make implementing changes easy. Things that could take months with legacy donor database systems will happen when needed with this product."

Jessica Curtis, Program Manager with Science and Management of Addictions (SAMA) added in the statement, "Hosting our own database was never a viable option since our staff needs secure remote access and we simply don't have the resources to maintain it. With Aikido we don't have to worry about backups, maintenance, upgrades or IT related management, and it is availability anytime, anyplace via the Internet makes our team more productive."

"Nonprofits like the freedom to access their data through the internet, which the legacy systems were not designed to do," said Jim Gifford, CEO of NFP Technologies, in Tuesday’s statement. "Aikido is a new, affordable option that provides the functionality of legacy products, but also integrates well with other systems. Nonprofits want to use tools from multiple vendors, without having to pay extra fees for access to programming interfaces."

According to Clarence So, chief marketing officer at Salesforce.com, the design of this solution has enabled Convio to develop a cost-effective and full-featured solution tailored to the specific needs of nonprofits.

 

The Force.com Platform-as-a-Service (SaaS) provides independent software vendors (ISVs) and corporate IT departments with a comprehensive set of tools and application services to build any business application and run it in the cloud on the salesforce.com infrastructure.

 

Added Austin, "In working with our charter clients, we are seeing that the 'take it of leave it' era of the legacy donor database vendors is over."

CRM applications have long proven their value in both the commercial and nonprofit sectors as they allow the company or organization to effectively track interactions through all channels to capture information and use it to better develop products, services and relationships that will drive revenue.

Where nonprofits are concerned, the management of constituent interactions is critical as it can help to make or break the fundraising efforts of the organization. Aikido has positioned itself well in the industry, offering a program that allows information sharing to better design programs that will maximize the revenue-generating efforts within the nonprofit.