Establishing a Common Ground in CRM for Nonprofits
Posted by: Gene Austin on July 22, 2008 at 3:08PM EST
From the time we first decided to go forward with our Charter Program for Project Aikido, we’ve spent a great deal of time here at Convio deciding on a significant and meaningful name for our new and first-of-its kind Constituent Relationship Management offering. This new solution has the potential to change the nonprofit space as we currently know it by providing a simple way to access constituent data, a single view of all online and offline information and new levels of flexibility and immediacy never before available to the nonprofit sector. We wanted a name that reflected these novel ideas and the fact that this new product breaks through the boundaries of traditional donor management.
As we researched the various options, one thing became very clear: all organizations want a common ground on which they can work to further their missions.
And so I’m pleased to announce Convio Common Ground ™ as the official name of our new CRM offering. To us, this represents:
The “common ground” of an open platform versus a proprietary system. We believe an Open platform invites more innovation and more opportunities for nonprofits to make the CRM their own.
The “common ground” of a solution supported by hundreds of partners and add-on apps versus a single vendor. No vendor can serve all needs, so we believe in working with an ecosystem of experts that can help clients be successful and further improve the product to meet each organization’s unique needs.
The “common ground” of understanding the full constituent relationship versus just a small slice. Donors are just one slice of your organization and the value of building a central bank of information within your organization for all program functions and constituent development is key to your efficiency and success.
Common Ground will offer nonprofits the choice to adopt an actual open, Web-based CRM solution tailored to the unique needs of nonprofits rather than an older on-premise choice best known for being a “cost of doing business” than a tool for enhancing relationships and driving results. By harnessing the Force.com platform, Common Ground will also allow nonprofits to collaborate in real time and access salesforce.com’s AppExchange. Innovation will come to you not only by Convio, but a whole community of providers focused on the same thing, giving you more choice in deploying solutions. This new approach can help you reduce costs, raise more funds and understand your supporters like never before. That’s common ground that we all share.
