Convio Launches New Online Fundraising Solution That Changes the Landscape of Internet Fundraising

Convio5 Represents Major Innovation; Lets Nonprofits Create Highly Customized, Campaign-Specific Fundraising Programs

Ausin, Texas (February 15, 2006) —

Convio, Inc. today announced release of Convio5, making online fundraising for nonprofits easier and more effective than it has ever been. Convio5 sets a new standard for online fundraising solutions because it gives nonprofits an unprecedented level of power, flexibility and confidence in creating effective online fundraising campaigns that accelerate giving and enhance the online donor experience.

Convio is the leading provider of on-demand software and services to help nonprofits use the Internet for building strong constituent relationships and driving support. The company developed Convio5 based on lessons learned over the years from working with customers that collectively have used the Internet to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. Through focus groups and one-on-one interviews, Convio's 500-plus customers have provided extensive input about what today's nonprofits need to optimize their use of the Internet to support integrated marketing and fundraising.

Convio5 enables groups to move beyond the "one-size-fits-all" online donation process. Nonprofits now can quickly build customized, campaign-specific online donation forms instead of relying on third-party technical assistance from their technology vendors or pre-configured templates that cannot be altered which, to date, has been the industry standard. With Convio5, nonprofit professionals can easily modify donation forms to best meet the needs of different types of fundraising campaigns, such as running an annual pledge drive or capital campaign, or quickly creating a micro-site to drive giving in response to a natural disaster.

"In developing Convio5, it is impressive that Convio proactively sought feedback from the nonprofit marketplace and incorporated critical online fundraising functionality that's important to any organization," said Michal Heiplik, Database Administrator, HoustonPBS. "With more fundraising options available to us and the ability to easily create customized, donor-oriented donation forms, HoustonPBS now will truly be able to drive the online donation process and take our online fundraising to a new level."

More Effective Online Fundraising

Convio's new offering is based on the fact that the Internet has emerged as a primary channel for giving to nonprofits. The surge in online giving — fed in part by the unprecedented response to natural disasters including the late 2004 tsunami and last year's Gulf Coast hurricanes — has placed new demands on the Internet tools used by nonprofits. Organizations need to get online campaigns up and running quickly and tailor the Web experience to the needs of specific donor groups. Prior to Convio5, Internet tools did not provide the power and flexibility nonprofits must have to react quickly and target campaigns in this new era of heightened donor expectations.

Convio5 allows nonprofits to maximize giving because they can, without the delays and costs of tapping a vendor, independently employ more sophisticated fundraising techniques and create campaigns that are most suitable for their organizations' objectives. With Convio5, nonprofits now have significantly increased flexibility to build more effective donation forms and campaigns, including options such as changing language, adding questions, customizing branding and design, changing the order of donation fields, choosing single versus multi-page forms, etc.

Convio5's flexibility enables unprecedented online capabilities for organizations, including the ability to:

• Create different donation forms to test which form drives the most giving. At the same time, an organization can track which promotions for a fundraising campaign (e.g., Yahoo! banner ad, email, search engine key word, etc.) are driving the most donations.

• Quickly and easily build micro-sites around fundraising themes or specific, time-based events. An animal welfare group, for instance, could produce and utilize different micro-sites specific to dog owners or cat owners. The same group could instantaneously build and deploy a campaign specific micro-site in response to a natural disaster to drive online giving and support relief efforts. This would include specific landing pages, branding, a customized donation form and auto-responder thank you messaging.

• Incorporate different branding to match a specific campaign, event, affiliate or institution. A large, multi-affiliate organization, for example, could customize online donation forms that match the individual brands of its chapters, while a university could customize capital campaigns to match the brands of different schools across campus. Or, a cause-based group can brand fundraising campaigns that are specific to a particular issue.

• Increase giving and donor satisfaction by allowing constituents to choose a giving option most comfortable to them within the context of a specific campaign, such as automatic bank withdrawals for monthly giving or installment payments for a large donation.

Although every nonprofit and fundraising campaign is different, Convio developed the latest version of its offering recognizing that successful online fundraising programs also share common characteristics. Convio5 features built-in best practices and provides a starting point for any fundraising campaign with a collection of pre-configured donation form templates, which organizations can immediately use or modify as needed. The market-leading fundraising solution also incorporates proven online fundraising techniques in areas such as testing, data capture and viral marketing.

"Convio5 is the new gold standard in online fundraising best practices," said Gene Austin, CEO, Convio. "It is a distillation of what we've learned over the years in working with hundreds of nonprofits, including that organizations have diverse needs when it comes to fundraising and each group has to be able to create the types of campaigns it needs, when it needs them, and in a cost-effective manner. No other vendor serving the nonprofit marketplace gives customers this degree of power and independence in creating online fundraising programs that will deliver strong results."

About Convio

Convio is the leading provider of on-demand software and services to help nonprofits use the Internet strategically to build strong relationships with constituents for driving fundraising, advocacy and other forms of support. Convio has online solutions for fundraising, advocacy, Web content management, event fundraising, ecommerce and email communications. All solutions include the Constituent360™ platform, a sophisticated, online marketing database that centralizes constituent data and integrates with offline databases.

Convio has been named 2005 "Private Company of the Year" by the Austin Business Journal. In addition to HoustonPBS, the company's clients include American Red Cross, American Diabetes Association, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, AVON Foundation, Easter Seals, Farm Aid, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, National Trust For Historic Preservation, Ronald McDonald House Charities, The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and Thirteen/WNET New York. For more information, please visit www.convio.com. 

Press Contact:
Karoline McLaughlin
Director, Corporate Communications
Convio, Inc.
kmclaughlin@convio.com
512-652-7865