Convio MultiCenter Provides Multi-Affiliate Nonprofits with Big Picture View of Organization

Nonprofits Can Now Plan and Brand Nationally, and Execute Campaigns Locally

Austin, Texas (October 20, 2008) —

Convio, Inc. today announced the availability of industry-leading MultiCenter functionality for nonprofit organizations that operate on a “federated” or chapter or affiliate model. MultiCenter solves the most common challenges of federated organizations by making it easy for chapters to coordinate and share data and best practices across the organization. In addition, MultiCenter makes it easy to build and manage micro-sites that map to an organization's most popular programs, while still providing a holistic view of constituent interactions across all sites.

"MultiCenter allows us to run an ever-changing set of decentralized programs while using a centralized data repository," said Dave Simon, IT Director for Sierra Club. "It reduces manpower at the central level and empowers local organizers, without compromising marketing and constituent contact policies. Chapters are empowered to conduct local programs, supported by a system that helps National headquarters ensure that overall marketing and constituent contact policies are followed and that best practices are shared across the organization."

With MultiCenter it is now much easier for “centers” across a nonprofit to:

• Manage their own data, campaigns, and constituent relationships without assistance from an administrator from the organization's headquarters.
• Share constituent records, campaigns, content and branding across the entire organization.
• Roll up for aggregate reporting so that a central administrator can see, at a glance, how the organization is doing as a whole.

Constituents Empowered as Well as Nonprofit

With MultiCenter, the benefits for constituents are equally valuable. Constituents of multi-affiliate organizations have more control over their experience than ever before. For example, with a single click, they can opt out of email communications from specific Centers while remaining opted in to national communications or visa versa.

Additional new features in MultiCenter include:

• The ability to automatically add contacts to specific Centers according to geographic location (ZIP code).
• Affiliate codes so that constituents can be assigned to a specific Center as their primary affiliation.
• Expanded permissions providing national, regional and local administrators with view-only access to multiple reports.
• Ability to assign each Center a unique web address so that all constituent relationship management pages are clearly identified as belonging to that Center.

Nonprofit organizations with a national presence and regional and local chapters that provide services to their immediate area and rely on local support have unique challenges. These nonprofits need a technology solution that can help manage the constituent experience, while respecting the autonomy of each affiliate.

Integration with Convio Common Ground™ Provides Unprecedented Constituent Management

In addition to the benefits for overall marketing and branding, constituent contact policies and sharing of best practices, when combined with Common Ground, Convio’s new constituent relationship management (CRM) product, organizations can now manage all of their National and  affiliate or Center data more simply and securely regardless of the channel in which the interaction takes place.  Common Ground can be customized for multi-affiliate organizations to respect autonomous data sharing rules, administrator permissions, reports and list segmentation based on the unique needs and choices of each organization.  With automated integration between MultiCenter and Common Ground, these organizations have a simple, single point of integration to keep both systems in sync.

Support for multi-affiliate organizations in Common Ground includes:

• Flexible list sharing permissions to protect affiliate autonomy.
• Aggregate reporting analysis to monitor cross-organizational results.
• Automated integration with Convio MultiCenter for all constituent and transactional data.

“Being the technology provider of choice for 25 of the 50 largest nonprofit organizations in the United States has allowed us to work closely with them to develop solutions to their most pressing communications, constituent relationship management and online fundraising and advocacy challenges,” said Gene Austin, CEO of Convio. “MultiCenter offers a powerful, intuitive solution for federated organizations wishing to run multiple, independent units from within the same Convio site. When combined with Common Ground, nonprofits have a simple, flexible enterprise-scale solution that can adapt to the unique needs of each organization. Our experience combined with input from clients and the power and scalability of our Software-as-a-Service model makes us uniquely positioned to provide this technology solution.”

For more information on MultiCenter visit www.convio.com/di to download the fact sheet.

About Convio

Convio is the leading provider of on-demand constituent relationship management (CRM) software and services that give nonprofit organizations a better way to inspire and mobilize people to support their organization. The company’s online marketing suite offers integrated software for fundraising, advocacy, events, email marketing and web content management, and its Convio Common Ground™ CRM system helps organizations efficiently track and manage all interactions with supporters. All Convio products are delivered through the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model and are backed by a portfolio of best-in-class consulting and support services and a network of partners who provide value-added services and applications focused on the unique needs of nonprofit organizations.

Convio clients include nonprofit organizations, Institutions of Higher Education, Associations and Faith-based organizations around the world such as American Red Cross, American Diabetes Association, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Humane Society of the United States, Easter Seals, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure

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