Convio Recognizes Innovator Award Recipients at Convio Summit 2009

Eleven Nonprofit Organizations Honored for Creativity and Innovation in Online Marketing, Fundraising and Advocacy at Fourth Annual Conference

Austin, Texas (November 17, 2009) —

Convio today announced the winners of its third annual Innovator Awards as revealed at a ceremony last night at the Convio Summit, the company’s annual conference where more than 650 nonprofit clients, partners and industry thought leaders gather as a community to share common experiences and effective strategies for nonprofits. The Innovator Awards recognize clients who have shown innovation and achievement through the use of Convio’s online software and services to better engage supporters to help fulfill their missions.

"Our clients are leading the charge in embracing online technologies to create stronger relationships with their constituents and cultivate support for their missions," said Gene Austin, CEO of Convio. "Recognizing the success of our clients at Summit with our annual Innovator Award ceremony allows the entire nonprofit community to learn from each other’s unique and best-in-class strategies for fundraising, advocacy, events and managing supporter interaction."

Eleven nonprofit organizations were presented with awards and were recognized in 10 categories including: Advocacy, Best use of Open, Constituent Empowerment, CRM Visionary with Common Ground™, Email Communications, List Growth, Online Fundraising, Overall Use of Convio, Special Events and Best Website. All Convio clients were eligible to submit for the awards.   

Winners by Category

Advocacy Campaign or Program
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the largest animal rights organization in the world, was presented with an Innovator Award for their compelling use of Convio solutions to educate and advocate for an end to the annual Canadian seal hunt with Vancouver hosting the 2010 Olympic Games www.olympicshame2010.com. The campaign successfully leverages petitions and action alerts, email, online advertising, an interactive micro-site, the use of compelling video, social media, billboards and demonstrations, and as a result, over half a million people have taken action online.

Best use of Open 
Insight for Living, the Bible-teaching radio ministry of Chuck Swindoll, received an Innovator Award for their innovative use of a donation form widget built into the web page wrapper to boost their year-end fundraising campaign. This method provided supporters with an easy and streamlined way to donate online without leaving the page they visited. Being one of the first among faith-based nonprofit organizations to leverage the Donations API, Insight for Living was able to integrate their fundraising efforts to other branded offline and online efforts.

Constituent Empowerment
Jumpstart, an organization that brings college students and community volunteers together with preschool children for yearlong, individualized tutoring and mentoring, was presented with an Innovator Award for its Read for the Record campaign. This annual, international campaign brings preschool children together with valued grownups in their lives to read the same book on the same day, in communities worldwide. Jumpstart’s online campaign engaged constituents worldwide and empowered them to reach out to their own personal networks to promote participation. The campaign’s virtual book drive has raised $130,000 over the past two years; and the 1,000,000 participants in this year’s reading campaign was a dramatic increase from the 78,000 participants during its first year.

CRM Visionary with Common Ground™ 
Second Harvest Heartland, the Upper Midwest’s largest hunger-relief organization, was presented with an Innovator Award for their pioneering spirit and vision to utilize online constituent relationship management (CRM) solutions to consolidate data and to track and manage all of the relationships that are critical to fulfill their mission. The organization plans to manage everything from food and money donations to sponsor and volunteer information as well as its food distribution network. By being able to track all of this data in one system will help the organization know where its services are most needed across the 59 counties they serve, and will be vital for reporting back to donors and government agencies.

Email Communications
The Canadian Cancer Society, Ontario Division, a provincial division of the national community-based organization of volunteers, whose mission is the eradication of cancer and the enhancement of the quality of life of people living with cancer, was presented with an Innovator Award for their communications to promote the organization’s 2009 Relay For Life events. Canadian Cancer Society used Convio functionality to send email strategically for recruiting past Relay For Life participants, converting past donors into participants, and increasing overall participation, fundraising, and retention of the current year’s participants.

List Growth
California State Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting, enhancing and advocating for California's magnificent state parks, was presented with an Innovator Award for their online campaign against cutting the budget for California’s state parks by $70 million. Within four months of launching the online campaign, the organization tripled its email file, adding an average of almost 30,000 email addresses per month. The online campaign was mounted in early 2009 in response to the California governor’s proposed budget cuts that would force the closure of 220 state parks.

Online Fundraising 
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a nonprofit organization that promotes healthy, plant-based diets for disease prevention and modern, nonanimal methods in medical education and research, received an Innovator Award for their use of Convio Online Marketing solutions to develop a year-end giving campaign that combined an advocacy component and a matching gift challenge. As a result of the campaign, over 900 gifts generated a 300 percent increase over the previous year’s online campaign.  

Best Overall Use of Convio 
World Wildlife Fund, the world’s leading conservation organization, received an Innovator Award for their use of Convio Online Marketing suite to improve fundraising, advocacy, email capabilities and website management. By customizing content based on constituents' interests and past actions, integrating offline and online campaigns, and launching multi-series email campaigns, response rates have increased by as much as 40 percent and online revenue has jumped by nearly 80 percent.   

Special Events 
The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center and San Francisco AIDS Foundation received an Innovator Award for their creation of AIDS/LifeCycle, www.aidslifecycle.org a seven-day bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles that raises money and awareness for HIV and AIDS services. Using Convio TeamRaiser™, the two organizations were able to mobilize volunteers and give registrants the ability to use the web, email and tap into their online social networks such as Facebook to connect with friends and family to support their event participation.

Website
Jewish National Fund, a global environmental leader working to care for the land of Israel, received an Innovator Award for their strategy and development of the organization’s new website.   They worked with Convio to redesign their website based on stakeholder and constituent research to create a more dynamic, personalized experience. The new site has enabled the creation of new online initiatives to improve education and awareness, while leveraging integrated fundraising tools to better engage donors and create a consistent web presence across all online properties.

More information on the 2009 Summit Innovator Award Winners and Notable Mentions can be found www.convio.com/2009innovators

About Convio
Convio is passionate about helping nonprofit organizations use software and services to fulfill their missions. The company is the leading provider of online marketing, fundraising, advocacy and constituent relationship management software and services to nonprofit organizations. The company’s online marketing suite offers integrated software for fundraising, advocacy, events, email marketing and web content management, and its database system, Convio Common Ground™ CRM, helps organizations efficiently track and manage all interactions with supporters. All 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.

Nonprofit organizations used Convio to process $777 million in online donations during 2008 — a 72 percent increase over 2007. Convio clients sent more than 3.1 billion emails to constituents during that period with an industry leading deliverability rate in excess of 95 percent. Charities of all types used Convio to power more than 3,500 web domains as well as complete 44 million advocacy calls to action.
For more information, please visit www.convio.com

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