Convio's New Vote-Driven Action System Enables Nonprofits to More Effectively Drive Grassroots Activism and Influence Public Policy

New Tools Are Latest Addition to Convio's Market-Leading Advocacy Solution for Building Strong, Sustainable Relationships with Activists

Austin, Texas (March 8, 2005) —

Convio, Inc. today announced release of significantly enhanced online advocacy tools, including a new vote-driven action system to generate higher grassroots response and more effectively influence public policy. Developed in collaboration with several of the nation's leading advocacy groups, these tools let organizations leverage federal legislators' voting records to wage more targeted campaigns, raising the bar for online advocacy solutions.

Convio is the leading provider of software and services to help organizations use the Internet for building constituent relationships and driving support. The company's enhanced advocacy tools are the latest addition to Convio^® Advocacy Center (www.convio.com/votebased), a complete online constituent relationship management (eCRM) solution for advocacy. Convio Advocacy allows nonprofits, associations, and other organizations to move from a transactional approach to advocacy to one based on developing strong, sustainable relationships with constituents. Strong relationships, in turn, produce a higher campaign response and foster loyalty.

Citizens for Global Solutions is one of many leading organizations utilizing Convio's eCRM solution for advocacy.

"We continue to be very impressed by Convio's unique approach to the nonprofit marketplace and the level of collaboration the company provides us, no matter how far we try to push the envelope with new projects," said Valerie Schrock, Advocacy Director, Citizens for Global Solutions. "By listening to the needs of organizations like ours and incorporating this feedback into its advocacy solution, Convio has helped pave the way for nonprofits to achieve greater success in their online advocacy efforts and, ultimately, more effectively accomplish their overall missions."

Other advocacy groups using Convio include: American Diabetes Association, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence United with the Million Mom March, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, Families USA, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, The Ocean Conservancy and World Vision.

Online advocacy refers to an organization's use of the Internet to encourage supporters to issue calls to action targeting public policy makers. While asking a constituent to send his or her legislator an email, letter or fax regarding specific issues is important, this is only one component of a comprehensive online advocacy strategy. Just as important is engaging activists in an ongoing dialogue with an organization, converting them into more loyal, long-term supporters. By doing so, organizations can leverage online advocates for fundraising, volunteering, and other forms of participation.

"Our new advocacy solution includes innovations based on best practices from some of today's most successful organizations when it comes to using the Internet to influence public policy," said Gene Austin, CEO of Convio. "One of these innovations is a vote-driven action system which lets an organization automatically target constituents with messages based on the voting records of their legislators. No other product on the market provides this capability. Our advocacy solution has always been very strong and these enhancements leave competitive products even further behind."

New Convio Advocacy Tools

Convio Advocacy Center now includes a comprehensive database of the voting history for each U.S. Senator and Representative. A vote-driven action system uses this data to automatically drive messaging to constituents based on legislators' voting records. With the Convio system, an advocacy organization can:

• Hold lawmakers to a higher level of accountability through close monitoring of their performance on Capitol Hill. Constituents now can track how their lawmakers have voted and/or affected pending legislation through other actions that influence public policy outcomes. These actions include adding amendments to proposed bills to block passage or change the nature of the legislation, or using parliamentary procedure to end debate and take an immediate vote (cloture).

• Highly customize each constituent's online experience so he or she is fully informed about his or her lawmaker's record and is motivated to take action. Each constituent visiting the group's Web site or receiving email communications, including action alerts, sees content specifically about his or her legislators. This could include "scorecards" that rate a legislator on his voting and parliamentary procedure history—on all or just selected issues.

• Tightly target specific groups of constituents to drive specific actions. An organization can simultaneously deliver different information and calls-to-action--on its Web site and in email communications--to different groups of constituents depending on how their legislators voted. With the ability to set this up on a vote-by-vote basis, an organization has an unprecedented level of control over the messages delivered and who receives them.

More on Convio Advocacy Center
Convio Advocacy Center was developed from the ground up as a complete system for managing relationships online with activists. In contrast, most competitive offerings are "single-point" solutions for performing specific tasks such as sending emails to lawmakers.

With Convio Advocacy Center, a nonprofit can use the Internet to gather information about constituents - such as their interests and history with the organization - and then leverage that knowledge to communicate in a personalized and highly targeted way to drive participation. The solution includes tools for:

• Recruiting activists using Web sites and email (such as eCards and Tell-a-Friend emails).
• Profiling activists through online surveys and behavior tracking.
• Enabling activists to communicate to targets via email, Web forms, fax and letters.
• Measuring and building loyalty through rewards programs, personalized issue pages and other methods.

Advocacy Center is part of Convio's integrated software suite which also includes solutions for fundraising, special events, email marketing and Web site management. All Convio solutions include functionality that allows a nonprofit to build sustainable relationships with constituents so they will support the organization through various forms of participation.

For more information on Convio's enhanced online advocacy tools, please visit www.convio.com/votebased.

About Convio

Convio is the leading provider of 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 and membership, advocacy, special events, volunteer fundraising, Web site management and email communications. All solutions include the Constituent360™ platform, a sophisticated, online marketing database that centralizes constituent data and integrates with offline database.

In addition to working with many of the nation's most influential advocacy groups, Convio's clients include AVON Foundation, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Easter Seals, Farm Aid, Georgetown University, KCET Community Television of Southern California, National Trust For Historic Preservation and The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. For more information, please visit www.convio.com.

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