Jul/Aug 2009

Volunteer, Event, and Donor Data Meet on Common Ground

by Tompkins Spann, Senior Market Strategist, Convio

We’re excited to announce the general availability of Convio Common Ground™ CRM 2.0. With new features to support your volunteer jobs and gala events, Common Ground is moving nonprofits way beyond the constraints of traditional donor databases. This means that with Common Ground’s rich features for managing your donations, events, volunteers and all types of constituent relationships, your organization now has a unified, centralized database to replace all of those disconnected software products and spreadsheets that are creating duplicate records and reducing your efficiency. All new features come standard, so there’s no additional cost to take advantage. And for those that want to test before they buy, Common Ground is available as a 30-day trial by visiting www.convio.com/cgtrial.

Volunteer Management
Your volunteers are some of the most loyal supporters of your mission. With Common Ground, you’re able to track all of your constituent’s donations, interests, skills and prior interactions, helping you to identify the right individuals for the right engagement. 

• Volunteer Jobs with Multiple Shifts – Track volunteer jobs with multiple shifts, locations and required qualifications.
• Track Individual Availability and Skills – Keep track of your volunteers' schedule of availability and record appropriate skills that can be used to match them with upcoming job shifts.
• Find Available & Qualified Volunteers – Filter potential volunteers for every shift by availability or qualifications; or combine the two to quickly identify the best match for your upcoming shift.

Event Management
The Event Management features built in Common Ground provide nonprofit organizations a feature-rich solution to track invitations and sponsorships, create and assign multiple attendee levels while recording all payments, event expenses, additional donations and donated supplies in one database. 

• Detailed Event Information – Track the date, time, location, capacity, and more for every event, whether a gala or participation event (e.g. Golf Tournament). And add custom fields to supplement.
• Multiple Attendee and Sponsorship Levels – Offer multiple ticket levels for purchase based on the benefits you choose to include. Sell a VIP ticket level with a pre-event gathering, include an annual membership for another level or include multiple attendees for a group price. You control the levels and benefits.
• Expense and In-Kind Gift Tracking – Track all associated expenses, related vendors, and how much, if any, of their products/services were delivered as an in-kind gift.
• Golf Teams – Create teams and foursomes, assign start times, starting holes and golf carts, track overall scores and more.

Common Ground: One Database, Many Uses
Common Ground isn't your ordinary donor database. Yes, it can replace your donor database and support your donation management needs. But it can do more. With version 2.0, you can now manage all of your volunteer activities, event registrations and maintain a fully integrated CRM for your entire organization. We hope you’ll come and meet us on Common Ground.