2010 Convio Innovator Awards

Overview

Convio's annual Innovator Awards celebrate clients who exemplify the effective use of Convio and the Internet to build constituent relationships and to realize results in fundraising, advocacy and communications. Awards are presented in 13 categories, and the winners will be announced at the 2010 Convio Summit, October 25-27 in Baltimore.  

Nominations are closed for 2010.

Judging Criterion

The factors we consider in our judging process include: the organization's size and sector, the degree to which the organization has had outside assistance, the level of creativity, screen shots provided with the submission, the overall quality and thoroughness of the submission, and the results the organization achieved.

To help you with this year's submissions, view last year's award winners.

Innovator Awards Categories

Best Email Communications (newsletters and other email engagement techniques)
Are you proud of your email communications program? Are you doing something really creative to keep your constituents engaged? Are you using personalization, conditional content and segmentation in a strategic fashion? Do you get great feedback on your e-newsletters or other communiqués from constituents? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Please send copies of your best emails and share some of your key statistics with us.

Best Integrated Marketing Campaign
Do you have an integrated marketing strategy that involves cross-functional teams and uses both online and offline channels for maximum engagement? Are you building awareness and seeing fundraising results when you have email, direct mail, telemarketing, social media, video etc. working together? Share with us how you’ve successfully navigated the challenges of integrated marketing, and please include creative samples, response metrics, and the planning process steps required to meet your goal.

Best List Growth
Have you achieved strong email list growth since you launched on Convio/GetActive? Have you primarily used organic techniques to build your file or relied on appends? Share with us the key statistics about how your email file has grown either since launch or over a period that you wish to highlight. Please articulate the techniques and campaigns that you deployed to grow your list. Include screen shots and email examples to help illustrate the story.

Best Website (using Convio CMS or Pagebuilder)
Are you using Convio/GetActive to power your whole or a majority of your website? Do your constituents keep coming back to your site and spend a long time on it? Does your site inspire constituents to take action, donate and share their email address with you? We’d love to hear from you. Please send screen shots of your site and key pages. Share with us key stats that help tell the story about the success of your site (e.g. conversion rate of unique visitors to registrants, average duration on site etc.).

Best Online Fundraising Campaign or Program
Have you achieved strong online fundraising success through a single campaign or your program as a whole? Please share the details of your campaign or program including funds raised online, online fundraising growth and other key metrics that you think are important. Please also discuss the key elements that you believe account for the success of your campaign or program, e.g. creative strategy, use of micro-sites, viral elements etc. Please send in screen shots of any key emails, micro-sites or landing pages.

Best Advocacy Campaign or Program
Have you used online advocacy to change legislation, energize your constituents, or to dramatically build your list? Are you proud of a campaign that you run or your program as a whole? Please share details with us including key online metrics like response rate and viral forward rate achieved along with the most important creative elements of the campaign or program.

Best Special Events Fundraising (TeamRaiser™)
Do you manage a-thon style events using Convio TeamRaiser? Have you boosted participation and total funds raised since deploying Convio? Have you used Convio Online Marketing to build loyalty with your event participants and ensure they come back the next year? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Please share key metrics from your events fundraising program – total number of participants, growth in annual participation, total dollars raised online, percentage of total dollars raised online, growth in online fundraising, growth in total event funds raised. Please also share snapshots of some of the key tactics you are using to drive results online.

Best Peer-to-Peer Fundraising (Empowering constituents using Convio’s Personal Fundraising or Personal Events)
Are you tapping into the power of your constituents to raise funds, drive support and put a personal face on your organization by providing them with peer-to-peer outreach/fundraising tools like Personal Fundraising or Personal Events? Share with us how you are empowering your supporters to raise money and awareness on your behalf. This category of marketing and fundraising is very new, so we’re looking for interesting launches and pilots, as well as early results. Please also share screen shots, URLs and any other elements that you feel are important to tell the story.

Best Use of New Media (Social/Mobile)
If you can tweet, text or blog in your sleep, and have a killer communications strategy that includes social networks and/or mobile that is moving the needle for your organization, then we want to hear from YOU! This category showcases organizations that are pushing the limits by giving supporters new engagement options through mobile or social applications such as blogs, communities, Facebook, Twitter, custom social networks built specifically for your organization or customized social extensions and applications integrated into Convio. Show the nonprofit community how you are creating value through embracing new media!

Best Use of Convio Open
Have you built a nifty registration or donation form using one of Convio’s APIs? Are you using Convio data, pulled using an API, to create a cool mash-up to inspire your constituents to take action? We’d love to hear about your success in driving new levels of engagement using custom built constituent experiences based on our APIs. Please share the concepts, graphics, and results that prove you have made the best use of Convio Open.

Common Ground CRM Visionary
You’ve been working hard, successfully consolidating dozens of spreadsheets, address books and random custom databases into Common Ground. And now, you’ve got a 360° view of your constituent relationships.  But you’re not done yet. You want to have more staff using the database on a regular basis; you want everyone’s email correspondence tracked back in Common Ground; you want to integrate your Accounting system, HR systems, phone systems and more.  You’re drinking the Kool-Aid and you have a vision for what’s possible.  Whether you’re in the “vision” stage or you’ve “been there, done that”, we want to hear about it. And guess what — so do others.

Applying CRM to Manage Your Mission
You’ve got important projects to share; you’re helping shelter the homeless, cure disease, care for the suffering, advocate for an important cause or distribute goods to the impoverished. And, you’re using the Salesforce.com platform to help manage your mission. Thousands of nonprofits are using the Salesforce CRM platform, which Common Ground is built upon, to help manage their mission with custom applications or products installed from the AppExchange.  Please tell us your story, share how your nonprofit is operating more efficiently, with less technology to burden you and more data to inform your important work. How are you managing your mission with the Salesforce CRM?

Best Overall Use of Convio
This is a special award for the one organization that truly exemplifies the effective use of Convio across modules and Convio Online Marketing facets. The winning organization uses multiple Convio modules successfully and in concert, personifies excellence in Convio Online Marketing strategy implementation and has realized very strong overall program results.