Convio was a software company based in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

, in the US, with offices in

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, and

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley, California, Berkeley and Oakland, California, Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisc ...

. Convio provided

internet marketing The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, publ ...

and business management applications tailored specifically for

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

s, and virtually all of its customers were charities, educational establishments, and political advocacy groups. Convio was acquired by

Blackbaud Blackbaud, Inc. is a cloud computing provider that supports nonprofits, foundations, corporations, education institutions, healthcare organizations, religious organizations, and individual change agents. Its products focus on fundraising, webs ...

in May 2012 for $325 million.

History

Convio was founded in November 1999 by Vinay Bhagat and Dave Crooke, using venture capital funding led by

Austin Ventures Austin Ventures (AV) is a private equity firm focused on venture capital and growth equity investments in business services and supply chain, financial services, new media, Internet, and information services companies nationally with a focus on ...

. The inspiration for the company was the inefficient pen and paper administration of telethons then used by

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

and NPR stations to raise funds from the public. In contrast to many of its then competitors, who focused merely on facilitating donations via credit card transactions on the internet, the vision for Convio was to empower the non-profit sector to make use of the internet by building a commoditized suite of software tools to allow charities and other

non-profit organizations A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

to cultivate relationships with their supporters and other constituents via the Internet, and with the goal that these tools could be used directly by the organizations' communications professionals, with the simplicity of desktop word processing software, rather than only being usable by webmasters and IT administrators. The original "placeholder" name of Convio was ShowSupport.com, to evoke the idea of people showing support for causes they believe in. The name "Convio" (pronounced con-VEE-oh) is false

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for "with vision" and was chosen to be abstract, short, memorable, and because the internet domain name convio.com was not previously registered. The company logo is intended to represent both a human eye for the concept of vision, and an enthusiastic

caryatid A caryatid ( ; ; ) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term ''karyatides'' literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient t ...

with upraised arms for the concept of people giving their support. Because of the high complexity of operating Internet server systems, and the relatively low levels of IT staffing that non-profit organizations can afford compared to commercial companies, Convio made the then-bold decision to be one of the first companies to operate its software products solely on its own infrastructure, a business model now known as "

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

" (SaaS). Customers of SaaS companies do not receive copies of the software to run on their own computers, but instead access the software over the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

using a

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

. In January 2007, Convio acquired GetActive Software, then the second largest

eCRM The eCRM or electronic customer relationship management encompasses all standard CRM functions with the use of the net environment i.e., intranet, extranet and internet. Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers ...

provider for non-profit organizations in the USA. GetActive Software was founded by Bill Pease, Sheeraz Haji, Tom Krackeler, Ken Leiserson and other former staff members at the Environmental Defense Fund who had been doing work within that organization to enable

internet activism Internet activism involves the use of electronic-communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen social movement , movements, the deliv ...

via the then nascent

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

. They realized that many non-profit organizations could benefit from the same technology, and set up a spin-off commercial software company to further develop and distribute it, with Environmental Defense as a shareholder. The original "placeholder" name of GetActive was Locus Pocus, a pun on the concept of using address mapping technology to connect a visitor to a web site with the political representatives for their district. Convio had its

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

on April 29, 2010 on the NASDAQ. Convio was acquired by Blackbaud in May 2012 for $325 million.

Controversy

From 2005-2007, Convio was the target of a boycott campaign led by well known left political bloggers John Aravosis and Markos Moulitsas on their respective blogs Americablog and

Daily Kos Daily Kos ( ) is a group blog and internet forum focused on the U.S. Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party and Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal American politics. The site publishes blog posts, polls, election and cam ...

because of the company's stance in serving clients with views from across the political spectrum. At least one of the blogs may have softened its stance, with the Daily Kos blog linking to political advocacy campaigns powered by Convio's software.

Acquisition

On January 17, 2012, Convio announced that it had entered into an agreement to be acquired by Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB) at a price of $16.00 per share, a 49% premium over its market price. On May 7, 2012, the acquisition was completed, and Convio became fully owned by Blackbaud.

References

External links

* {{Official, http://www.convio.com/ Companies based in Austin, Texas Customer relationship management software companies Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Defunct software companies of the United States