2008 Convio Innovator Awards

Convio Innovator Award winners and notable mentions by category as recognized at the 2008 Convio Summit.

Innovator Award winners

Advocacy Campaign or Program
Free Press received the Innovator Award for its “Stop Big Media” campaign where the organization took on the Federal Communications Commission to change a ruling that would allow for media monopolies.  The core of the campaign harnessed a traditional online eCRM campaign targeting the Senate and House, as well as sending over 200,000 comments to the FCC. “The Wall” photo petition brought in over 5,000 activists who added their photo to the wall that was then delivered to Congress. Because of the campaign, the Senate unanimously overturned the FCC ruling.

Web site
United Nations Foundation received the Innovator Award for its Web site. A sleek new design with a rotating homepage story cube has attracted 9,000 new registrants since September. The new design offers multiple opportunities to engage viewers including online pledges, polls, quizzes, take action links and unique donation programs. The United Nations site also connects constituents with the organization’s various social media sites such as Facebook,  MySpace, blogs, YouTube, webcasts and podcasts. The United Nations Foundation parnered with Communicopia to deliver this new Web site.

Email Communications
KQED received the Innovator Award for its QED up email newsletter. With a goal to choose just five stories per newsletter to drive traffic across the entire Web site, KQED implemented the strategy to keep newsletters short and all above the fold, going against broadcasting best practices. This alteration to the newsletter style and content drove the list growth and results that are being implemented by other broadcasting stations. 

Integrated Fundraising Campaign or Program
Defenders of Wildlife received the Innovator Award for its cross-channel, calendar cover photo voting contest campaign. This campaign used an innovative approach to convert activists to first-time donors using their yearly calendar premium as both an incentive for membership and as an opportunity to solicit engagement through the voting of the photos used in the calendar. The campaign took a truly integrated approach by using both online and offline channels to promote a single action.

List Growth
National Relief Charities received the Innovator Award for its email list growth in changing their web site from a “brochure” to an interactive tool. By taking a holistic approach to building their housefile, the organization developed a multi-faceted campaign that, rather than using a one time push, focused on continued housefile growth. Integrating multiple components into the campaign – a premium (rubber magnet), survey-based pledge, branded eCards, fundraising and campaign promotional widgets, branded donation forms and rewards-based tracking and constituent feedback – National Relief Charities acquired over 1,000 email addresses per month and converted one percent to donors within six weeks.  NRC partnered with Convio Client Success Services (CSS) to deliver this increase in list growth.

Online Fundraising Campaign or Program
 Ploughshares Fund received the Innovator Award for its “Peace Primary” campaign, which tied into the launch of the 2007-2008 primary season and offered a $100,000 grant to one of 12 organizations dedicated to working to build peace, security and a nuclear weapon-free world. Constituents were allowed to vote for their favorite organization’s “peace plank” by making a donation to them via the Peace Primary site. Each dollar contribution counted as one vote, and constituents were able to promote nominees on social networks by posting buttons and banners provided by Ploughshares in these online locations. A $100,000 donation was awarded to TrueMajority, the winner of the Peace Primary, and the other participating organizations were granted the amount of money their pages raised. In turn, the campaign also helped the organizations develop online engagement tools and strategies to build an online peace community.  

Special Events Fundraising
National Philanthropic Trust received the Innovator Award for its Breast Cancer 3 Day event. After migrating to Convio for this year’s event, the organization set out to push the boundaries of Convio TeamRaiser and Personal Events tools to grow event participation, increase fundraising and improve the overall user experience. NPT, working with Event 360, helped pioneer the use of Convio’s Open APIs by creating an online event check-in process that allowed participants to review their registration and fundraising information, watch and instructional video and take a safety quiz in preparation for the event. Participants could also commit to complete their fundraising if they did not meet the minimum requirement before the event. In addition to the unique use of Convio TeamRasier and APIs, NPT was also an early adopter and innovative user of the Personal Events module which has allowed event participants to host and lead training walks in their areas and allow volunteers to sign up for event-day shifts. National Philanthropic Trust parnered with Event 360 to deliver this special event.

Constituent Empowerment 2.0
Children International received the Innovator Award for its LiftOne project which uses Convio TeamRaiser as a social networking tool to reach out to and recruit new children sponsors. Since its inception in 2005, Children International has grown this constituent empowerment project to 5,000 sponsors, supporting over 65,000 children worldwide.  In addition to the unique use of a peer-to-peer fundraising tool, Children International has remained dedicated to coaching their sponsors through the Web site, via video, direct dialog and social media such as Facebook and blogs to empower them to reach out to others. Children International partnered with Convio's Internet Architecture team to deliver this project.  

Best Overall Use of Convio
Trisomy 18 Foundation received the Innovator Award for the best overall use of Convio.  Using Fundraising, Tributes, TeamRaiser and Advocacy, the use of Convio is essential to the small organization’s extensive Web presence and growth and has provided the critical capacity for the organization to serve nationally.  In one year, the Trisomy 18 Foundation has tripled online donations and doubled its email housefile, averaging 400 new registrants per month.  The organization has leveraged Convio to: make frequent updates to the Web site by non-technical staff, use conditional content to customize messaging to constituents and empower constituents to create Web sites that share personal stories with friends, family and the community as part of the grieving and healing process. By using Convio to its fullest extent, Trisomy 18 Foundation has increased monthly donations from $2,000 to $10,000 and increased unique Web site visitors from 8,000 to more than 20,000 in one year. Segmentation capabilities have also helped define, build and meet the diverse needs of an ecosystem of constituents without adding personnel to the organization, and the robust use of Convio software has freed up staff resources to pursue other organizational goals.

Innovator Award notable mentions

Advocacy Campaign or Program
National Parks Conservation Association received a notable mention for the organization’s integration with Google Maps in the America’s Heritage campaign. Using an API, NPCA integrated a Google Map into their advocacy campaign to visually communicate to activists which national parks were under threat.  This direct visual connection resulted in an above average conversion rate of 25 percent for the campaign and 50 percent higher than average Tell-a-Friend activity – both of which demonstrate the direct influence of the API to directly influence constituent behavior. National Parks Conservation Association partnered with Beaconfire 360 to deliver this campaign.

American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network received a notable mention for its advocacy campaign to pass legislation in Congress to authorize the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products. The ACSCAN secured a veto-proof majority for this legislation using eCRM advocacy tools to send comments to Congress and text messaging tools to activate a broader base of support for the legislation.

Web site
Unicef United States Fund received notable mention for its beautiful and highly effective new Web site. Through implementing sophisticated use of eCommerce,  the organization was able to start its “inspired gifts” program which reaches over 150 countries where Unicef saves children’s lives, as well as use tribute cards to promote eCommerce. The Web site also took advantage of the Google Map API, allowing users to find Unicef products for sales in local areas helping the organization. Unicef also employed new data types for the new site, including conditional content for volunteers to allow access to additional content in the site and the use of remote RSS feed content to pull in information from various locations on the site.   Unicef partnered with  

Canadian Wildlife Federation received notable mention for its clean, visually appealing Web site that incorporates member and supporter photos to enhance the connection between the organization and its supporters. Launched in spring of 2008, the strong Web site contains multiple pathways to find information and offers bilingual options with online donation capabilities in French.  The organization integrated hundreds of pages of content into easy to navigate chunks of information, utilizing a number of different navigation schema to provide multiple pathways that accommodate the varying ways that different people look for information. Canadian Wildlife Federation also incorporated a change in the font size feature, print and share this page features, improved FAQs and better contact information for enhanced usability. Canadian Wildlife Federation partnered with Barton-Cotton and Convio's Internet Architecture team to deliver this new Web site.

Email Communications
Natural Resources Defense Council received notable mention for its creation of a new global newsletter. This newsletter was needed to represent multiple programs and web properties, and the end result was a readable newsletter with fresh content and remarkable design. The new creation contains two tiers of changing content plus an “evergreen” space for green living news. The new NRDC newsletter increased both readership and new audiences for the organization. Natural Resources Defense Council partnered with Northridge Interactive to deliver this new newsletter.

Integrated Fundraising Campaign or Program
Human Rights Campaign received notable mention for its “Year to Win” campaign. This campaign demonstrated an incredible message and branding discipline across several channels working collectively including online (email and the Web site), direct mail and telemarketing. The organization achieved significant year-over-year growth in the success of their membership renewal effort rates by increasing the sophistication of their online segmentation. An outstanding use of “every tool in the kit” innovative engagement strategies – including highly polished holiday eCards, email with video and a year-end push with a  “lightbox” donation appeal on the Web site homepage – helped drive online fundraising to four times that of the previous year, 2,703 new members and 6,639 renewals. Human Rights Campaign partnered with M+R Strategic Services to deliver this program.

List Growth
The Humane Society of the United States received notable mention for its LOLSeals campaign. The LOLSeals campaign leveraged a pop culture, internet phenomenon to drive constituents to upload pictures and captions of seals to Flickr. Using an API, the HSUS automated the uploading and tagging functionality of photo sharing to make the experience easier for users and capturing the email addresses of participants. This viral campaign successfully showcased the “celebrating animals” aspect of their mission for a very dire, serious issue and resulted in 3,000 LOLSeals submissions and roughly 2,000 new email addresses collected in two weeks.

Freestore Foodbank received a notable mention for its online fundraising appeal tied to the “Rubber Duck Regatta”. The organization used Convio TeamRaiser to allow supporters to purchase one duck for five dollars for the annual event where 86 thousand rubber ducks race down the Ohio River. Numerous supporters opted for the “buy 5 get 1 free” duck purchase which increased the average donation amount to 25 dollars. The campaign was run entirely by the nonprofit organization, with no consulting or virtual administrator aid from Convio, with campaign raising $64,685 and doubling its online contributions through TeamRaiser and donations campaigns from 2007 in just six months on the Convio platform.

Online Fundraising Campaign or Program
Planned Parenthood Federation of America received notable mention for its” I am Emily X” campaign. This campaign was launched in reaction to the “40 Days for Life” campaign which aimed to prevent women access to health care at PPPFA clinics. The purpose of the campaign counter campaign was to create an emotional connection to the clinic workers and engage supporters in multiple ways though five email campaigns, three pledge fulfillment emails, an I am Emily X blog and video, pledge-a-protester donation campaign, write a note to clinic workers advocacy campaign and volunteer sign-up drive. The organization also engaged supporters through Google AdWords, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and blogger outreach, with an end result of raising over $56,000 throughout the one month effort. Planned Parenthood partnered with Watershed Company to deliver this program.

Special Events Fundraising
CauseForce received notable mention for “The Ride to Conquer Cancer” campaign, an inaugural event to raise money for cancer research. This first-year event was different from any other event CauseForce a has ever organized – cycling was a new event activity for the event production company,  the $2500 fundraising minimum was higher than any of the group’s other previous events and it was marketed to a completely new target market, males and females between the ages of 25-34 with middle to high income. CauseForce used Convio TeamRaiser for registration, personal page customization, suggested fundraising and recruitment letters, blogging, up-to-the-minute top fundraising and top teams list on the Web site and auto responder messaging that encouraged higher fundraising and team building at eveyr chance. The organization recruited 2850 riders who met the $2500 fundraising minimum and raised $14 million for the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation – Canada’s most successful cycling fundraiser to date.

Project Bread received notable mention for its 40th Annual “The Walk for Hunger”. The special event engaged new users by creating a Facebook Application through Convio. Facebook users could join as fans, register for the walk, donate or make an eCommerce purchase through the application, and each action would appear in their friends’ news feeds. Project Bread also employed the use of Convio’s YouTube integration, embedding videos on the walk site to engage and inspire new donors and participants.  Though Convio TeamRaiser, the organization set a series of strategic coaching emails to help constituents use the tools most efficiently and raise more money. The Walk for Hunger raised $1.5 million online and $4 million in total, and the organization’s overall online fundraising has increased by 725 percent using Convio TeamRaiser.

Constituent Empowerment 2.0
Sierra Club received notable mention for its use of new avenues to empower constituents to invite friends and family to become involved in Sierra Club’s cause. Using the Convio Facebook Application, the organization has recruited over 2,500 Action Center members who can send Facebook gifts and invitations to friends and family. As an early adopter of Convio’s Personal Events module, it has promoted local area house patties for the Lightbulbs to Leadership campaign.  Sierra Club has also seen immense results in growing their housefile – adding over 10,000 new email addresses - through constituents forwarding Daily Green Tip emails to friends and inviting them to visit the nonprofit’s Green Life blog

Best Overall Use of Convio
ASPCA received the notable mention for the best overall use of Convio. The organization uses Convio Fundraising, eCommerce, Surveys, Advocacy, Personal Events and CMS to support its Web presence. The organization has reached out to supporters through Web 2.o sites Facebook and MySpace, where the MySpace page alone has 18,000 friends and captures 175 emails per month. The innovative approach used for prospect conversion allows the ASPCA to convert five percent of all new Web site registrants to donors with their first 12 months.  Its integrated, multi-channel acquisition program includes an email prospect conversion series and offline postal mail solicitations that have increased online fundraising by 126 percent since 2006 and an 82 percent year-over-year online average fundraising growth since 2004. Combining all the strategic uses of Convio, the ASPCA captures 28,000 names, email and postal addresses each month from online sources.  The ASPCA partnered with Convio Client Success Services (CSS) to deliver its strategic use of Convio tools.