2009 Convio Innovator Award Winners and Notables

The Convio Innovator Awards recognize clients who have shown innovation and achievement through the use of Convio’s online software and services to better engage supporters to help fulfill their missions. The following are award winners and notable mentions by category. The award recipients were recognized during a ceremony at the Convio Summit, the company’s annual conference where more than 650 nonprofit clients, partners and industry thought leaders gathered as a community to share common experiences and effective strategies for nonprofits. To see all of the activity coming from the 2009 Convio Summit, check out www.convio.com/connect.

Winners by Category

Advocacy Campaign or Program
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the largest animal rights organization in the world, was presented with an Innovator Award for their compelling use of Convio solutions to educate and advocate for an end to the annual Canadian seal hunt with Vancouver hosting the 2010 Olympic Games www.olympicshame2010.com. The campaign successfully leverages petitions and action alerts, email, online advertising, an interactive micro-site, the use of compelling video, social media, billboards and demonstrations, and as a result, over half a million people have taken action online.

Best use of Open
Insight for Living, the Bible-teaching radio ministry of Chuck Swindoll, received an Innovator Award for their innovative use of a donation form widget built into the web page wrapper to boost their year-end fundraising campaign. This method provided supporters with an easy and streamlined way to donate online without leaving the page they visited. Being one of the first among faith-based nonprofit organizations to leverage the Donations API, Insight for Living was able to integrate their fundraising efforts to other branded offline and online efforts.

Constituent Empowerment
Jumpstart, an organization that brings college students and community volunteers together with preschool children for yearlong, individualized tutoring and mentoring, was presented with an Innovator Award for its Read for the Record campaign. This annual, international campaign brings preschool children together with valued grownups in their lives to read the same book on the same day, in communities worldwide. Jumpstart’s online campaign engaged constituents worldwide and empowered them to reach out to their own personal networks to promote participation. The campaign’s virtual book drive has raised $130,000 over the past two years; and the 1,000,000 participants in this year’s reading campaign was a dramatic increase from the 78,000 participants during its first year.

CRM Visionary with Common Ground™
Second Harvest Heartland, the Upper Midwest’s largest hunger-relief organization, was presented with an Innovator Award for their pioneering spirit and vision to utilize online constituent relationship management (CRM) solutions to consolidate data and to track and manage all of the relationships that are critical to fulfill their mission. The organization plans to manage everything from food and money donations to sponsor and volunteer information as well as its food distribution network. By being able to track all of this data in one system will help the organization know where its services are most needed across the 59 counties they serve, and will be vital for reporting back to donors and government agencies. Second Harvest Heartland partnered with Astadia to implement Common Ground.

Email Communications
The Canadian Cancer Society, Ontario Division, a provincial division of the national community-based organization of volunteers, whose mission is the eradication of cancer and the enhancement of the quality of life of people living with cancer, was presented with an Innovator Award for their communications to promote the organization’s 2009 Relay For Life events. Canadian Cancer Society used Convio functionality to send email strategically for recruiting past Relay For Life participants, converting past donors into participants, and increasing overall participation, fundraising, and retention of the current year’s participants. Canadian Cancer Society, Ontario Division partnered with Charity Dynamics to develop its communications strategy.

List Growth
California State Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting, enhancing and advocating for California's magnificent state parks, was presented with an Innovator Award for their online campaign against cutting the budget for California’s state parks by $70 million. Within four months of launching the online campaign, the organization tripled its email file, adding an average of almost 30,000 email addresses per month. The online campaign was mounted in early 2009 in response to the California governor’s proposed budget cuts that would force the closure of 220 state parks. California State Parks Foundation partnered with Adams Hussey & Associates to launch their multi-channel strategy to raise awareness around the impending state park closures.

Online Fundraising
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a nonprofit organization that promotes healthy, plant-based diets for disease prevention and modern, nonanimal methods in medical education and research, received an Innovator Award for their use of Convio Online Marketing solutions to develop a year-end giving campaign that combined an advocacy component and a matching gift challenge. As a result of the campaign, over 900 gifts generated a 300 percent increase over the previous year’s online campaign. PCRM Foundation partnered with Lautman Maska Neill & Company to develop the campaign.

Best Overall Use of Convio
World Wildlife Fund, the world’s leading conservation organization, received an Innovator Award for their use of Convio Online Marketing suite to improve fundraising, advocacy, email capabilities and website management. By customizing content based on constituents' interests and past actions, integrating offline and online campaigns, and launching multi-series email campaigns, response rates have increased by as much as 40 percent and online revenue has jumped by nearly 80 percent.

Special Events
The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center and San Francisco AIDS Foundation received an Innovator Award for their creation of AIDS/LifeCycle, a seven-day bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles that raises money and awareness for HIV and AIDS services. Using Convio TeamRaiser™, the two organizations were able to mobilize volunteers and give registrants the ability to use the web, email and tap into their online social networks such as Facebook to connect with friends and family to support their event participation.

Website
Jewish National Fund, a global environmental leader working to care for the land of Israel, received an Innovator Award for their strategy and development of the organization’s new website. They worked with Convio to redesign their website based on stakeholder and constituent research to create a more dynamic, personalized experience. The new site has enabled the creation of new online initiatives to improve education and awareness, while leveraging integrated fundraising tools to better engage donors and create a consistent web presence across all online properties.

Notable Mentions by Category

Advocacy Campaign or Program
NARAL Pro-Choice America, a national organization advocating for and providing comprehensive information on reproductive rights in the US, received a notable mention for their creative bumper-sticker-slogan contest during the 2008 election. Using a multi-stage approach, the organization asked supporters to submit bumper sticker slogans, and then vote on the winning slogan, as well as leveraged both Convio Surveys and text messaging to provide multiple methods for engagement. As a result, they received 6,904 submissions and 24,938 activists cast votes in the contest. The campaign also brought in more than 1,000 donations including hundreds of first-time donors, and distributed thousands of bumper stickers to pro-choice voters. NARAL Pro-Choice America partnered with M+R Strategic Services on the program.

Best use of Open
National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) provides leadership, education, advocacy, and resources to save America's diverse historic places and revitalize our communities. The organization received a notable mention for tapping into the power of Convio Open to re-launch the “This Place Matters” campaign with a more innovative and engaging approach. By utilizing Convio APIs that tie Google and Flickr into the organization’s Convio online database, enabled the Trust to seamlessly capture constituent data in its online marketing system while dynamically displaying user generated content on the group’s website. Additionally, the API allowed the Trust to develop a dynamic and engaging conversation with its constituents rather than rely on one-way email or website communications. NTHP partnered with Charity Dynamics on the campaign.

Constituent Empowerment
Operation Smile, an organization that provides free surgeries to repair cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities for children around the globe received a notable mention for their successful use of Personal Fundraising pages and social media. Operation Smile encourages supporters to launch their own OneSmile fundraising webpage and gives them the tools to fundraise on the organization's behalf. By following best practices that advise people to personalize their page with photos and a message, setting goals and encouraging friends and family to contribute has resulted in 540 personal fundraising pages that have raised a significant amount of money. The organization also launched a Twitter exclusive campaign called 140smiles to raise funds and to raise awareness among a younger audience.

CRM Visionary with Common Ground™
Colorectal Cancer Coalition (C3), an organization whose mission is to win the fight against colorectal cancer through research, empowerment and access, received a notable mention for its vision and adoption of constituent relationship management (CRM). C3 has harnessed CRM and now has an integrated view of all of their data and can track every interaction they have with internal staff, donors, patients, advocates, and other key constituent groups. By using Common Ground as the database of record everything is connected because of its pre-built integration with Google Apps and Convio Online Marketing. C3 partnered with Idealist Consulting to deploy Common Ground.

Email Communications
Yellowstone Park Foundation works in cooperation with the National Park Service to fund projects and programs that protect, preserve, and enhance the natural and cultural resources and the visitor experience of Yellowstone, received a notable mention for their monthly newsletter. The organization had never communicated with their supporters online prior to joining the Convio Go! Program, and they needed regular online stewardship communications to compliment their offline programs and to reach next-generation donors. Yellowstone Park Foundation relied on a best practices model to launch their monthly eNewsletter, and rather than getting caught up in the nuances of visual design and wireframe structure from day-one, they focused instead on consistent execution, subject line variety and quality of article content. In addition, they incorporate podcasts, Flickr photo albums, and a variety of other media to make their monthly communications as engaging as possible. The organization has maintained an open rate of more than 30 percent while growing their subscriber base by more than 60 percent.

List Growth
Christians United for Israel (CUFI), whose purpose is to provide a national association through which every pro-Israel church, parachurch organization, ministry or individual in America can speak and act with one voice in support of Israel in matters related to Biblical issues, received a notable mention for their successful housefile building that went beyond an email appeal. CUFI designed a campaign in order to capture more signers to the pledge to Stand for Israel prior to the organization's testimony to Congress. CUFI utilized Convio Rewards to track when a current user had friends fulfill signing the Pledge to Stand with Israel and when they reached the goal of five friends having signed the pledge; they qualified to receive a free copy of David Brog’s (Executive Director of CUFI) book, Standing With Israel. The campaign resulted in CUFI bringing over 110,000 names to Congress on March 24th more than 35,000 above their goal, and the campaign has continued on since then to surpass over 165,000 pledge signers.

Online Fundraising
Defenders of Wildlife, an organization dedicated to the preservation of all wild animals and native plants in their natural community, received a notable mention for their multi-channel fundraising efforts to raise awareness of a vice presidential candidate's record on aerial wolf hunting. The team formulated a campaign to run TV ads highlighting the candidate’s record across the country and in battleground states, and asking members to support the campaign with a contribution. Defenders of Wildlife raised $1.3 million online and $150,000 via phone operations over September and October 2008 from six emails, website promotion, heavy blog postings, and online and offline media hits. In addition to being the most successful 2008 fundraising effort, this campaign also generated a significant number of major donors.

Best Overall Use of Convio
Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, the global leader of the breast cancer movement, received a notable mention for their initiative to strengthen the branding and online presence of their Affiliate network. The organization uses Convio MultiCenter as the foundation for their affiliates to easily coordinate and share data and best practices across the organization. This enables the organization to build and manage micro-sites that map to an affiliate's most popular programs, while still providing a holistic view of constituent interactions across all sites.

Special Events
The YAI Central Park Challenge is a community walk/run/play event held in New York City to raise funds and awareness for people with disabilities. This year, with the help of Charity Dynamics, the event launched in the face of economic uncertainty where traditional corporate sponsorships decreased. The organization needed to rely more heavily on peer-to-peer fundraising and participant recruiting. Additionally, YAI took the opportunity to more deeply involve participants in the overall organization and mission of YAI through social networking and personal stories of hope.

Website
Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), whose mission is working toward the preservation of the most historic Civil War battlefield sites received a notable mention for their website redesign to drive membership for the organization. As a result, changes were made to optimize the website such as moving the newsletter registration box to a more prominent spot on the main page so that CWPT can continue to communicate with prospective members about the importance of their mission. The new site has impacted the civil war enthusiast experience and has provided more ways for the organization to engage constituents. The redesign has resulted in setting record numbers for site visitation and the time visitors are spending on the site has increased more than 40 percent. CWPT worked with Threespot on the design of their site.