Connections : Kintera

2008 in Review

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:01:00 GMT

2008 seemed to fly by so quickly, but a lot of things happened along the way. I thought that I would pause for a moment and look back a bit before looking ahead to 2009.

Book Club Beginnings
The year started off with copies of People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities flying off the bookshelves. I took some of the concepts from my book chapter and used them in presentations throughout the year. It wasn't long before People to People Fundraising became the fastest selling book in the series published by Wiley. As the year closes out I'm working on a new book that you'll hear more about in 2009.

Have PowerPoint, Will Travel
In 2008, I did more than 20 presentations on three different continents. This included sessions at the AFP, NTEN, AMA, and AHP conferences. I also managed to speak at all five of Blackbaud's major conferences this year: The Team Approach User Forum in Boston, the Nonprofit Conference in Montréal, the Asia Pacific Customer Conference in Sydney, the Conference for Not-for-Profits in London, and the Nonprofit Conference in Charleston. Thanks to everyone that attended the sessions and I'm looking forward to some new gigs in the new year.

The Market Has Spoken
More than four years ago, when we first released Blackbaud NetCommunity, it would be fair to say that having an integrated online solution wasn't at the top of a nonprofit's needs list. At the time, getting the basics of email and donations was enough to get the ball rolling for many of these organizations. Today, having a truly integrated solution isn't optional. In 2008, Blackbaud saw a large number of nonprofits choose or move to BBNC because they now understand how important this has become to meeting their goals.

The Big Announcement
The biggest news of the nonprofit technology industry this year was Blackbaud's acquisition of Kintera. It has been great getting to know and working with the team in San Diego these past few months. I've also been able to meet a number of Sphere clients who are encouraged and excited about the where we are going together. This has also meant that Blackbaud now provides online solutions to more nonprofits than any other vendor in the market today. And we continue to invest more than anyone else in constantly improving our Internet solutions.

Social Media Jam Sessions
Last year, a few of us rogue agents did some playing around with social media tools. In 2008, a whole cadre of folks from Blackbaud started using social media to engage with our clients and the nonprofit community. From blogs to Twitter to YouTube to forums and lots more. But by far the most fun this year was doing The Baudcast. About every two weeks Chad Norman, Blackbaud's resident social media guru, would pull together some topics, some people, and then let things fly. It was a great way to talk with people from across the nonprofit world. Look for The Baudcast to get even bigger and better in 2009.

The Day Job
I travel a lot, I present a lot, and I write in between. But my actual day job over the past year has been heading up the product management team for our Internet solutions at Blackbaud. We've been very busy with a lot of improvements and updates this year. How do I make it look so easy? Simple — I work with some amazing and very talented people. I want to thank everyone for putting up with me this year and for bringing their "A" game every day. Despite all of the technology — you still need people to make the magic happen. I can't wait to see what they pull out of the hat next.

Onwards and Upwards
This was a very long year that went by very quickly. Some parts of the year seem like just a blur, and there were moments when a lot of hard work paid off. As happy as I am about what we accomplished in 2008, I'm even more excited about some of the things we have planned for 2009. I'm looking forward to working on the NTEN Board of Directors, getting a new book edited and off to the publisher, catching up with some clients and meeting new ones too, and continuing to improve our Internet solutions for the nonprofit industry. Let's see where things go...

Kintera Integration with Blackbaud Platforms

Steve MacLaughlin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:22:00 GMT

For the past few weeks our teams in San Diego and Charleston have been very busy working on integrating a variety of things. And obviously a big part of the integration effort has been around our products.

Blackbaud CTO Shaun Sullivan posted a very cool screencast that shows off Kintera integrating with The Raiser's Edge and Blackbaud Enterprise CRM. The demonstration shows the Kintera Connect API, the RE API, and the Infinity platform API all in action.

In the screencast, Shaun shows an example of constituent data from Kintera flowing into The Raiser's Edge. He also gives a little bit of a preview of how the Kintera integration to RE7 will have first-class status within the application. There is also a demo of how data from Kintera can be pulled into Blackbaud's Infinity platform.

The examples in the screencast provide some insight into the technical workings of the platforms. But they are not intended to be representations of final code or what Blackbaud intends to ultimately release to customers. We want to make sure we're managing expectations properly.

A couple of additional details around some things Shaun references in the screencast:

Blackbaud is in the process of developing a Kintera Adapter for The Raiser's Edge
The Kintera Adapter will surface as a first class area within The Raiser's Edge
Blackbaud is currently in the early stages of a pilot program for the Kintera Adapter
Blackbaud will also be extending the no license fee offer for the RE API to current Kintera customers that have The Raiser's Edge
Blackbaud plans to release an initial version of the adapter prior to the end of the year

There's been some FUD being spread out there and we felt that it was important to let customers and the nonprofit technology community know what's happening. The teams working on this project have accomplished a tremendous amount of work in a very short time. I think this is a great example of the technological horsepower that the combination of Blackbaud and Kintera's resources can generate.

I'll be posting some updates as we move through our pilot program and the general available of this offering. Stay tuned...

Blackbaud Completes Acquisition of Kintera

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Blackbaud announced today that is has completed the acquisition of Kintera. This means that we can begin moving forward on several important initiatives to better meet your needs.

When the deal was first announced we were not allowed to comment or make any further announcements according to government regulations. This meant having to be less transparent than we preferred, but those are the rules.

Now that the acquisition has formally closed there are probably a lot of questions that clients and those in the broader nonprofit community might have. Let me try to address some of the ones I've heard specifically related to our Internet products.

Will Blackbaud keep the Kintera CMS (Sphere) Product?
Yes. We will support all of Kintera's current offerings, including Sphere, FundWare, and P!N. There are several aspects of the Sphere system, in particular "Friends Asking Friends" and advocacy capabilities, which enrich Blackbaud’s drive to provide products that are ideal for nonprofit organization that are ideal for nonprofit organizations. We believe nonprofits want robust online solutions, regardless of whether or not your current CRM happens to be from Blackbaud.

Will Blackbaud keep the Kintera Connect initiative?
Yes. We will continue this program. It's been very successful, and it's a great fit with some of the Blackbaud NetCommunity API initiatives already in place. We intend to explore ways to encourage both clients and partners to develop extended functionality for our online solutions. This underscores our efforts to increase the use of our products and their ability to meet the unique needs of the nonprofit community.

Will Blackbaud integrate the Kintera CMS (Sphere) to The Raiser's Edge?
Yes. Blackbaud plans to develop an integration solution from Sphere to The Raiser's Edge that is the best in the industry. Nonprofits place a high value on having a truly integrated solution combining online and offline interactions in a single database. This is one of our highest priorities now that the acquisition is complete and will be available before the end of the calendar year.

Will Blackbaud NetCommunity continue to be offered and supported?
Yes. BBNC continues to grow extremely well. In just four years it has been chosen by more Raiser's Edge customers than any other major provider serving nonprofits today. The combined R&D resources of Kintera and Blackbaud will allow us to continue to deepen BBNC's functionality. We think there is a lot of value that clients will realize from the combined experience, knowledge, and technology we have gained from working with the more than 4,500 customers using one of our Internet solutions.

I am sure that there will be additional questions that come up as we move forward. I will continue to post relevant and important information as it becomes available. I encourage you to send questions or post comments.

Kintera Acquisition Coverage

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:15:00 GMT

Last week's announcement by Blackbaud of its plans to acquire Kintera has made a lot of headlines in the nonprofit sector. Until the deal officially closes there won't be any further comment, speculation, or news on this blog. (Sorry, I'm just playing by the Regulation FD and FTC rules.)

Instead I'll provide links to what is being reported and blogged elsewhere and will update from time to time.

Nonprofit Publications:
Blackbaud Software Company Buys a Struggling Competitor
The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Blackbaud Spends $46 Million On Kintera
The NonProfit Times

Nonprofit Blogs:
Blackbaud and Kintera: Community Roundup
NTEN Blog

Blackbaud Acquires Kintera
TechSoup Blog

What does the Kintera acquisition mean?
Blackbaud User Society (Blackbus)

More on the acquisition of Kintera by Blackbaud
Non-Profit Tech Blog

Blackbaud Acquires Kintera
Idealware Blog

Blackbaud announces acquisition of Kintera
Don't Tell the Donor Blog

Blackbaud buys Kintera
Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Blog

Blackbaud will acquire Kintera
NPAdvisors.com Blog

(Updating Periodically)

Blackbaud announces acquisition of Kintera

Steve MacLaughlin — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:20:00 GMT

A few hours ago came the official public announcement by Blackbaud of our plans to acquire Kintera. You can read the press release and corresponding details here. I am expecting a lot of speculation, blogging, tweeting, and other online opining about this announcement. But there are some different circumstances involved this time that people should understand.

Because both Blackbaud and Kintera are publicly traded companies there are very specific Federal Trade Commission rules about what can be said and done until the deal officially closes. This may take as many as 30 days and until then both companies will perform as separate units, competing with each other as they did prior to this announcement. (Who knew that Master’s thesis in Online Investor Relations would ever come in handy?)

What I can say is that this is very exciting news for many reasons including:

Blackbaud becomes the leading provider of online solutions and services to the nonprofit industry with over 4,500 clients
Both Kintera Sphere and Blackbaud NetCommunity are strong Internet solutions that largely serve very different segments, including The Raiser’s Edge, Team Approach, eTapestry, and non-Raiser’s Edge customers.
Blackbaud plans to continue to support and invest in both products.
Kintera’s other offerings, FundWare, P!N and certain capabilities within Sphere (e.g., Friends Asking Friends) are well-recognized and respected in the marketplace.

I am sure that this announcement will bring with it a lot of questions. Wherever possible we’ll try to answer them, but please understand that in certain instances that might not be permitted until the deal officially closes.

Also, I’m sure some other vendors in the market will use this as an opportunity to exploit the situation. I will let you judge for yourselves what that says about them and who really has the client’s best interests in mind.