We are looking to 'improve' our web fundraising capabilities. The marketing department has arranged a meeting with representatives with Convio for next week. Does anyone use Convio for their website fundraising, and if so is there anything good or bad that you can share? Thanks! Martha Martha Valleriani Assistant Director of Membership The Trustees of Reservations Beverly MA [Email Removed]

This topic has been discussed via the forum before so checking the archives will help. That said, we are also in the process of translating over to Convio for both our online fundraising and our website. I would caution you to be very aware of what you're getting into. Be sure to not take everything you are being told at face value. Dig into it. Ask questions. We found several items which were not as Convio portrayed them in the initial conversations. I'd be happy to discuss it offline but you may find all the information you need by following the existing thread. If not, feel free to email me offline at [Email Removed] as this is my work email.

Definitely search the archives - I have ranted about them before. I feel the same as the last poster about them - what they say and what you get are often not the same thing - you have to push them a lot. Melissa S. Graves Director of Development Services The Village for Families and Children mgraves @ villageforchildren.org www.villageforchildren.org GET ON THE BUS! Check out what the Blackbaud User Society is talking about today at www.blackbus.org!

Last summer we decided to expand our fundraising capabilities and after investigating several vendors it came down to Convio or Net Community. We compared the two packages exhaustively and after talking to the references provided to us by both companies we decided to go with Net Community. We are just starting the implementation process. If you would like more information about the pros and cons that affected our decision, please contact me directly. Stephanie Guglielmone [Email Removed]

After an exhausting search and hearing what all of you said about the online fundraising services, we went out on our own and built our own fundraising site with credit card capabilities. We are now working on keeping the momentum with the help of a web-marketing company. We invested about $13,000 but we got everything we wanted and I'm raising about $1,800 a month online that we never got before. You should look into your own community to get what your organization needs,not just what the big companies offer. Good luck! Melissa Brown Abramson Center for Jewish Life 1425 Horsham Rd North Wales, PA 19454 www.abramsoncenter.org

Before my time, the company purchased the service and now we are currently phasing convio out, because we were paying a high price for services we were not even using, and really what you see is not what you get. So I suggest doing some research and finding a company that would tailor a package to the organization Tessa Young Database Administrator Japan Society Inc. www.japansociety.org