September/October 2003

Getting Constituents More Involved - What's the Secret?

by Gene Austin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Convio

At Convio, every day is focused on helping nonprofits achieve strong results with our Internet tools and services. That's why this issue of Convio Connection looks at using the Internet to get more constituents more involved in supporting your organization.

Lessons for Nonprofits from Howard Dean's Use of the Internet, discusses how a nonprofit organization -- in this case the Howard Dean for America presidential campaign -- can raise big money online and mobilize hundreds of thousands of supporters to participate in events and conduct their own online "viral" marketing campaigns. Regardless of your political affiliation or your nonprofit's mission, you can learn valuable lessons from the Dean campaign's strategy for encouraging supporters to get involved.

The Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization also saw an opportunity to increase online participation and donations, so the group added Convio TeamRaiser^TM to help manage its annual Y-ME RACE Against Breast Cancer. The case study about Y-ME shows how this powerful set of online tools, including tools for volunteer fundraising, enabled Y-ME to drive record participation and donations while reducing administrative time and costs.

Take a look, too, at a couple of new Convio tools that can help get your constituents more involved. Read about Convio Affiliates Express^TM, which allows organizations to extend Convio tools to smaller affiliates for Web site publishing and email communications while preserving the organization's brand. Then, read Loyalty Can Be Rewarding to learn how loyalty marketing techniques pioneered by consumer marketers can be powerful for nonprofits, too--especially when applied online using Convio Rewards^TM.

I trust that this issue of Convio Connection helps you to see how an investment in Internet tools can strengthen constituent involvement with your organization, and deliver high-impact results. As more people go online, it's a strategy that every nonprofit should pursue.