On January 17th, the nonprofit, technology, and financial communities learned that Blackbaud was beginning the steps to acquire Convio, whose board had approved the purchase.

While NTEN can't offer a crystal ball (or insider knowledge, for that matter) about the specifics of the decisions or details about products, we CAN provide a safe, un-biased platform to explore questions, concerns, and possibilities surrounding the transition and the possible impact on the wider nonprofit technology landscape.

Join NTEN's Executive Director, Holly Ross, Wednesday, January 25th, for a Community Call: "Your Perspectives on the Blackbaud and Convio Acquisition Announcement."

> RSVP for the Conference Call + Online Chat (it's free for everyone!)

You've probably heard by now that Blackbaud has announced it intends to acquire Convio in a roughly $240 million deal.

As we all learned from "The Brady Bunch", it's not the marriage that's interesting, it's what happens when the family blending begins. As Kathleen Pequeno noted today on Twitter:

Earlier this fall, Convio released its "Peer-to-Peer Event Fundraising Benchmark Study," based on a look at 48 organizations using Convio's TeamRaiser to manage fundraising events. You can find the complete study online here.

They recently released an infographic to illustrate some of the key benchmarks. Here's what stood out to me:

• On average, a participant must send 5 emails to secure 1 donation – so you'll need to encourage your individual fundraisers to send lots of email!
• Returning participants tend to raise more money than first-time participants, so Convio recommends that you make sure to reach out to former participants, even offering them special incentives. like waiving registration fees.
• Endurance type events generally raise more money overall, but non-competitive event types are great for growing your supporter base

For the infographic, click through to the full post.