[Editor's note: The following is an excerpt of an article in the December 2011 issue of NTEN:Change. Read the complete issue of NTEN's new quarterly journal for nonprofit leaders by subscribing to the journal for free!]

By Laura Quinn, Idealware

Since most organizations don’t track just one type of constituent, the idea of a single database for all of them—donors, volunteers, clients, email subscribers, advocates and everyone else—is something of a holy grail. The ability to easily see how all your constituents interact with your organization, and with each other, makes for an attractive, ideal vision of what a database should be.

In reality, a single constituent database usually means some sort of compromise.

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!)

It's been two years since we released the first Nonprofit Data Ecosystems Survey report, which provided a look at not only what particular technology tools and vendors the NTEN community uses for the different data management functions across their organization (from email to volunteers), but also the grades they assign to those tools and vendors on criteria such as after-sale support and usability. Unique about that report was that we also asked survey participants to grade their data ecosystems, which is what we call that network of tools organizations use to carry out their work.

In 2009, we learned that while respondents tended to rate individual systems as generally successful for managing specific parts of their organizational work (in the B to A range for most criteria), they graded their ecosystems as unsuccessful (generally C's and lower).

We re-visted this topic this summer for the 2011 Nonprofit Data Ecosystems survey, and are happy to release the report today (free for NTEN members).

> Find out more and get the updated report (free for NTEN Members!)

By Jason Samuels, Manager of Information Technology, National Council on Family Relations

How important is it for your conference attendees to have access to the internet? We asked this question recently on our post-conference survey and the results were overwhelming:

95.9% of NCFR Conference attendees said that having internet access is at least somewhat important.

What many of your conference attendees don’t realize is just how unaffordable it is to provide blanket wireless access on the meeting room floors at major hotels. A September 2011 industry report published by the Professional Convention Management Association found that respondents spent an average of over $7,000 on internet access, and only 37% provided free WiFi to attendees. Our organization has felt the pinch, spending thousands of dollars in past years on internet access for just our cyber café and registration desk.