[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.

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:

Flickr Photo by HappysmurfdayOver the past couple of years, we've released reports on Donor Management Software, Content Management Systems, and CRMs. As we prepped to conduct the 2009 Constituent Relationship Management Survey and Report, we started to think more deeply about how to define a CRM, how to categorize the increasing number of software systems on the market, and what would be the best way for NTEN to bring an objective, useful report to the nonprofit sector to help you make better-informed software decisions.

After some good conversations with NTEN Members and consultants who have their heads in these systems, we began thinking about the links -- or the missing ones -- between the different systems nonprofits use to track any number of tasks on a daily basis.

That's right: We can run a major conference AND release a major report!  We're THAT good! Thanks to our fab partners, Idealware, we're releasing the Consumer's Guide to Low Cost Donor Management Systems.

> FREE! Get the report!

The Consumers Guide provides you the unbiased comparative information you need to narrow down your choices in a fundraising system. The information is divided into two reports—the actual Consumers Guide, which provides summaries and recommendations across all 33 of the systems we reviewed, and the Detailed Reviews, which provide the detailed evaluations of twelve specific systems.

This Idealware report was written in partnership with NTEN, and with generous sponorship by NPower.

NTEN's Member Appreciation Month has gotten off to a great start with 5 days of prizes and 2 member-appreciation-webinars.

But you haven't seen anything yet!

I'm excited to announce a special Member Appreciation event and opportunity for this week:

• Join us for a free-for-members webinar this Wednesday, "Get More From Your Database", where you'll see and hear about what you probably should be doing with your CRM (that you aren't, because your CRM can't cut it, or because you just hadn't thought about using it that way).
• Enter to win 2 free seats for Convio's new CRM, Common Ground ($2400 value). You'll also get 10 free consulting hours ($1600 value) to help you get started with your new tools, thanks to Causeway Interactive.

Here's how to play:

Unless you've been out of the office, you undoubtedly heard that Blackbaud is buying Kintera.  They are both publicly traded companies, so neither is allowed to comment on what will happen right now.  They have to keep behaving as completely separate entities until the acquisition is approved.  That doesn't give us a lot of good information, but it hasn't stopped the speculation either.

This is certainly very meaningful for the sector.  No matter how the acquisition plays out in terms of which products are kept, etc., there is one less choice in the nonprofit CRM market.  And I tend to believe that choice is good.  But rather than opine at this time, I'll instead share some of the musings of the nonprofit community and beyond:

• Connections: Steve MacLaughlin's Blackbaud Blog
• Nonprofit Tech Blog 
• Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology 
• Idealware
• The Nonprofit Times 
• Don't Tell the Donor 
• Forbes.com 

 What's your take?

Michelle Murrain, NOSI

Constituent Relationship Management systems are one of the bread and butter tools of nonprofit organizations: tracking donations, constituents, activities and the like are critical to accomplishing mission.

It makes sense then, that CRM and fundraising software are the most plentiful and mature software product vertical in the nonprofit sector. And there is an increasing amount of change and innovation in this realm: from open APIs on such stalwarts as Convio and Kintera, to newer open source alternatives like CiviCRM and MPower Open

The question is, how do the newer open source alternatives stack up to the long standing proprietary packages that people have gotten used to?

Choosing a CRM can be frustrating and overwhelming. With so many choices and so little time to research all the options, many of us rely heavily on the recommendations of our peers to cut through the noise and provide some insight.

This is why NTEN is proud to present the results of our first CRM Satisfaction Survey.

> Download the Full Report

We've surveyed hundreds of your peers in order to provide you with a wide array of opinions about CRM systems, and the characteristics of the vendors providing those products. Over six hundred people indicated their willingness to recommend the systems they currently use.

Once you have identified two or three systems that meet your organization's needs, this report can help you to make your final decision as to which system is right for your organization.

The report is available free to NTEN Members, $50 for non-members. If you're not already enjoying full member benefits, join today.

> Download the full report