An Open Letter to the NTEN Community

Gene Austin, Chief Executive Officer, Convio and Tom Krackeler, VP, Product Management, Convio

It is incumbent on all software vendors serving the nonprofit sector to open opportunities for nonprofits to have greater choice and flexibility in pursuing their missions.

To meet the expectations of nonprofits today -- and five years from now -- software vendors need to facilitate interoperability between systems and enable integration between offline and online data and the new Web. And they should do so with one clear purpose in mind: to open the possibilities for nonprofits to find and engage constituents to support their missions.

The NTEN community has been leading the charge for openness. With Salesforce and Facebook, Convio has embraced openness as a way of doing business.

1. provide nonprofit organizations of all sizes and in any stage of Internet adoption the flexibility to integrate with other web or database applications to exchange constituent and campaign data.
2. make their Open APIs available to clients, partners, and a broad developer community.
3. expose Open APIs as part of their core product functionality.
4. proactively use APIs provided by other companies in additional to providing their own.
5. make their API documentation publicly available and provide a forum for sharing and discussing best practices and exchanging code examples.
6. publish a roadmap for their API development and encourage participation in the development of that roadmap.
7. make their APIs accessible to nonprofits at a level that does not require extensive technical expertise to leverage those APIs.

Data Integration: We Asked for It, and Now We're Getting It!

Last fall, NTEN hosted a discussion amongst some of the major vendors in about Open APIs, one of the major pieces of the data integration puzzle. One year later -- almost to the day! -- two major vendors have announced major initiatives around Open APIs. Coincidence? We think not!

Last week, Kintera announced the expansion of their Connect program, adding APIs to their library of tools.

The latest announcement is from Convio, which today launches Convio Open. The site addresses data integration in three ways: APIs, Connectors, and Extensions. It's a much deeper set of tools than what we've seen before, and the site provides integration resources for organizations with a variety of integration needs, including a FaceBook integration.

Who's next?

NTEN Community Call: What Kintera’s Open Platform Means for the Nonprofit Sector

Wednesday, August 15 at 11am PT/2 pm ET for a free community call with Kintera CTO Scott Crowder.

Kintera recently announced Kintera Connect, an upcoming open application integration platform that provides nonprofits with the opportunity to select industry solutions that best meet their unique needs. But what does an open platform mean for you? And what types of solutions and capabilities will an open platform offer to nonprofits? What impact could an open platform have on fundraising and constituent engagement efforts? Learn from Scott Crowder, Kintera’s chief technology officer (CTO), how developers and partners will be integrating directly with Kintera technology and what technology possibilities could be available to your nonprofit. This is your opportunity to get your questions answered.

This is a FREE event. No registration is required. To participate:

• Phone: 866.740.1260 / passcode: 3979000
• Web: ReadyTalk.com / passcode: 3979000

Can We Talk? Data Integration and Nonprofit Organizations

As part of our continuing coverage of data integration, we asked Dahna and Jennifer to guest blog on the topic. For an explanation of one possible solution to this issue, read our report How Open APIs Can Change How Nonprofits Manage Data.

By Dahna Goldstein from PhilanTech and Jennifer Bagnell Stuart from Innovation Network

"Can we talk?" If your donor database is asking your accounting software, the answer is probably "no." And this lack of communication between systems is causing increasing problems for nonprofit organizations.

Today’s typical nonprofit uses a variety of information management systems for collecting and storing data ranging from client and constituent contacts to program tracking and evaluation. While standards for data exchange and inter-software communication are developing in the nonprofit sector, the vast majority of nonprofit organizations face steep barriers to realizing the benefits and leveraging the power of technology.

A nonprofit’s greatest asset is its people. Human resources become even more valuable over time as they gain knowledge and increase their understanding of the organization’s mission, programs, and operational strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, the effective use of information and knowledge is critical to the survival and success of today’s nonprofit organization. Read more here.

Community Call: Convio/GetActive Merger. Bring your questions!

Update: The recording of the call is now up and available. You can also read the transcript of our post-call chat.

If you have questions for GetActive and Convio, then join us TODAY, Tuesday, February 6 at 11am Pacific, for a live discussion with Sheeraz Haji and Tom Krackeler of GetActive and Gene Austin and Dave Crooke of Convio. NTEN Executive Director Katrin Verclas will moderate this event. We hope you can participate with your questions to the panelists.