AFP: Splendors of Vendors March 31, 2008 By Steve Fafel

It's great to see customers and partners at AFP! We've had a great time here. My talk on sustainability was well-received by a small group of people who decided to take the message and methods of sustainability home with them. I'll post the powerpoint (ugh) here later now (2 MB) Download nonprofits_should_be.ppt.

Here's the near-empty room of people really committed to this...

The people in the pic are writing down their email addresses, and Mary Pat Donnellon of the MR Nonprofit Division will be creating some sort of email list or online group to keep the discussion going.

What was notable was that most people said their organizations are largely resistant to sustainable practices.

I made the point that the AFP conference itself doesn't reflect sustainable practices--no recycling, lots of waste, lots of virgin paper used. I'd like to see a zero waste event, like the Craig's List Foundation does for its   Nonprofit Boot Camp.

So then I headed down to the show. Now, I really like a good exhibit hall. But I've never liked nonprofit vendors spending a lot of money on big booths. To me it's a reflection of how much they charge nonprofits, and where their profits from nonprofits go--showy corporate booths, among other things.

Here's Blackbaud...

pretty big, lots of staff--clearly a publicly traded company that appreciates having their own dry-cleaning on the Blackbaud campus. Raiser's Edge customers finance that...

and here's Kintera. I had a nice talk with one of the Kintera folks. Kintera has been struggling for years, with a murky marketing message, overspending by the former CEO, and a low stock price with employee stock options under water.

But things are going better for them. They have some good marketing tools, and they've won a couple of significant deals recently from large nonprofits. Last week I bought Kintera stock at a mere 54 cents, expecting a turnaround. It's been in the works for about a year, and I bet they do fine.

Big booth, but more modest than the others. 

And here's GiftWorks. Maybe we'll do a big booth some year. But I doubt it, unless we can keep it simple. Anyway, it's up to the Nonprofit Division boss...Mary Pat. 

Ok--back to the grind. I've got some work to do on a social networking add-in the R&D division has been working on as a training project for some new developers. I'll post on that soon...

Mission Research Closes $2 million Series B Investment from Triple Bottom Line Ventures March 24, 2008 By Steve Fafel

Wow! So we have quite a story here. Last year I had a great talk with Mark Finser of RSF Social Finance (Rudolf Steiner Foundation) at the Social Venture Network members meeting in April. He had said we should keep talking because he was moving on to create a new venture firm focused on social entrepreneurs, and he was very impressed with what we do here.

In October I met the rest of his team from TBL Capital, one of whom is Joe Marshall, who served as the lead on our deal. Our values are aligned, the price of the capital was right, and the timing was perfect, because we were ready to grow given the new release, rapidly expanding customers base, etc.

Fast forward to about 4 weeks ago: we closed the deal in about 3 months from seeing the first version of the term sheet! That's actually very fast, and we're thrilled to have them on board. And we've been so busy since then we didn't even have time to make the announcement!

So what's patient capital? And what does this mean for GiftWorks customers?

Patient capital is just that--investment that is patient about the outcome of the investment. It's capital that invests in companies, not just opportunities; in people, not just deals. The triple bottom line stands for the elements of sustainability: people, planet, and profit. Each is important to the company, and to the investors, making us mission-aligned. It means they aren't looking to flip the company with a quick payout, and that the company may in fact never sell to another company. That doesn't mean investors won't get a great return, it just means that the primary driver is not immediate return on capital. And even if the company does sell someday, it will sell with its values, customers, and software intact.   

So for customers this is great news: we get to invest more in support, in broadening our product lines, and in customer education. We'll be able to handle our growth more smoothly. We'll be a stronger company, and invest more in R&D. In fact, that's where I'm spending the bulk of my time now, while Mary Pat Donnellon runs the Nonprofit Division.

So when you're making decisions about what company you want to buy software from, keep in mind that we're not just verbally committed to social responsibility, great products, and great people, we're actually structurally committed. And we hope that shows in the care we put into the product features, design, customer support, education, and all of our interactions with you.

We're thrilled to have you as customers. And we're thrilled to have TBL Capital join our efforts to improve the world through affordable, well-designed technology, Because our mission is to support your mission.

GiftWorks 2008 is Here! March 19, 2008 By Mary Pat Donnellon

On behalf of the entire Mission Research team, I am extremely proud to announce the arrival of GiftWorks 2008!

With GiftWorks 2008 we are taking GiftWorks to the next level. We have listened to the recommendations made by our thousands of customers, hundreds of consultant partners, and many, many nonprofit sector experts, and have used this feedback to create the next generation of GiftWorks.

Below you will find more details about GiftWorks 2008.  Our entire team continues to be motivated by our commitment to the nonprofit sector and are proud to provide an outstanding fundraising software solution that nonprofits of all sizes can both use and afford.

Please keep your feedback and interest coming!  We are always happy to hear from you.

-Mary Pat Donnellon

GiftWorks 2008 Standard was released on March 17, 2008 for new customers and will be available as an upgrade for existing customers on April 14, 2008.  In addition to all of the great features included in GiftWorks today, GiftWorks 2008 Standard includes:

• More useful and insightful built-in reports.  Enhancements include: More robust campaign and giving level reports; the ability to organize reports by fiscal year; and expanded customization opportunities.
• Internationalization:  Organizations can choose their desired date format, currency and address/phone formatting.
• Enhanced task management:  Nonprofit leaders can manage tasks assigned to team members; tasks can be sorted and organized to better manage critical development activities.
• Improved tools for mailings, including numerous options for customizing labels and envelopes, greater capacity and control for large mailings, and more donor and donation fields available for insertion into letter templates.
• Flexible and robust donor management that includes improved household management, expanded relationship tracking, donor pictures on records, and more.
• More powerful Smartlists:  Retrieve and analyze critical donor and donation data with more criteria options, including the ability to compare donor giving history totals in customizable time periods.
• Expanded customization opportunities throughout the software, including a multitude of pertinent and helpful reports and widgets users can display on GiftWorks screens.

GiftWorks 2008 Premium will be released in May, 2008 and will include everything in GiftWorks 2008 Standard as well as:

• Role-based security protection allowing nonprofits to define roles for users and the level of GiftWorks access permitted for each role.
• More than 50 custom fields that can be defined to as an organization requires, providing increased flexibility for grant management, prospect tracking, and more.
• Bar-coding and bulk mail requirement compatibility, providing nonprofits the opportunity to save on mailings costs.
• Seasonal address management.  Donor mailing addresses will be automatically updated based on user-defined data ranges.

   

Upcoming News from Mission Research March 14, 2008 By Steve Fafel

I heard from Pat Weaver back in January, who runs our consulting program, that one of her consultants heard that we were being acquired. By one of our competitors that charges a lot more than we do. And I was startled to hear that, because it didn't come from us, which means someone else said it.

Because we're not being acquired, we're growing, we're investing in new features and improvements, we're expanding our support, we're building out our dev team, and we're the fastest growing software company serving nonprofits, hands down. The only company with more customers is Blackbaud, which is quite happy to charge them an average of $40,000 per installation. And that's not something we want to be a part of.

We do have some news: product news, company news, and partner news, each significant and big in its own way. This is the place for GiftWorks and Mission Research news. Stay tuned.