Remember the
little dustup about Convio, the provider of (overpriced) web tools for political campaigns and advocacy groups? In short, the supposedly progressive vendor has been working with an anti-gay hate group, the Alliance for Marriage.
The little blogosphere dustup has put great pressure on Convio, from what I've been told. The company had to go into damage control mode as outraged clients demanded an explanation.
Today, Convio sent an email to its clients, excerpted here:
Policy Review Initiative
[...] Meanwhile, Convio is launching a new initiative that may be of interest to you and your associates. We're reviewing our Right To Be Heard policy, which we believe to be the first of its kind among vendors providing Internet software to the nonprofit sector. This policy states Convio's belief that "all nonprofits conducting their business in a legal manner have a right to be heard." Our policy affirms that Convio is a software company and does not take a position on our customers' missions, beliefs and objectives, and we do not advocate on their behalf.
In recent days, some nonprofit community participants have expressed concern that Convio may be at odds with its policy by providing software to a specific customer advocating on a controversial issue. Convio takes this type of feedback seriously because commitment to the nonprofit community is a core company value. We also recognize the issue as an industry-wide challenge facing other software vendors in our marketplace. Because the nonprofit sector encompasses such a diversity of issues, it is inevitable that some people and organizations will disagree with the goals, positions and opinions of others. And it is important to remember that Convio does not engage with customers at the issues level; we simply provide software to enable organizations to use the Internet more effectively. (In fact, the majority of our customers are organizations supporting cancer, HIV/AIDS and other disease research, humanitarian relief and additional causes widely recognized as non-partisan.)
Our policy review will involve soliciting input from diverse stakeholders including Convio employees, nonprofit professionals (including our customers) and industry thought leaders. We'll also tap outside experts experienced in working with organizations on this type of project. Our goal is to use this collective input to ensure that we have the right policy in place and a mechanism for enforcing the policy consistently and effectively. Additionally, I am inviting the other CEOs in our young marketplace to work with us in determining an industry-wide approach that serves the nonprofit sector in the most responsible way while also enabling the kind of growth that supports ongoing product research, innovation and delivery of the best possible software tools. To learn more about Convio's policy review and how you can participate if interested, please visit our website.
As always, I welcome your feedback.
Sincerely
Gene Austin
CEO
As I read it, Convio is abandoning its progressive foundation, and will now sell its software to any paying customer. Which is fine and dandy. And within its perogative.
However, the progressive community needs to decide whether they want to help fund a company that provides tools to hate mongers.
But on a more productive note, I think it's time someone put together a guide of online tools for advocacy organizations and campaigns. Maybe it's something I can help make happen at the New Politics Institute. The tools are out there, at a fraction of the cost of what people like Kintera and Convio charge.
