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Convio has announced the availability of the Convio Database Connector on Salesforce.com's AppExchange. Company officials are calling it "the first development in a relationship between Convio and the Salesforce.com Foundation… to meet the needs of the nonprofit market."

 

The Convio Database Connector for Salesforce.com integrates Salesforce.com with Convio's on-demand constituent relationship management suite, "enabling the synchronization of constituent, donation, and campaign data between Convio and Salesforce.com."

 

"The Software-as-a-Service model is improving the way nonprofits operate, not only in their ability to connect with constituents but by improving their efficiency and effectiveness in accessing and sharing constituent data," said Gene Austin, CEO, Convio.

 

Clarence So, Chief Marketing Officer, Salesforce.com, said the company counts more than 3,000 nonprofit customers.

 

Mobile Loaves and Fishes, an Austin, Texas-based ministry to the homeless and indigent working poor, has implemented the Convio and salesforce.com product as their primary data management system.

 

Also this week Convio and Mobile Commons, at the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference, announced the availability of Mobile Commons suite of products to Convio's clients, creating mobile applications to allow constituents to get instant information through their cell phone.

 

With Mobile Commons, Convio clients can use text messaging to "inform and call constituents to action in real time, integrate voice messages into mobile and Web content," and "create ways for nonprofits to use constituent-generated content."

 

Since the integration is built on Convio's Open Constituent API, constituent data is passed between the two systems. As a member of Convio's Fusion Partner program, Mobile Commons is part of Convio's Open Initiative.

 

"Mobile is a growing part of our outreach and engagement strategy," says Geoff Handy, vice president for media and online communications for The Humane Society of the United States. "Integrating mobile interactions into our campaign strategy has helped us reach out on breaking news and share information with our advocates when and where they want it, since people keep their mobile phones within arms reach virtually around the clock."