Kate Kaye has a thoughtful article at Personal Democracy Forum on the "blogstorm" over Convio's decision to work with the Alliance for Marriage (AFM), an advocacy group promoting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. What distinguishes Kaye's piece from the rest of us armchair quarterbacks is actual legwork: She interviewed Convio CEO Gene Austin, several Convio clients (including the ACLU, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, and MADD), as well as Sheeraz Haji, CEO of Convio competitor GetActive. Money quotes:
[Convio CEO Gene] Austin takes great issue with the notion that Convio is involved with its client's strategies. "The consulting we do is limited to best practices on the Internet," he insists. "We don’t talk to organizations about their mission strategy or policies. In the case of AFM, we’re strictly supporting whatever product issues as they may have."
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[ACLU National Office media relations director Emily] Whitfield noted the ACLU's disappointment with Convio's judgment that AFM is not a group that promotes prejudice. She continued, "We hope that Convio will rethink its position, and it's something we'll take into consideration when doing business in the future."
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[Planned Parenthood of Northern New England director of marketing Barrie Silver]: "We’re aware that Convio works with diverse organizations and that all of them may not share our views..."
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Amy George, communications manager at the National Office of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, "only [has] really great things to say about Convio," whose software the group has been using for three years. “Even if there was a boycott [of Convio], we wouldn't join it..."
Judging by these quotes from nonprofit leaders (rather than the primarily anonymous comments on Americablog and DailyKos), there's a broad range of opinion about the controversy, rather than the stark outrage predicted (and fomented) by some bloggers, and I think that's appropriate. It's a complicated issue, and the folks calling for the boycott haven't helped their cause by mixing in legitimate complaints about Convio's decision to serve AFM with unfounded criticism of Convio's software and pricing. As I wrote last week, I don't support AFM, I'd like to see them go out of business, and I'm disappointed with Convio for taking them on as clients--but I also think criticism of Convio's software and pricing is not only beyond the scope of this debate, but also inaccurate. (Bobby Clark of ProgressNow agrees with me.)
Full disclosure: My employer also provides technology-related services to nonprofits, and although we have no financial relationships of any sort with Convio, we have recommended their software to some of our clients and have collaborated with them to serve mutual clients. I know several Convio employees, but I have no personal relationship with any of them.
Ed, I quite agree that the issue isn't about whether Convio's software/pricing is any good. It's whether progressive nonprofits want to do business with a firm that is willing to do business with not-so-progressive nonprofits -- when there are more-progressive alternatives available. It's one factor for clients to weigh as they evaluate tools.
Posted by: Jon Stahl | Jun 13, 2005 at 01:37 PM