Judy Sarasohn of the Washington Post reported yesterday that the Alliance for Marriage, a group that's working to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, has selected Convio as their provider for online advocacy and fundraising services. According to AFM President Matt Daniels, "Convio allows us to reach, motivate and retain supporters using online communication, fundraising, team-building and advocacy tools."
This relationship is attracting some attention in the blogosphere, first on AmericaBlog and now on DailyKos, both because Convio was used by the Howard Dean campaign in 2004 and because Convio has a policy that states, in part, "Convio does not work with groups that promote prejudice and hate even if they are in full compliance with the law."
I strongly support the rights of all people to enjoy the privileges of marriage, no matter what their sexual orientation. Preventing gays and lesbians from marrying won't do anything to make this a better society, but it will needlessly hurt innocent people. I'd love to see the Alliance for Marriage go out of business; I personally could not support their efforts in any way; and I wish Convio had turned down their business.
But all that said, I have to make one important point in Convio's defense. Kos calls Convio's tools "crappy, overpriced software," even though he later admits in the comments, "I've been out of consulting for nearly a year, so I'm a bit out of the loop on what's hip and good." This is ridiculous. Convio's tools are a great fit for some organizations, and not appropriate for others--but it's definitely not "crappy software," and any number of nonprofits have had great success using it. Convio's fees are a bargain for some organizations, and too high for others--but they're definitely not "overpriced" relative to full-service ASP competitors like GetActive and Kintera. Yes, they're more expensive than Democracy In Action, or CitySoft, or Network for Good, or any number of Open Source content and communications management tools. But in many cases those tools aren't the best fit with an organization's needs, and the cost of the software shouldn't be the deciding factor.
Convio's going to have to deal with the repercussions of taking on a controversial client whose mission is at odds with those of many of the other groups they serve. But they shouldn't have to deal with uninformed criticism of their software.
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. I'd probably be better off personally if I'd just kept my mouth shut, and given how irritated I am with Convio for working with AFM, perhaps I should have. Well, maybe next time.
UPDATE: Bobby Clark at ProgressNow weighs in with a great post criticizing Convio for their decision to work with AFM but also taking Kos to task for his "unfortunate and disappointing" criticism of their software, a topic he promises to elaborate on in a subsequent post.
