The list of major nonprofit software vendors will grow smaller this year as the largest maker of fundraising software to non-profit organizations has agreed to buy Convio.
Convio provides fundraising software and is considered one of the last major challengers to Blackbaud’s market dominance.
The concerns are reverberating through the nonprofit community because lack of competition can mean less innovation, higher prices, and higher support fees associated with the software that Blackbaud creates and manages.
In the past, Blackbaud has acquired Kintera, Target Analytics, and several other smaller software firms. In an interview, Blackbaud representatives claimed they are not stifling competition and cite Salesforce and SAP as proof. However, both of the enterprise software vendors they list are aimed at the for-profit world and have very little focus in the non-profit community.
The other concern is that Blackbaud is a publicly listed company and has many shareholders it must report to on a quarterly basis. They plan to finance the acquisition of the Convio purchase with cash balance and debt. Inevitably, they’ll have to pass on this $275 million expenditure to their clients. And non-profits and charities are obviously not blessed with an overabundance of resources.
So, is this good news or bad news for the nonprofit industry?