Convio's signature product let people sign up for a charity walk or run and raise money from their friends online. That was one piece of a larger hosted service. Convio ran donation pages, email campaigns, event registrations and donor databases for nonprofits, from local food banks to national health charities. By 2010 online giving grew every year. Charities were learning to treat their websites as a front door for supporters.

Retail Tools for Food Banks

Convio started in Austin in 1999. Its bet was that nonprofits would need the same online tools retailers were adopting, and could not build them alone. It sold its software as a subscription service, years before that model was common. Beyond the charity walks, its tools let groups keep in touch with donors between campaigns, through email newsletters and online advocacy.

Folded Into Luminate

Convio priced its IPO at $9 a share in April 2010. It grew modestly as a public company in a market led by Blackbaud, the larger nonprofit software maker. In 2012 Blackbaud agreed to buy Convio for about $275 million. The deal joined the two best-known names in nonprofit software. Blackbaud kept parts of the Convio platform, and they became the base of its Luminate products for large nonprofits.

Cover: New York Charities—St Barnabas House, 304 Mulberry Street, Winslow Homer. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a charitable house (giving).