Yesterday the news was that Blackbaud had laid off 50 employees it acquired when it bought Convio in May. In what was said to be an unrelated development, they also announced the departure of Gene Austin, the former CEO of Convio.
Today the news is that Blackbaud is killing off Common Ground, one of the two donor management products (aka CRMs or Constituent Relationship Management systems) that they acquired from Convio. The official word is that Common Ground (CG) will be supported through March, 2014. I don’t know whether that means they’ll turn off the CG servers on that date or simply stop providing help desk support. I hope that clients will be able to continue using the underlying SalesForce engine and donor data after that date, but I assume that any functionality specific to Common Ground, or that needs to communicate with a Blackbaud server, could stop working. I don’t know whether any data will disappear at that point. (Any BB staff or CG consultants care to chime in?)
Common Ground, which was launched 4 years ago this month, had nearly 700 clients. The Blackbaud/Convio staff I spoke with seemed taken aback by this decision. They were still actively pitching the product to my clients just last week. Blackbaud says that eTapestry and Raiser’s Edge will be their solutions for small-to-mid-sized nonprofits, but I don’t see either as a real replacement for Common Ground.
I’m surprised that things turned out this way. I’d thought Luminate CRM, Convio’s other database, was in more danger since it had only a tenth as many clients, was more of a work-in-progress, and competed directly with Blackbaud’s Enterprise CRM product. Maybe Common Ground wasn’t making money. Maybe the profit margins are simply higher for Luminate. Luminate certainly serves larger clients, and maybe killing it would be worse PR. Maybe those large clients have large legal teams that could make life difficult. And maybe Luminate will also be killed off, just not yet.
I’m also surprised by the announced shut-off date. When Blackbaud bought Campagne Associates’ GiftMaker Pro (GMP) product in 2006, clients were given 2 years to migrate. But since GMP was installed on clients’ own servers, it continued running after that date without any interruptions. Blackbaud says it still gets support calls from GMP users. But with an online product, if the company turns off the servers there’s no way for clients to continue using the product. (Again, any consultants or BB staff care to weigh in on what will happen in April 2014?) I’ve been in numerous discussions recently where senior Blackbaud staff have said that clients will be given 5 – 7 years to migrate off any discontinued products. This time it’s giving them less than 2 years.
As I wrote last January, there are lots of other database choices for small nonprofits.In the Salesforce world, Affinaquest and RoundCorner are getting good reviews, and lots of organizations are working with Salesforce’s Nonprofit Starter Pack. Nonetheless, I’m disappointed that a strong product is being taken out of the marketplace. And I don’t envy Common Ground clients that have to make a decision and migrate to a new system within the next 19 months — particularly those that just spent big bucks migrating to Common Ground. I expect that Blackbaud will provide incentives to move to one of their other products, but unless they throw in the implementation consulting and deeply discount the annual fees, that could be a big budget hit.
As one of my friend said when she got the news, “these are interesting times.” But not in a good way.
Peter Campbell says
Like you, I was surprised to see Common Ground get the axe before Luminate. But I’d bet money at this point that Luminate will either get the axe next, or be migrated off of Salesforce onto Blackbaud’s Infinity platform. I predicted, from day one, that BB was not going to support products on Salesforce for long. I also said that Blackbaud would be mindful of the customers they were inheriting and not be too brutal. Guess I blew that prediction! This will be really hard on a lot of NPOs.
Think they would consider open sourcing the non-SF Common Ground code? I have a few friends who are looking for work, like I am, that might be able to do something with it. 😉
Ehren Foss says
I agree with Peter that Luminate will meet probably a similar end. If Blackbaud thought the SalesForce platform was something to keep they would have used Common Ground as a larger toehold, even if it is currently not profitable enough.
Common Ground calls out to two web services endpoints external to SalesForce, one of which is for address standardization (which can be replaced by other vendors). I’m not sure what the other web service is responsible for – could break a lot or a little in 2 years if it goes. The rest of the SalesForce application should be unaffected if Blackbaud decided to turn everything off.
Pete says
Having just bought Common Ground about 6 months ago and having just got our database into a working order, I am VERY frustrated that I will now have to do it all again with a new system. I almost don’t know what to do anymore! All I have to say is they better not make us pay for whatever they end up switching us to. And it better be a CRM.
Robert says
Now is a good time to look back at David Lawson’s predictions for the Convio purchase:
http://www.workingphilanthropy.com/2012/03/29/part-2-best-of-breed-vs-best-of-vendor-the-blackbaud-convio-saga-continues/
One of his predictions was “E-Tapestry is the logical place to send the smaller Common Ground clients so say goodbye to Salesforce.” He was right about that one. He also thought Luminate was a goner: “The top Common Ground (or Luminate as the top-end product is now known) clients will be sent to Infinity.” That one remains to be seen. Where are you placing bets?
Stuart Scadron-Wattles says
My org migrated to CG (under my leadership, I’m ashamed to say) after a careful search for the best product for a mixed-income scenario that needed to be remotely accessible and have multiple online income portals. Salesforce and Convio’s client service was the main reason we chose CG. The BB acquisition came one week after we signed the contract. After that, I was also betting on Luminate being the first product to go, but it was clearly wishful thinking: we had skin in the game at that point, and bought Convio’s post-announcement line that BB had bought them for their web tech expertise. BB has been notoriously slow on the uptake when it comes to enterprise cloud solutions.As I have commented elsewhere, the structure and tone of the CG termination announcement to clients clearly declares that BB’s approach is more about ownership than client service, and their acquisition more about narrowing the field of options than broadening their offerings. They want Salesforce out of their mix, because they only understand closed-end solutions that bring them increasing cash. It will all go.
Now: How do I find an SF solution that will NOT attract the next baleful gaze of this shark?
M. A. Sridhar says
Robert, I had thought (perhaps naively) that Common Ground is a set of objects and Apex code written on top of Salesforce. But you seem to imply that it includes features that require communicating with a CommonGround/Blackbaud server. Is that indeed the case? If so, can you outline what those features are?
Robert says
Dear M. A.: I’ve asked some SalesForce and CG experts for info about what will happen when CG is turned off. Stay tuned. It might take a few days given the holiday.
Tompkins Spann says
I can answer some questions about what could happen when Blackbaud turns it off.
Technically, the CG application resides on Salesforce, with one exception (I’ll get there in a minute). The application is what Salesforce calls a “managed package”, which allows for ISV’s like Convio to issue upgrades and control licenses.
When a client purchased Common Ground, they’re purchasing two things: the platform from Salesforce.com, using Enterprise Edition licenses (usually 10), and the application of Common Ground, which Convio provisioned some number of licenses to reside in conjunction with the 10 Salesforce licenses. E.g. If you bought 6 licenses of CG, you got 10 Salesforce EE licenses with 6 of those able to use CG, the other 4 are only using native “core” Salesforce.
Every CG license has a term expiration date.
What happens when the lights turn off is up to Blackbaud. They could choose to expire all CG licenses at the same time, meaning all CG features would immediately disapear and all current users would be left with just Salesforce. This is the worst case scenario, but it’s not totally terrible because Blackbaud has no domain over Salesforce. So if this were to happen, all of the client’s data would be available, and the database would be marginally functional, but important components would be hidden and inaccessible (e.g. events, pledges, relationships, volunteer shifts, etc.).
If however Blackbaud chose to do the right thing (insert snarky well justified comment here), they could choose to extend all CG licenses to never expire and just stop supporting the clients. In this case it’s zero cost to them because Salesforce bears the infrastructure burden, not Blackbaud.
The exception to this is for clients who purchased the add-on Common Ground Fundraising product. This product is what powers the online donations, events and volunteer shift registrations for hundreds of nonprofits. Technically, these forms do not reside on Blackbaud or Salesforce servers, they are in the Amazon EC2 cloud, leased by Blackbaud. These will almost certainly disapear because Blackbaud is paying for this web service and will likely choose to discontinue those contracts.
So what’s a CG client to do? I propose you begin to evaluate alternatives, but take your time. You’ll have some time to make your choice and our market will most certainly respond to this decision and begin offering alternatives on Salesforce (or bolster the existing options). I’d recommend you be very cautious and deliberate and choose wisely, lest you find yourself in this same situation again.
And for what it’s worth. I’m incredibly disapointed.
Robert says
Thanks Tommy. This is really helpful.
One of the CG experts I asked said that if Blackbaud really turns off the CG licenses (as opposed to merely shutting down the help desk but leaving the app in place) the data that will be left in SalesForce will be very hard to read or work with. He described it as “Opportunities with names and amounts and a link to the household, but no context. Clients will be left with a handful of standard contact fields, account fields, and fields on opportunities, as well as any fields or objects the clients added themselves. All the relationships, gift designations, pledges, recurring gifts, and all data about events and volunteers will be gone (or at least inaccessible).”
But I agree that nonprofits shouldn’t panic — yet. We’re early in the game. We don’t know whether Blackbaud will turn off the CG licenses (and they may not have thought that far ahead). I’ve heard that a bunch of CG and SalesForce consultants are talking about what to do, and while some of them are undoubtedly hoping to scoop up clients, many of they are trying to do what’s best for the nonprofits. I expect that this will be a major topic at the upcoming Dreamforce and Blackbaud Users conferences. I’m sure there will be further developments.
I, too, am incredibly disappointed. I’ve been hearing from nonprofits that spent a lot of time and money selecting and converting to Common Ground. They’re justifiably angry.
David Lawson says
Good to see Salesforce responding quickly to the demise of Common Ground. I urge all CG clients, and anyone considering Salesforce, to attend this free webinar http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/dontgetgrounded.
As for Luminate, I stand by my belief that it too will be abandoned by Blackbaud. It will take longer because Luminate clients are using other services such as TeamRaiser, but in the end the folks in Charleston want it all and an open-platform like Salesforce is not part of that plan.
This is about much more than fundraising. It is about an organizational shift to the cloud. Blackbaud can’t support that shift, and it is why they will fail.
Elizabeth Davis says
All,
We need to let Blackbaud know that it is important to not stop our use of Common Ground. Our goal is to get 200 Common Ground Organizations to sign this petition and be able to provide to Blackbaud on their September 12th board call. We hope everyone concerned about this will sign and discuss the impact this will have if they do not modify their plans. Please sign and if at all possible, include the name of your organization and your title. This is so important! Elizabeth
Petition Blackbaud to allow us to continue using Common Ground
Steve Andersen says
Common Ground, built on Salesforce’s force.com platform, has been a solid fundraising solution for hundreds of nonprofits. Obviously with the announced end of support for this product, organizations must figure out how to move forward and not miss a beat. Since these organizations are familiar with the Salesforce platform and know how to use it, an easy and less disruptive path is to transition to another fundraising application built on force.com. The core functions, capabilities and best practices will translate easily and staff implications are minimized.
People on this thread have already linked to our page about options for Common Ground customers: http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/dontgetgrounded
One of the most powerful values at salesforce.com is openness, which is visible in the access customers have to their data. I suggest that all customers, including those on Common Ground, set up weekly downloads of all their data, something that is really easy to do in salesforce.com. They can go to Setup > Adminstration Setup > Data Management > Data Export. We make it easy for customers to schedule a weekly export which will email them each time it happens. I think it’s critical that mission-based organizations have 24/7 access to their data–setting up this data export is a great way to ensure they never lose access to their data.
Hong Hunt says
We initially started with CommonGround, but later it got converted to Luminate CRM automatically through upgrades even though we might not have all the features of Luminate CRM. I just checked the installed packages page and it says Luminate CRM version 3.9.7. So I guess if CommonGround customers kept up with their upgrades, they should be on Luminate CRM by now.
The problem is that the product has used many roll-up summary fields and still keeps all the Deprecated fields so far, which makes it hard for administrators to create custom roll-up summary fields because roll-up summary fields have a limit in numbers and they are very useful in reporting. I doubt BB will actively engage in product development in Luminate CRM even though they will not kill it.
The danger of BB to absorb other fund raising applications built on Salesforce in the future can not be eliminated. The question is if Salesforce’s own solution without a third party app will satisfy most of the nonprofits’ needs.
Tompkins Spann says
Unfortunately Hong it’s not that easy. Let me explain by detailing the history of Common Ground. Get comfy, this takes a little while.
Back in 2007 Common Ground (CG) was built as a CRM solution for emerging nonprofits (a.k.a. not the really large enterprise groups). The product launched in the fall of 2008 and the marketing was devoted to these emerging nonprofits. However, something rather unexpected happened, several large “enterprise” groups recognized the value of CG built on the awesome Salesforce.com platform and bought it.
However, a challenge emerged. Having large enterprise organizations using the same product as smaller orgs presented a dilemma to Convio for how best to serve these different clients. While the platform can certainly support larger groups, the functional requirements are vastly different (that’s a topic for another time). Therefore Convio wisely chose to fork the code and create a new product in the fall of 2010.
Here’s where it gets confusing.
Common Ground (launched in 2008) became known as Common Ground Enterprise in the fall of 2010.
A new product was created in this fork called Common Ground, with it’s very first release in the winter/spring of 2011. Essentially, this was a rebirth of Common Ground, built without the functionality enterprise clients of Convio needed. It was leaner and well suited for emerging organizations. THIS is the product that was just killed off. It’s terribly unfortunate because it truly is/was a terrific product; however, since it’s relatively new to the market (1.5 years), there were not enough clients using it.
Common Ground Enterprise however, has a different story. Because also in the winter/spring of 2011 Convio launched Luminate CRM. This newly branded product became the future Enterprise CRM solution, developed with a tight integration between the legacy Convio online marketing products (rebranded Luminate Online) and reinforced with a spectacular data warehouse and analytics solution called Luminate Analytics hosted on Amazon EC2 and using Vertica columnar db technology (snaps to Dave Hart). For all intents and purposes, Luminate CRM is the upgrade of Common Ground Enterprise; however, not all clients have been upgraded.
Therefore there are actually three products:
1. Common Ground (b.2011 – 2014), RIP
2. Common Ground Enterprise (b. 2008 – Present)
3. Luminate CRM (b. 2011 – Present)
Any organization that purchased Common Ground prior to November 2010 acquired Common Ground Enterprise. A handful of these clients have been upgraded to Luminate CRM. The full upgrade to Luminate CRM can only be performed by Convio’s team. So even if you’re seeing “Luminate CRM v. 3.9.7”, that does not mean you’re getting the full Luminate product. You’ll know you’re getting the full product if you have the Analytics tab active in your instance.
Are you still reading? Well, I warned you this was confusing.
One last commentary on this history lesson. Convio made the wise and very thoughtful choice back in 2007 to forge it’s CRM strategy on the backs of the Salesforce.com platform. There is none other like it. Thanks to Salesforce.com, thousands of nonprofits have an incredible CRM solution at their fingertips. Convio could never have succeeded without Salesforce.com and regardless of whether a nonprofit is using Common Ground, Common Ground Enterprise, Luminate CRM, the Nonprofit Starter Pack, Affinaquest, Causeview or any of the other competing applications, they all share a common core, the Salesforce.com platform. Gratefully the Luminate product lives on and nonprofits have a growing set of applications choices to explore and evaluate with this announcement.
Robert says
RE: Tommy’s comment, a friend who consults on Common Ground provided this advice on figuring out which version you’re using:
If you’re on the original Common Ground (known internally as Common Ground Enterprise) the version number will be 3-3.9.x or something in between. You can tell if you look at a field or object and it begins with cv__ If you’re on this version, it’s not clear whether you will be affected by Blackbaud’s decision to kill Common Ground. You might be forced to upgrade to Luminate or migrate to another BB product — or you might not. Perhaps the answer will be revealed at the Common Ground Town Hall that Blackbaud is holding on September 12th.
Luminate CRM (the full version): The version number will be 3.5 or above. It also has the Analytics tab. If you’re on Luminate, you’re not affected by Blackbaud’s decision to kill Common Ground.
Common Ground, may she rest in peace: The version number will be 2011a-2012b (the latest). The version number shows as 6something in installed apps. If you look at a field or object it begins with cx__ This version also has a Resource Center tab. If you’re on this version, you are affected.
Chris Hanson says
Robert et al – Good conversation about the goings on at Blackbaud. Like you I saw the writing on the wall back in January when the Convio acqusisiton was announced http://www.thedatabank.com/blog/post/2012/01/17/Blackbaud-Strikes-Again-for-Its-Investors.aspx
In a totally self-serving suggestion, this might be a good time for those Common Ground clients to expand their horizons and look at the numerous other fundraising and nonprofit software solutions in the market. Just because most of the nonprofit software providers out their don’t have the money to advertise in the Chronicle, or buy convention sponsorships and Google Adwords, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I understand the focus here on Salesforce solutions but there are many viable alternatives in the market.
This situation also highlights the unique responnsibilities that are placed on public companies today. The reality is their primary, perhaps sole responsibility is to increase shareholder value. Blackbaud can talk all it wants to about responsibility to its customers but the bottom line is its shareholders, they will always take precedent over its customers and employees.
Finally, Blackbauds slow creep to embrace the 21st Century and Cloud solutions is testament to the fact that most large technology companies don’t innovate, they buy companies that innovate. Blackbaud approached our little company back in 2002 on the premise that they were looking for a web-based fundraising solution, something we had been doing since 1998. It took them another 5 years before they bought eTapestry. And now it seems that even when they buy a company that has some innovative products there’s a good likelyhood that the innovation get’s axed.
Robert says
Here are some thoughts about the end of Common Ground from Heller Consulting’s new blog. Their main advice: Keep calm, plan, be strategic.
David Geilhufe says
I read Tommy’s comment, “Convio could never have succeeded without Salesforce.com and regardless of whether a nonprofit is using Common Ground, Common Ground Enterprise, Luminate CRM, the Nonprofit Starter Pack, Affinaquest, Causeview or any of the other competing applications, they all share a common core, the Salesforce.com platform. ”
And I think to myself, “the technologists and commercial interests miss the most important part of the social impact puzzle yet again — its the data. not the technology.”
If these applications all shared a common core (nonprofit) data model, SFDC would be stoking massive social impact (the cost of switching from common ground would be low, barriers to innovation would be low). But the SFDC solutions share a common core platform, not a data model. For the hair splitters out there, yes the contact management data objects are common. But the data objects at the core of a nonprofit business process … donations, volunteers, etc. are not.
Technology systems can be engineered for social impact. That engineering usually means a sustainable economy (i.e. money to fund innovation) and rules of the road that constrain the potential externalities of commercial interests.
This entire situation, to me, highlights a significant and unnecessary flaw in the social impact model.
As for the organizations themselves, this is certainly a better basic situation to be in than usual when commercial interest trump customer service interests, but it just highlights the importance of having the resources (people and financial) in place to deal with adversity when it arises.
Melissa says
This thread is EXTREMELY helpful for us on-profits! The foundation I work for uses Common Ground and when I called our Convio/BB rep today, she assured me that CG ENTERPRISE customers will not experience any change.
It’s only the other version of Common Ground that is going away. It sounds like spin a little bit (what’s to say they won’t move Enterprise users to Luminate in the future?), so we’re checking with our independent Convio partner/developer as well. Nobody is panicked here, but it’s difficult to 100% trust what we’re hearing from Convio/BB at this point.
Jon Biedermann says
Obviously I have to agree to some extent with Chris Hansen, (who is from the databank, a worthy competitor of ours and also Blackbaud). Blackbaud has a long and glorious history of doing exactly what they have done – purchase other companies, kill the products, then exclaim they know what is best for the customers that they just bought.
We even predicted it 6 years ago and produced this sanitized video of a Blackbaud “Pac-Man” product strategy that forces non profits to abandon their good product in order to make more money for Blackbaud.
Here’s a link : http://www.donorperfect.com/asp/pac.html
In the end, non profits need to know that there are choices out there, such as DonorPerfect and The Databank (among others I know and respect, including MatchMaker, Exceed, GiftWorks, Pledgemaker, etc.) whose missions are more aligned with the clients they serve.
-Jon
ps – we have a “director’s cut” version as well that was axed by our attorneys, but actually might see the light of day since what we predicted actually happened (Blackbaud would kill off GiftMaker Pro).
Jon Biedermann
Vice President
DonorPerfect Fundraising Software
http://www.donorperfect.com
Suphatra says
Hi Melissa,
This should be helpful to non-profits, as it includes the different options that non-profits have when migrating from Common Ground or if just trying to figure out databases in general. The analysis is here: http://groundwire.org/blog/major-fundraising-application-canned-what2019s-next-for-non-profit-databases
Hope that helps. And big thanks to Robert for the shout out to the above link and story.
Sincerely,
Suphatra
Jay Love says
Robert,
Thanks for alerting everyone to this. I have been lurking since we met in person last Friday in CA and you shared the details of your post. Well, I cannot sit on the sidelines and lurk any longer, especially since I have been very personally involved with two key products for this sector, (Fund-Master and eTapestry) which experienced the process of being sold to Blackbaud. Ironically, the outcomes were quite different and might share some insights into the thought processes involved at Blackbaud headquarters in Charleston.
As Heller said (http://theconnectedcause.com/common-ground-discontinued-change-happens/2012/09/04/), choice is important, as is preparing yourself for change. I urge everyone to stop and weigh all sides of what is happening with Common Ground. I am betting there are a multitude of factors leading to the decision in Charleston. There are smart analytical folks at Blackbaud, who in the past analyzed my two products quite deeply before making a decision to keep one and retire the other. I explore the details in my post, but as a hint, part of the reasoning might include the fact that Salesforce.com, which is a great product, was never meant to be a full fundraing system. I am anxious to hear what others think about that theory. I look forward to seeing the conversation develop.
Hong Hunt says
Thanks to Tompkins and Robert for the clarification on the three products. I received a message from BB recently and told us we don’t have to do anything for now. We are on CG Enterprise. I think BB should find a way for its customers to migrate to something else without too much cost or service interruption.
Manny Hernandez (@askmanny) says
Robert,
I commend you for this insightful post. I share our thoughts about the decision to terminate Commonground here:
http://askmanny.com/2012/09/disappointed-at-blackbaud/
Robert says
Thanks, Manny. And thank you for posting the link to Will Nourse’s post (Blackbaud Kills Common Ground: When Bad Vendors Happen to Good People). I hadn’t seen that one.
Will Nourse says
@jay love I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusions about Salesforce not being purpose built for non-profit fund-raising.
You should consider Salesforce.com as two products residing within the same system: the first is the core CRM product, which was built for business-to-business sales and marketing purposes and utilizes the core CRM object structures (Account, Contact, Opportunity, etc) along with a bunch of functionality designed to support those processes. Most applications built on Salesforce try to leverage those structures because they are core to the system and why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to. This does lead to some examples of round pegs in square holes, which is what I think you were referring to in your post.
The other product that you get with Salesforce, however, is the full Force.com Platform-as-a-Service offering. This allows any user or vendor to build out needed functionality to support their needs with a minimum of coding, easy installation and superb reliability. When building any system, the developer has to define a data-model, create business logic and build a user interface (as well as defining an operating environment, manage installation, backup and support). This has been the case for any purpose-built fund-raising system you might be looking at.
The power of the Force.com platform (and we’re starting to see it with some of the newer Force.com-based systems like Affinaquest) is that it allows you to perform those development tasks much more rapidly and with smaller teams. That means faster time to market, greater responsiveness to customer requests and issues, and ultimately a lower cost to customers.
Ultimately, I think that Blackbaud is less concerned with the viability of doing fund-raising on the Salesforce platform than it is with moving customers to Infinity and keeping them within their own ecosystem. Force.com based systems are a threat to their business model.
Jeff Montgomery says
Contrary to the “Blackbaud buys and shuts down everything” meme here, just a few months ago The Agitator, in a post by Roger Craver (http://is.gd/l0zjDB), surmised that Blackbaud is “too nice” as it tends to keep alive and support the product suites it has acquired:
> By ‘nice’ I don’t mean gentle or polite (although they seem to
> have great manners and are sociable). I mean they do their
> best to keep a plethora (too damn many) of software
> applications, platforms, and data sets operating across a
> varied and diverse client base…
> With the Convio merger Blackbaud now finds itself fielding and
> supporting 21 online and offline fundraising and constituent
> management platforms and a dozen different brands. […]
> Will Blackbaud go the route of a re-structured General Motors
> and kill off some of its ‘brands’ to insure that the best, strongest,
> and those most adaptable to innovation and the fast-changing
> world of fundraising survive? I don’t know the answer, but I’d
> argue that they should.
> And that’s where being too ‘nice’ comes in. No one wants to say
> ‘goodbye’ either to loyal clients or the revenue they bring. On
> the other hand, a client base that’s too entrenched in the old
> and won’t move to the new will ultimately serve as a drag on
> innovation – an element that will prove essential in coming years.
Between the Agitator post and some of the comments here, it’s obvious that Blackbaud had a dilemma: divide its R&D resources to keep all clients happy in the short term, or sharpen its R&D team’s focus and work to crank out something awesome for the long term. I imagine it was a difficult choice and I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Blackbaud’s PR department the day that notice went out, but my thought is they made the right ~long-term~ decision for both their company and their clients.
Check out Roger’s post, it’s well worth reading:
http://www.theagitator.net/dont-miss-these-posts/is-blackbaud-too-nice/
Jeff Montgomery
O-matic Software
Robert says
Here are Norman Reiss’s thoughts on the demise of Common Ground.
And here are Tal Frankfurt’s thoughts.
And remember, Blackbaud’s town hall discussion of Common Ground will be held this Wednesday, Sept. 12.
Jeff Gordy says
Hi Robert & All,
I have to say we were not very surprised by the decision made by Blackbaud over here at Z2 Systems. Having been in competition with eTapestry, Raiser’s Edge, Donor Perfect, Salesforce, and Common Ground for many years now we learned all the strengths and weaknesses of all these systems. Common Ground just had too many moving parts for a large company like Blackbaud to manage efficiently. We knew that Blackbaud would also not allow one of their core products to lie on the back of another external product for long (which leaves me wondering about Luminate and how this will fit in).
Blackbaud has consistently purchased competitors products and many times has left the users out to dry. I recently wrote an article about this and the recent purchase of Convio: http://www.z2systems.com/neoncrm/blog/move-over-blackbaud-osaurus-make-room-new-cloud-town (link to one of Robert’s articles included)
We are working hard over here to make sure there are powerful and affordable solutions for nonprofit organizations. I encourage all other nonprofit CRM vendors to make a stand with us and make a pledge to not get purchased by Blackbaud. Maybe nonprofits can take a stand with us and stop using Blackbaud products………
Best,
Jeff Gordy
President
Z2 Systems, Inc.
http://www.z2systems.com
Jeff Patrick says
One additional comment – Salesforce is … in the long haul … the single biggest threat to Blackbaud and their dominant market position for nonprofit software. While a decision like this is never considered in isolation, it is certain that one strong item playing on the minds of the strategists at BB is simply this — we, Blackbaud have a family of products, and via the Convio acquisition, we are in control of a competitor’s product – Salesforce. There is not much longterm strategic value to BB to have their clients on Salesforce driving revenue to Salesforce. That’s bad for 2 reasons – the revenue isn’t going to bb and it IS going to their biggest competitor.
I suspect Luminate will suffer the same demise, assuming there is enough revenue in play to make it worthwhile.
One additional thing – BB will want to provide a clean migration path to a BB product here. They want satisfied customers and they want that revenue. No doubt they will clear the path via product and service discounts to get CommonGround clients onto a bb platform somewhere – most likely RE, eTapestry.
Robert says
Blackbaud weighed in on Idealware’s blog. Here’s the link: http://www.idealware.org/blog/blackbaud-weighs-common-ground
My quick takeaways:
If you’re on an affected version of Common Ground (versions 2011a-2012b), you will lose access to data about your relationships, gift designations, pledges, recurring gifts, and all data about events and volunteers. Tal Frankfurt’s blog post says you’ll still be able to export that data, but I’d be sure to do that long before March 2014.
I didn’t come away convinced Blackbaud is committed to Luminate.
I wasn’t convinced that Common Ground overlapped with other Blackbaud products but Sphere and Luminate don’t.
There was no mention of why Common Ground clients are being given so little time to migrate when other clients have at least 2 years and usually more.
The town hall tomorrow may reveal more. We’ll see.
Norman Reiss says
I added a comment to my blog post yesterday at http://nonprofitbridge.com/2012/09/the-death-of-common-ground/ to reflect Blackbaud’s clarification about its two versions of Luminate, but it still seems confusing. Will attend the town hall today at 1 PM.
Stuart Scadron-Wattles says
Currently attending the BB Town Hall on CG termination. Why would they retain only one product in their portfolio on the SalesForce platform (Luminate CRM?) They profess to “believe” in SalesForce. The language is suspicious. How long can that last? And did they only acquire Convio in order to eliminate a viable competitor, or also to block the SalesForce platform proliferation, and keep their current clients from considering a cloud solution that is NOT owned by Blackbaud? What are the best guesses out there on Blackbaud’s strategy?
Robert says
The prepared portion of the Blackbaud town hall basically reiterated the information included in the Q&A on the Idealware web site. In particular, I thought Jana Eggers’ response to the question, “Why would a Common Ground client consider another Blackbaud solution?” missed the point. She spoke about Blackbaud’s commitment to the nonprofit industry, not about the strengths and weaknesses of the products. I have clients who evaluated eTapestry and Raiser’s Edge versus Common Ground and selected Common Ground. They wanted a flexible, open, extensible cloud product with a history of keeping up with trends in CRMs, and that could be integrated with a variety of open third party tools. They needed a product that was more advanced than eTapestry and more flexible and open (and less expensive) than RE. The fact that, as Eggers said, “RE has a 20-year track record,” wasn’t enough to make the sale. Neither eTapestry nor Raiser’s Edge worked for those clients.
Eggers again said that Blackbaud is committed to the Salesforce platform. Will nonprofits that feel burned by the Common Ground decision or are nervous about Blackbaud’s plans accept her “trust us on this” message? I have several clients that were looking at Luminate but are extremely nervous now.
She also said that there will be a new version of Raiser’s Edge but didn’t mention the “RE 8” product, which was to be an open, flexible, extensible cloud product based on their Infinity platform.
They took questions from the audience, and clearly had more than they could respond to in an hour. I look forward to seeing more details. A significant bit of info came in response to one of the questions: someone asked whether CG clients could migrate to Common Ground Enterprise (CGE), which hasn’t (yet?) been killed. Eggers’ answer was “no”. She described CGE as a transitional product between CG and Luminate, which made me nervous about its long-term prospects. My impression was that current CGE clients should expect to be forced to migrate to Luminate or something else.
The session was recorded. I’ll post a link to the slides and audio when they’re available.
nobody important says
Just listened to the town hall.
It all boils down to killling common ground was better for Blackbaud – which is fine. They have shareholders who demand profit. So now they will push you to their other products that are better for Blackbaud, but don’t worry, they will “help you” through the process and somehow these alternate products are also better for you now…. Hey, they did talk about how much you could trust them to look out for your nonprofit and “help” you through this very difficult time. Really?
They totally skated the question about whether or not the assistance they are promising will include cost reimbursement to move away from Blackbaud where nonprofits have heavily invested just to get Common Ground implemented. So if you are a nonprofit who just sent your wad on Common Ground, you really don’t have much choice except to stay with a BB product.
I think my favorite part of the Idealware post (or maybe we should call it a sales pitch) was the last line from Eggars: “Our guiding principle for our products is for nonprofits to say: ‘Because of Blackbaud I spend more time on my mission.'”
I would seriously doubt the 400 CG clients whose world has just been turned over are spending more time on mission right now…
If this is how Blackbaud goes about fulfilling a “Guiding Principal” it explains a lot about their failure to internally innovate for years as well as whether or not nonprofits should trust them or invest further in any of their products.
Sorry to abrupt about it all, but the guy at the mission and the kid who’s parents just abandoned them needs us nonprofits to focus on mission.
Stephanie says
I dodged a bullet. When searching for a donor management system last year I chose DonorPerfect over CommonGround for one reason: user interface. I really respected the product CommonGround had to offer but with a wide range of user abilities and expected turnover of data entry people, a relatively self-explanatory interface was critical.
In my search, I didn’t give Blackbaud products serious consideration because our organization is a local nonprofit whose voice would not be heard in the big business arena of Blackbaud. I am very grateful not to have gotten caught in this quagmire. Such business practices are a tremendous waste of time and resources for nonprofits and Blackbaud should be prepared to make up for those loses and not in terms of moving organizations over to a product that is more profitable for Blackbaud.
Good luck to everyone affected by this news.
Stuart Scadron-Wattles says
Robert, re: Luminate CRM and SalesForce:
One of Jane Eggars’ comments during the BB Town Hall Q&A strikes me in retrospect as telling: She stated that Blackbaud is interested in SF because it has some clients who have implemented SF organization-wide. I think they are simply retaining the Luminate product because they believe that that segment of the high-end market would otherwise be closed to them, and they want to hedge their bets on SF’s progress and growth in NFP markets. It’s clear that they have concluded that RE and e-Tap meets the small to mid-market NFPs who will choose BlackBaud as their provider and that there is no significant present or future demand for an SF-based solution in that market. The acquisition of Convio was aimed at absorbing a competitor who was threatening their high-end client market through a structural advantage. The demise of Common Ground is a byproduct of achieving that goal.
Luminate will stay in the BB portfolio as long as the high-end, SF-implemented market still exists. Those upper-end clients can be high ROI, since they likely have SF literate programmers on board, and are only looking for a compatible solution for their fundraising. On the other hand, if that market turns down or fails to yield projected ROI, they’ll kill Luminate. Their “belief” in the SF platform is a position they are taking to keep that market segment open to them.
Max says
In light of all of the above, these annoucements suddenly seem rather apocryphal:
http://www.blackbaudknowhow.com/help-resources/integration-update-blackbaud-and-convio-stronger-together.htm
Why would BB announce new features for Common Ground in July, and then shortly afterward announce that they are ending it? Doesn’t seem very coordinated.
In the end, this is a business decision that is right for Blackbaud, but not for the success nonprofits. Limiting the playing field of options a nonprofit has (especially a proven one like Common Ground) is bad for the sector. If you’re considering a Blackbaud product, you have to accept that the company works for its own self-interest first. All public companies do and in my opinion there isn’t much Blackbaud has done to show that they can do anything else.
I might believe Blackbaud’s “commitment” to the sector a little more if the company was restructured as a B-Corp instead of its only current legal obligation being to maximize profit for shareholders.
wolves judging wolves says
Let’s be real here.
While it’s easy to bash the gorilla- Blackbaud’s decision on CG has created opportunity for other companies to make a buck- like Salesforce, Groundwire, Z2, DonorPerfect, & Robert W himself.
While Blackbaud’s decision is a lousy one that will have a negative effect on about 400 NPOs- we should think twice before bashing the company who, at the end of the day, is likely to put food on the table for those folks who work for competitors and have chimed in on this discussion.
Remember- it’s just business!
The only people who really have the basis for bashing Blackbaud and the decision on CG are those people who decided to spend their donor’s money on acquiring Common Ground.
Maybe wolves have souls says
“it’s just business.” And maybe therein lies the problem. That’s certainly Blackbaud’s motivation here. But I think it’s unfair and maybe a little rude to assume that because there are consultants and vendors who will get more business out of this, that they shouldn’t be upset at what this has done to organizations who can’t afford it.
And for the record people, we’re talking about organizations with big missions, small staffs and small-moderate budgets. That was Common Ground’s target market. These companies spent thousands to get in to Common Ground, they aren’t going to spend thousands to get out. They don’t have it.
Quite frankly, the consultants who are going to “win” here are the ones who are going to be willing to donate a fair chunk of their expertise and time to helping these organizations stay on the Force.com platform (or move to something else). They may very lose money, not make it, in the hope that these organizations can make it up later. Or maybe, just maybe, because what Blackbaud did sucks and it’s for the good of the community. Remember, Blackbaud is going to make it very easy and cheap (in the short term) for these organizations to stay on Blackbaud. That’s what you’re competing against.
Ivan Wainewright says
Blackbaud has now published the recording of the Town Hall webinar online, so if you didn’t attend then you can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7E5KQgWwjE&feature=youtu.be
Robert says
Thanks Ivan!