This Sunday Blackbaud’s bbcon 2012 conference opens at the Gaylord National just south of Washington, D.C.

Because 33,000+ nonprofits, including thousands of Agitator readers, use Blackbaud products, Tom and I felt this was an appropriate time to review Blackbaud’s progress following its Spring 2012 merger with Convio.

Our initial concern over the merger is evidenced in a post — Is Blackbaud  Too Nice? — where I wondered if Blackbaud would be “simply too nice” to prune some outmoded or duplicate applications from its sprawling orchard of products.

My fear was that, with the Convio merger, Blackbaud found itself fielding and supporting 21 online and offline fundraising and constituent management platforms and a dozen different brands. I wondered if Blackbaud would become our sector’s version of a pre-bailout General Motors … Pontiac, Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Hummer, Saturn, Cadillac, Saab, and GMC Trucks?

Afterall, no responsible company likes to disappoint old customers or give up revenue from those customers; but I argued that some cutting and consolidation was necessary to insure that the strongest, most adaptable products survived.

Now, just five months after the merger, I’m delighted to note that Blackbaud has not only been working diligently, but also successfully, at the difficult task of pruning and consolidation.

ITEM:  Blackbaud Is Retiring Common Ground. In what I consider a candid and courageous online version of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Jana Eggers, Blackbaud’s SVP of Products and Marketing, held a Town Hall meeting to announce that Common Ground would be retired on March 31, 2014. The session was recorded and you can get the details here.

In that meeting Jana covered the reasons for phasing out Common Ground and outlined the options and transition assistance open to Common Ground subscribers. The company has since posted additional FAQs to accompany that session.

Without going into detail, there were two big picture takeaways I consider significant:

• Blackbaud is definitely committed to “The Cloud”. Not only will its own “Infinity” cloud platform be used for current products like eTapestry and the full-featured Raisers Edge, but the company will host and support the Luminate CRM product on the Sales Force platform.

• The rationale behind the decisions was clearly described (and clearly there were painful decisions involved) and the needs and concerns of former Convio customers received serious consideration.

Note to Common Ground Users: To get specific questions/concerns addressed Blackbaud has set up a transition hotline.  Contact: cgtransition@blackbaud.com

ITEM:  Blackbaud Adapting to Changes in the Market. My main concern with the merger was of course that it would harm or kill innovation and change at the very time our sector most needs it. I was wrong.

• Blackbaud devoted the past five months to ‘listening’ and and seeking  advice in the marketplace and as a result the company will …

• …lay out its Product Roadmap for the next 18 months in the lead-off session of bbcon 2012 on Sunday. [A Blackbaud spokesperson assured me a recording of that session will be made available and we’ll pass it on as soon as possible.]

DISCLOSURE. Before I move to what I consider another major advance in the ‘pruning and consolidation’ department, I do want to disclose that two of The Agitator’s sister companies – DonorTrends and TrueGivers – compete with Blackbaud in the predictive analytics, modeling/scoring and donor screening end of the business.

ITEM:  New Blackbaud Megablog. Beyond its software and services, Blackbaud generates a wealth of research, best practices and benchmarking reports. Problem is that getting to these goodies requires sleuthing, patience or subscription to one or more of their blogs (e.g. NetWiths Thinktank, Connection Café, ProspectResearch.com, NPTrends and on and on).

No more! Blackbaud’s megablog is here. Now you can get all these goodies, neatly organized in one place.

It’s called npENGAGE and you can subscribe for free by clicking here. Along with your subscription you’ll also get the quarterly npENGAGE Digital Magazine that Blackbaud says will feature ”best practices, big picture ideas, research and trends, and success stories. The first issue will be available September 30 to mark the opening of bbcon2012. For your convenience we’ve added npENGAGE to the Agitator’s Blogroll.

Good work Blackbaud.

Roger