KIMBIA » Kimbia in the News

Did you attend NRB 2010? Get the presentation here.

Spencer Whelan — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:30:27 +0000

On Saturday, Feb. 27th, KIMBIA Director of Marketing & Communication, Spencer Whelan and KMA VP of Online Marketing, Tim Kachuriak hosted a boot-camp session titled, “Taking Pages from Obama’s Fundraising Playbook”. (Boot-camp session details can be found here )

In the session, Whelan and Kachuriak explained the high-level fundamentals of a successful online fundraising operation like Obama ‘08, and then unpacked the strategies into tactics that any organization can use to raise significantly more money online. Some recent examples of joint KIMBIA and KMA clients were used to show these tactics in action.

If you attended the event and would like to download a PDF of the joint presentation, please see below.

Taking Pages from Obama’s Fundraising Playbook

Rackspace down this afternoon for 30 minutes. Everything is back to normal.

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:31:44 +0000

Rackspace was down for 30 minutes this afternoon from approximately 3:35 to 4:15 Central Time. Since many of Kimbia’s systems are hosted by Rackspace, the KIMBIA administrator control panel and other KIMBIA applications were likely to be unavailable during this period.

There were no issues with Kimbia’s systems. Now that Rackspace has recovered, everything is online and working normally.

More info is promised at Rackspace’s official blog:

http://status.rackspacecloud.com/cloudservers/2009/12/cloud-sites-dfw-investigating-current-issue.html

Kimbia's Commitment to Quality

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:05:54 +0000

It was an unusual week last week. Two of the core service providers on the internet - Rackspace and Authorize.net - both went down. Thankfully, the Rackspace outage was brief. The Authorize.net outage was more prolonged. Both were unexpected.

With these two outages, you may be wondering what type of systems and safeguards KIMBIA has in place to prevent downtime. I'm happy to report that KIMBIA has never experienced significant downtime due to an error in our system.

This commitment to quality started the day we launched the company. When we make decisions about product development and infrastructure, if we have to do something that takes much longer and costs much more, we do it. It is part of our culture and it is embedded in every conversation about serving our customers.

However, last week's incidents are a reminder that outages can happen to anyone. The KIMBIA system is architected to prevent outages and is built with many safeguards in place so that if a single system fails we can ensure continued operation:

All of our systems are monitored 24/7.
KIMBIA is integrated to most internet payment gateways where many other similar companies support just a single system or perhaps two options. If your organization maintains more than one payment gateway relationship, we can switch you in minutes.
Our core data center is built with multiple levels of redundancy in every system. If one system goes offline due to a failure or for maintenance, it doesn't disrupt the system at all.
Our entire data center is mirrored at another location. In the case of a catastrophic failure of a portion of the internet we can switch and be fully operational at the same service level in minutes.
We also maintain a third data center over which we have physical control. We use this system for testing and QA, but if there was ever an issue large enough to effect our other two data centers, this system ensures that we will be able to maintain a functional environment and protect your data.
KIMBIA also backups all data to a secure "cloud" backup system that is completely separate from all our other systems.

KIMBIA presents the 2009 Zilker Relays

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:12:29 +0000

KIMBIA is proud to announce our presenting sponsorship of the 2009 Zilker Relays operated by our great partners at RunFAR.

For event details visit zilkerrelays.com

Register now using KIMBIA's patent pending Anywhere technology.

Capital One Bank Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot Sets New Record for Online Registrations Using KIMBIA Next-Generation Technology

admin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:24:00 +0000

Nation’s Largest Thanksgiving Day Race Utilizes New Web 2.0 Tools to Enable More Effective Registration Process; Achieves 50 Percent Increase in Online Registrations

AUSTIN, TEXAS (December 17, 2008) – The 2008 Capital One Bank Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot, the nation’s largest Thanksgiving Day race with more than 33,500 participants, used KIMBIA Web 2.0 tools to achieve the event’s highest ever number of online registrations. This year’s Turkey Trot handled 13,234 online registrations, a 50 percent increase compared to the previous year. The race also set a single-day record for the number of online registrations with 1,200 participants signing-up via the Internet, an increase of more than 80 percent compared to the previous single-day record.

KIMBIA provides the most powerful and flexible online fundraising and event registration tools that enable organizations to more effectively use the Internet to increase giving, participation and overall support. This is the first year that The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas has used KIMBIA’s online tools to conduct registrations for the “Y Trot.” The annual Thanksgiving Day race is the organization’s largest single fundraising event.

“KIMBIA empowers organizations like The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas to easily apply innovative strategies to fundraising and registration,” said Thon Morse, president of KIMBIA, Inc. “The Turkey Trot already conducts effective marketing and has strong community relationships with sponsors and participants. KIMBIA simply enabled the organization to better utilize those relationships, and the results speak for themselves.”

Easier Registration, Anywhere Online
Using KIMBIA technology, the Y Trot was able to place registration forms directly on the event’s website, providing an easier and more efficient way to sign-up online for the race. Thousands of participants, as well as hundreds of volunteers, were able to quickly register and avoid time-consuming steps typically associated with online registration, such as logging in or getting re-directed to third-party websites.

For the first time, the race also was able to encourage more online registrations with the ability to easily place secure sign-up forms on partner websites and other locations on the Web, such as blogs and personal networks. For example, simple cut-and-paste functionality enabled Luke’s Locker, a prominent sponsor of the Turkey Trot, to embed a sign-up form on its website and help drive registrations for the race.

Simplified Reporting and Access to Data
Race managers for the Turkey Trot benefited considerably with KIMBIA online tools by having immediate access to and complete control over registration data. Clicking a simple URL provided race managers with real-time online registration details, which was shared with other key organizers as often as needed for making critical event-related decisions. Additionally, racing staff were able to enter all hard-copy registrations directly into their KIMBIA online system, providing a centralized and comprehensive view of all of their event registration details.

“KIMBIA’s unique online tools and exceptional focus on customer service equipped us with exactly what we needed to significantly exceed our online registration goal for this year’s Y Trot,” said Joe Carpenter, race director, The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas. “It’s a huge fundraising event for our organization, and having the most advanced means to help increase participation is extremely important so that we can continue to advance our mission year after year.”

About The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas
The mission of the YMCA is to put Christian values into practice through programs that build healthy spirit mind and body for all. Volunteer founded and volunteer led, collectively YMCAs are the largest not-for-profit community service organization in the United States. Last year, the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas served over 290,000 members and participants through a broad range of programs, including childcare, health and wellness, teen leadership and volunteerism. The Dallas YMCA is comprised of 25 locations serving Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Kaufman, Palo Pinto and Rockwall Counties. Financial assistance is available for YMCA programs and membership.

About KIMBIA
KIMBIA, Inc. provides the most powerful and flexible online fundraising and event registration tools that enable nonprofits and other organizations to more effectively use the Internet to increase giving, participation and overall support. The company’s next-generation technology can be deployed instantly and help fully utilize an organization’s existing marketing strategy and programs. KIMBIA works with any website, software platform or content management system, empowering organizations to truly maximize their online technology investments and deliver significantly stronger results. For more information, please visit www.kimbia.com.

RunFAR Runs With KIMBIA Web 2.0 Technology for More Effective Race Management

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:05:30 +0000

Streamlined, More Flexible Online Registration Drives Higher Levels of Participation; Real-time Access to Data Simplifies Management of Multiple Races

AUSTIN, TEXAS (November 17, 2008) – RunFAR Racing Services, a prominent race management company that runs events throughout Texas and neighboring states, is using KIMBIA online tools to provide a better online registration experience for athletes, more effectively control race data and drive greater levels of participation. RunFAR manages more than 200 events a year and has been working with KIMBIA since late 2007.

KIMBIA provides the most powerful and flexible online fundraising and event registration tools that enable organizations to more effectively use the Internet to increase giving, participation and overall support. The company has partnered with a growing number of race organizations and events, including USA Fit and Motion Sports Management.

“We needed to ensure that the growing number of athletes registering online for events would experience a simple, quick and hassle-free registration process,” said Raul Najera, owner of RunFAR. “Key to accomplishing this is allowing racers to register directly on the websites of the events we manage, and KIMBIA is the only technology vendor that makes this possible. We also now have much tighter control over event data, which is extremely important for enabling us to provide a valuable and profitable race management service.”

Easier, More Efficient Race Registration
With KIMBIA, RunFAR can conduct all online registration processing directly on the websites of events they’re managing. This enables athletes to quickly and easily register online for races without having to make multiple “clicks,” create passwords or get re-directed to third-party sites. Athletes signing up for events never leave the race website or the specific web page on which they’re registering. This also helps RunFAR to maintain consistent branding for races, as well as avoid potential conflicts related to advertising or promotions by third-party vendors.

Additionally, KIMBIA enables RunFAR to encourage broader participation in its events with the ability to place registration forms anywhere on the Web. With simple cut-and-paste functionality, RunFAR can allow partners, sponsors, beneficiary organizations, avid racers and other supporters to embed secure registration forms on their own websites, blogs and personal sites. One RunFAR partner, for example, placed a sign-up form on its website to support a local race and ended up driving 20 percent of all online registrations for the event. The same race also increased total registrations by 35 percent compared to the previous year.

Real-Time Access to Data
In addition to streamlining online registrations, KIMBIA provides RunFAR with real-time access to and complete control over race registration data. Race managers can click a simple URL at any time to view up-to-the-minute event details. With easy and immediate access to data, race managers now can avoid any delays when retrieving race information, as well as extend the amount of time that registration is open for their events.

With KIMBIA, RunFAR also has the ability to take athletes’ data collected offline (e.g., hard copy registrations, phone registrations, etc.) and enter it directly into their online database. This means all of RunFAR’s online and offline data can exist in one centralized location, providing a single view of all registration details and enabling more effective management of multiple, concurrent events.

“There are two critical components of race management that enable companies like RunFAR to truly excel—better control over registration, and better control over race data,” said Thon Morse, an avid runner and president of KIMBIA, Inc. “KIMBIA provides the best solution for both of these needs, and in doing so we’re opening up new opportunities for race managers to drive higher levels of participation, increase revenue and strengthen their businesses for ongoing success.”

About RunFAR
RunFAR Racing Services, Inc. provides expert timing services and finish line management through advanced technology, teamwork and proven experience. The Austin, Texas-based race management company uses the ChampionChip and the new ChronoTrack "D" Tag systems to ensure the fastest, most accurate, and most reliable results available. RunFAR is committed to extraordinary service and customer satisfaction, and is dedicated to the development and advancement of running and racing in the communities in which it operates.

About KIMBIA
KIMBIA, Inc. provides the most powerful and flexible online fundraising and event registration tools that enable nonprofits and other organizations to more effectively use the Internet to increase giving, participation and overall support. The company’s next-generation technology can be deployed instantly and help fully utilize an organization’s existing marketing strategy and programs. KIMBIA works with any software platform, CRM solution or content management system, empowering organizations to truly maximize their online technology investments and deliver significantly stronger results. For more information, please visit www.kimbia.com.

KLRU Wins PBS Development Award for Innovation Using Kimbia’s Next-Generation Online Fundraising Solution

admin — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:16:24 +0000

Kimbia-Powered Contextual Donation Forms Enhance Online Giving Experience, Enable Public Television Station to Increase Funds Raised Over the Internet by 170 Percent

AUSTIN, TEXAS (October 2, 2008) – KLRU-TV, Austin PBS has received a PBS Development Award for Innovation for utilizing Kimbia’s powerful online fundraising tools to build membership and achieve a nearly 3X increase in online giving. Kimbia provides the most powerful and flexible online fundraising tools that enable organizations to more effectively use the Internet to inspire giving and raise more money.

The PBS Development Award for Innovation recognizes stations like KLRU that successfully engage in unique, mission-driven fundraising efforts and empower donors and members with effective ways to support public media in an increasingly digital world.

Simpler, More Dynamic Online Giving
By partnering with Kimbia, KLRU has been able to significantly increase funds raised over the Internet by providing a better online giving experience for supporters. The station used to rely on a single, generic donation form to support giving across more than 40 programs, resulting in a complex and time-consuming online donation process. With Kimbia, KLRU now can quickly create and deploy program-specific giving forms, allowing viewers to quickly and easily support the exact shows that inspire their loyalty. Proof came during the station’s Spring 2008 pledge drive, when KLRU first used its Kimbia-powered forms to increase online giving by 170 percent compared to the same drive the previous year.

"We've been able to exponentially increase the amount of money raised online—money that's critical for supporting our overall mission—during what's been an extremely tough fundraising climate across the entire PBS system," said Shane Guiter, Director of Membership, KLRU. "By enabling our station to significantly increase the amount of giving and membership options while making it easier for our supporters to donate online, Kimbia has solved a problem that has long prevented us from reaching our true fundraising potential."

Since working with Kimbia, KLRU also has:

Created 50+ custom giving forms in less than a day;
Grown online giving from a flat 11 percent of revenue to nearly 30 percent of total funds raised by the station;
Increased its average online gift amount by 27 percent; and
Raised more in five weeks than had been raised online in all of 2007.

Donations Anywhere on the Web
In addition to providing more giving opportunities on its website with targeted donation forms, KLRU also uses Kimbia to extend its reach into donors’ and members’ personal networks. Kimbia’s online tools enable the station to easily create and publish customized, KLRU-branded fundraising widgets that can be used to raise money anywhere on the Web. Supporters can show their enthusiasm and fundraise on the station’s behalf simply by copying the widget code from KLRU’s website and pasting the custom giving form into their own blogs, personal sites or other online locations. Kimbia's giving forms allow donors to instantly give online without having to make multiple clicks or get re-directed to another page or website just to complete their transaction.

"KLRU has become a trend-setter for any public television station or other organization that wants to effectively engage supporters and dramatically increase the amount of money they raise online," said Thon Morse, president of Kimbia, Inc. "What they’re doing online is extremely innovative, as evidenced by their PBS Development Award. It’s also extremely sustainable and replicable by any organization that wants to take their own great ideas and generate equally successful results."

About KLRU
Since its inception, Austin's own community licensed public television station, KLRU, has brought exceptional educational television to the Central Texas community. KLRU's mission is to enrich the lives of viewers through quality public television programming, community services and public events with shows like Austin City Limits, Central Texas Gardener and Texas Monthly Talks. KLRU reflects, celebrates and inspires Central Texans through creative excellence, community engagement and life-long learning.

About Kimbia
Kimbia, Inc. provides the most powerful and flexible online fundraising tools that enable nonprofits and other organizations to more effectively use the Internet to inspire giving and raise more money. The company’s next-generation technology can be deployed instantly and help fully utilize an organization’s existing marketing strategy and programs. Kimbia works with any software platform, CRM solution or content management system, empowering organizations to truly maximize their online technology investments and deliver significantly stronger fundraising results. For more information, please visit www.kimbia.com.

Kimbia Knocks Down Technology Barriers, Introduces the Future of Online Fundraising

admin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:00:32 +0000

Austin, Texas-based Company Spearheads Revolutionary Approach to Raising Money on the Internet; Next-Generation Tools Simplify Online Giving, Generate Stronger Results

AUSTIN, TEXAS (September 24, 2008) – Kimbia, Inc., provider of the most powerful and flexible online fundraising software, is changing the rules of how organizations raise money on the Internet. They’re making it easier; they’re making it more effective; they’re enabling nonprofits and other groups to achieve their true online fundraising potential while better utilizing their existing technology investments.

"We believe that everyone should be empowered to raise money anywhere online for the causes that matter most to them," said Thon Morse, president of Kimbia, Inc. "Kimbia is enabling all organizations, including ones with limited resources or technology expertise, to make this a reality for their donors and supporters. We're making it possible for groups to connect with constituents in new ways so that they can more effectively advance their missions."

Since Kimbia charges nothing upfront, the cost of using the company’s unique, web-based solution is tied directly to an organization’s online fundraising results.

The Ideal Fundraising Solution
Kimbia’s powerful online tools enable organizations to increase giving opportunities by placing multiple, targeted donation forms anywhere on their websites and anywhere on the Web. Rather than linking to a generic donation form that only exists in a single and passive location on their website, organizations can proactively present donors with instant opportunities to give no matter where they are online.

Advantages of Kimbia’s ideal fundraising solution include:

One-day Deployment – An organization can set up forms and begin accepting online donations within minutes, instead of waiting days, weeks or months.
Ease of Use – Fundraising staff can quickly create and easily manage multiple online campaigns. Kimbia forms can be completely customized and edited from a central location. Any content revisions or updates are instantly reflected wherever an organization’s forms are embedded online.
Flexible – Organizations can empower donors and supporters to post donation forms anywhere on the Web, including partner websites, blogs and personal networks. Donation forms automatically inherit the look and feel of any web page where they’re placed. Groups also can use standard web coding to create custom fundraising widgets that retain specific branding.
Fully Compatible – Kimbia works with any software platform, CRM solution or content management system, enabling nonprofits to fully maximize their current technology investments.
Comprehensive Reporting – Kimbia enables groups to capture all data entered into in a form, including its location on the Web. This information is immediately available as a report and for export to databases via API. Organizations can run real-time reports against any aspect of their data.

Better Online Giving Experience, Better Results
Kimbia enables organizations to reduce abandonment rates and increase the amount of money raised online by removing all complexity, distractions or confusion from the giving process. With donation forms embedded right into the content of any web page (e.g., articles, campaigns, blog posts, etc.), visitors are able to give at their greatest moments of interest—times when they feel most connected to an organization, a particular message or a specific cause. Additionally, instead of having to make multiple clicks and get re-directed to another page or website, donors instantly can complete a transaction without ever leaving the specific content of a web page that originally inspired their gift.

Organizations already using Kimbia have experienced significant boosts in their online fundraising results. KLRU-TV, Austin PBS, for example, increased the amount of money raised online by 170 percent during their Spring 2008 pledge drive compared to the previous year’s drive. Additionally, online giving for the public television station has grown from a stagnant 11 percent to 29 percent of total dollars raised since they started working with Kimbia.

"Raising upwards of 30 percent of your money online is absolutely attainable by any kind of organization, and we expect this number to increase even more over time,” said Shane Guiter, Director of Membership, KLRU. “By partnering with Kimbia, we’ve been able to increase the amount of donation opportunities while simplifying the online giving process for our supporters, enabling our station to truly maximize our fundraising results."

"We built Kimbia around the belief that every organization can reach more donors online utilizing existing relationships and marketing programs," added Morse. "Fundraising technology should enable these connections, rather than limit how an individual can give over the Internet or dictate how an organization interacts with its supporters. Nearly all potential donors are already online today, and there is tremendous opportunity for every organization to become a success story. Kimbia is here to make that happen."

About Kimbia
Kimbia, Inc. provides the most powerful and flexible online fundraising tools that enable nonprofits and other organizations to more effectively use the Internet to inspire giving and raise more money. The company’s next-generation technology can be deployed instantly and help fully utilize an organization’s existing marketing strategy and programs. Kimbia works with any software platform, CRM solution or content management system, empowering organizations to truly maximize their online technology investments and deliver significantly stronger fundraising results. For more information, please visit www.kimbia.com.

Are trendy Web tools helping charities?

admin — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:00:59 +0000

In this Austin American-Statesman article, reporter Andrea Ball discusses the growing use of social media tools among nonprofits to better engage supporters and increase giving. We're excited, though not surprised, to see our client KLRU referenced as a sterling example.

Are trendy Web tools helping charities?