July 13, 2000 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Technology companies that provide services to the non-profit world have made several major announcements:.
* A coalition of companies announced that they intend to release an open-language standard called the Open Philanthropy eXchange, or OPX, later this month. The companies believe that using a common set of rules to streamline the exchange of information among various technology products and services will improve organizations’ ability to manage data.
The companies offer the example of a donor who makes a contribution via an online-giving site that uses the OPX standard. If the recipient charity uses OPX-compliant fund-raising software, it would be able to download information about the gift and the donor directly into its database.
A meeting to discuss the standard — which will be open to the public — is planned for September.
The coalition includes Blackbaud, a software company in Charleston, S.C.; Charitableway.com, a company in San Carlos, Calif., that helps companies to put their employee-giving campaigns online; and MyAssociation.com, a company in Salt Lake City that provides technology services to associations.
For more information, contact Jennifer Smith, Blackbaud; (843) 740-5400, ext. 3182; jennifer.smith@blackbaud.com.
* Two companies are working together to offer their customers both fund-raising advice and the technology services they need to carry out their campaigns.
Washington-based eContributor (http://www.econtributor.com), a company that processes online gifts and provides other technology services to charities, is joining forces with Changing Our World (http://www.changing ourworld.com), an Internet business, in New York, formed by two fund-raising consulting companies, Mike Hoffman Associates and CTE Associates.
* ETapestry (http://www.etapestry.com), an Indianapolis company that leases fund-raising software to which charities gain access via the Internet, has entered into a marketing partnership with the online business FundraisingInfo.com (http://www.fundraisinginfo.com), which was started by six consulting companies to provide fund-raising advice via the Internet. The two companies will promote one another’s services to their customers.
