Blackbaud Offers to Buy Convio for $275 Million Blackbaud, which provides software and services to help nonprofit groups manage their relationships with donors and supporters, has made an offer to acquire a competitor, Convio, for about $275 million. The combined companies would capture roughly 10 percent of the market for online fund-raising done by nonprofit groups, according to Blackbaud, but some large charities were concerned that the acquisition could drive costs higher from less competition. The companies sell packages of products and services that help nonprofits keep track of donors and reach out to them in various ways; manage and organize events like bike- and walk-a-thons online; and analyze and track fund-raising via social media and other technology. The offer values Convio at $16 a share, a 49 percent premium to its closing price on Friday and well above its 52-week high of $13. Marc E. Chardon, president and chief executive of Blackbaud, said the acquisition would better position both companies to cover and integrate the multiple channels nonprofit organizations use today to connect with and cultivate their donors. "With some customers, they are running a major event like a walk-a-thon and we are handling their direct-mail campaigns," Mr. Chardon said. Customers want to be able to see where donors are engaged in multiple channels and manage those experiences, and bringing the strength of our two organizations together allows us to help them do that better and quicker than either of us could do it independently. The purchase of Convio also would propel Blackbaud much more heavily into cloud-based computer services, where it has relatively few offerings. Mr. Chardon said more than three-quarters of Convio's revenues were derived from such services. "For a long time, Blackbaud has had actual servers that sat in a nonprofit's offices but most of what's new has been happening in the cloud," said Jim Gilliam, founder of Nation Builder, a company that provides a service to help nonprofits build systems to manage community organizing. Some nonprofit groups were concerned that the combination might limit competition among vendors. "As not-for-profits move more of their engagement efforts online, the sector needs more competition in the online platform space, not less," said Charles D. Connor, chief executive of the American Lung Association, which is a client of both companies. This proposed acquisition might result in only a single major provider for this important and growing area. Mr. Connor said he hoped that the Justice Department would give close scrutiny to the proposal. Mr. Chardon said that Blackbaud's competitors included corporate titans like Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and Salesforce. "If you look at online fund-raising for nonprofits in the United States, of the over $20 billion raised, the two of us account for about 10 percent of that number," he said. We have lots of competitors. Blackbaud and Convio have flirted with each other for several years but had never come to an agreement. Convio's profits fell sharply in the last quarter, however, despite an 18 percent increase in revenue, and its shares have sputtered. Convio's shares rose sharply Tuesday, closing up 48 percent to $15.89 in Nasdaq trading. Blackbaud ended the day up 1 percent, at $29.56.