Adding a rationale that may be helpful: Many (most?) of the organizations using these products have SOME level of integration with an external provider or consultant at this point. It's infeasible to expect that a single product will fulfill 100% of the individualized needs in an organization's ecosystem.

The ability for service providers and integrators to assist a client (and thus make them happier and more satisfied with their RE platform) is dependent on that organization's ability & willingness to spend money for the API, which in itself adds _no_ value. Only after spending yet more money on staff or developer time does the add-on become meaningful.

Free the API (such as your new subsidiary Convio does), and suddenly the ability to customize (and become more deeply tied into) the RE platform has a much lower barrier to entry. It benefits Blackbaud because your product becomes the indispensable centerpiece of a new ecosystem that your customers can grow with. It benefits the customers because they don't have to convince a Board or Executive Director to spend a non-insignificant sum of money on a product that they absolutely do not understand, and (has been expressed out loud on more than one occasion) is a cash-grab. Which drives them to out-source entire components of their ecosystem to 3rd-parties, with automated CSV imports/exports in between.

The paywalled nature of the current API benefits nobody. (Except maybe someone in Finance who doesn't truly understand how development works...)

AMEN

Ditto!

We can only dream of this day!!