Product Updates Build Connection Between
Solutions and Teams While Delivering Contextual Intelligence—All to
Help Social Impact Organizations Raise More, Save More and Work
Smarter
CHARLESTON, S.C., Sept. 24,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the
leading provider of software for powering social impact, today
kicked off its annual technology conference, bbcon, announcing a
wide range of innovation shaping the future of social impact
technology.
"Our 40-plus years of expertise in this space and unwavering
focus help us drive innovation that empowers our customers to
achieve their missions," said Mike
Gianoni, president, CEO and vice chairman of the board of
directors, Blackbaud. "We are transforming the way social impact
organizations operate, giving back time and improving data-backed
decision making. With cutting edge technology, thousands of
customers—from nonprofits, to schools, foundations, companies and
more—are amplifying their impact across communities and around the
world. We're proud to be the chosen partner of so many incredible
organizations, and we're committed to continue delivering for
them."
Innovation to Fuel Impact
Blackbaud unveiled a range
of product updates and enhancements aimed at connecting workflows
and teams to free up time and provide users the insight they need
to deliver their best results, without guesswork.
The Future of Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®
Blackbaud
shared its plans and progress for the next generation of its
market-leading fundraising software, building on its commitment to
roll out a reimagined user experience with all critical-end-to-end
workflows and enhanced functionality in a single, unified view by
the end of 2025. Key updates include:
- A new navigation, making it easier and more intuitive
for both fundraising and finance users to quickly find what they
need among an expanded array of menu options.
- A common records engine for K-12 school fundraisers
launching this year that will provide a complete picture of donors
by connecting data across the entire school community.
- New donor recognition program management capabilities,
coming in 2025, to automatically tie gifts to these programs for
deeper donor engagement.
Intelligence for Good®: AI Built for Social
Impact
Blackbaud is building AI that delivers
fundraising performance, benchmarking and forecasting directly
in-product, providing social impact professionals with insights
connected to their business data and built on Blackbaud's
40 years of sector leadership. Planned AI advancements
include:
- Blackbaud Copilot, an AI-powered coach and assistant
that allows users to interact with their data in natural language,
ask questions, and gain insights. Copilot is already embedded in
Blackbaud Impact Edge™, and a technical preview in both Raiser's
Edge NXT and Financial Edge NXT® is planned for 2025 to help
fundraisers understand, plan for and engage with high priority
donors and prospects, and to help simplify fund accounting by
combining automation and personalization.
- New performance insights to help organizations see how
they stack up against others, based on Blackbaud's rich
benchmarking data.
- New tools for education customers, like an Award
Cycle Manager within Blackbaud Award Management™ to give
scholarship administrators a centralized view and KPIs, and an
"at-risk" student tool for Blackbaud's K-12 Education
Management portfolio to help teachers identify students in need of
extra support by consolidating data on attendance, test scores and
work completion.
Accelerated Giving to Raise and Save More
Blackbaud
continues to innovate across its integrated payments
experiences to help organizations raise more and save more so that
they can invest in their missions. Exciting updates
include:
- A wider global roll out of Blackbaud's Optimized and
Standard Donation Forms, proven to increase conversion rates,
including the recent addition of the Intelligent Ask feature
powered by Blackbaud AI, which ensures fundraisers target the
right gift amount for each donor.
- Tap-to-pay capabilities that will allow supporters to
tap their card on a mobile device to donate, pay entry fees or buy
swag.
- The extension of Blackbaud's Complete Cover offering—the
social impact sector's only solution with guaranteed 0% processing
fees—to an initial set of partners, including Trellis for auctions
and events and Almabase for higher education giving days.
Connected Financial Management
Blackbaud is connecting
workflows throughout the finance office. The company will deliver
100% of core Financial Edge NXT capabilities in a unified view in
Q1 of 2025, including new and improved Query and reconciliation
functionality. Additional enhancements include:
- Automated invoice scanning using Microsoft AI Document
Intelligence to automate the entire payables process from start to
finish directly in Financial Edge NXT.
- Payment Assistant for fully automated bill pay in
Financial Edge NXT, helping customers to save hours a week with
auto-reconciliation of payment assistant transactions, to
reduce processing costs and to benefit from robust, built-in
fraud protection.
- Deeper integration between Raiser's Edge NXT and Financial
Edge NXT to connect workflows from donation through
disbursement with fewer manual steps, making it easier and faster
to let donors know what their gifts paid for and when.
- Financial Edge NXT integration with Blackbaud
Grantmaking™, connecting departments and surfacing the
right financial data at the right time.
Extensibility and Flexibility
Blackbaud is combining
the power of purpose-built software designed specifically for the
business operations of social impact with platform-level
flexibility to enable endless possibilities. The company is
delivering more plug-and-play apps, system integrators and
consulting services in the Blackbaud Marketplace, plus:
- New partner integrations, including the connection of
Blackbaud Education Management with UBIQ Education and
BrightArrow, enabling K12 schools to power best-in-class school
websites, connect their data, leverage marketing capabilities to
drive enrollment, and give faculty access to mass communication
functionality for all their classes, teams, advisories and
more.
- The expansion of Red Arc's existing integration
for Raiser's Edge NXT to Blackbaud CRM™ cloud-hosted
customers, to directly connect their preferred digital marketing
solutions, like Constant Contact, Mailchimp, HubSpot or Salesforce
Marketing Cloud, to their CRM.
- New SKY Add-ins™ for both low-code and
pro-code developers to create hyper-specific solutions and access
partner solutions without ever leaving Blackbaud
software.
- Six new Microsoft Power Platform-certified
connectors offering more flexibility, plus added low-code
tools for Blackbaud CRM that have already been popular in
Raiser's Edge NXT for embedding power automate workflows, power
apps, adaptive cards and Power BI extensions.
Happening at bbcon 2024
bbcon 2024 is
taking place this week in Seattle,
welcoming thousands of social impact professionals for three days
of unmatched networking, the latest in industry trends and
inspiring keynotes. The agenda features a day-two keynote
conversation with Emmy® award-winning actress and nonprofit founder
Sheryl Lee Ralph, as well as a
day-three appearance by Dr. Alex
George, a bestselling author and
podcaster focused on resilience and mental wellness. As the
presenting sponsor, Microsoft will deliver several sessions on
how nonprofits can use AI with their data to drive
mission success around fundraising and campaign
planning.
Mainstage sessions can be livestreamed for free through the
bbcon virtual pass, with replay content available on demand
beginning October 15. Visit
bbconference.com for more information, and for more details on
Blackbaud's product roadmap, register to attend the Blackbaud
Product Update Briefings, happening Nov.
12-14.
About Blackbaud
Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the
leading software provider exclusively dedicated to powering social
impact. Serving the nonprofit and education sectors, companies
committed to social responsibility and individual change makers,
Blackbaud's essential software is built to accelerate impact in
fundraising, nonprofit financial management, digital giving,
grantmaking, corporate social responsibility and education
management. With millions of users and over $100 billion raised, granted or managed through
Blackbaud platforms every year, Blackbaud's solutions are
unleashing the potential of the people and organizations who change
the world. Blackbaud has been named to Newsweek's list of America's
Most Responsible Companies, Quartz's list of Best Companies for
Remote Workers, and Forbes' list of America's Best Employers. A
remote-first company, Blackbaud has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa
Rica and the United
Kingdom, supporting users in 100+ countries. Learn more
at www.blackbaud.com or follow us on X/Twitter, LinkedIn,
Instagram and Facebook.
Media Inquiries
media@blackbaud.com
Forward-looking Statements
Except for historical
information, all of the statements, expectations and assumptions
contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that
involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including statements
regarding expected benefits of products and product features.
Although Blackbaud attempts to be accurate in making
these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future
circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such
statements are based. In addition, other important factors that
could cause results to differ materially include the following:
general economic risks; uncertainty regarding increased business
and renewals from existing customers; continued success in sales
growth; management of integration of acquired companies and other
risks associated with acquisitions; risks associated with
successful implementation of multiple integrated software products;
the ability to attract and retain key personnel; risks associated
with management of growth; lengthy sales and implementation cycles;
technological changes that make our products and services less
competitive; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time
in the SEC filings for Blackbaud, copies of which are
available free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov
or upon request from Blackbaud's investor
relations department. All Blackbaud product names
appearing herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Blackbaud, Inc.
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SOURCE Blackbaud