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Blackbaud's total solutions help nonprofits raise the bar

Thursday, January 05, 2017 — 11:51:16 (EST)

Charleston, S.C., Jan. 5, 2017 -- Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB) today announced the results of a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Blackbaud, examining the potential return on investment enterprises may experience by deploying an integrated fundraising, marketing and financial solution from Blackbaud. Forrester found that over a three-year period, a Blackbaud total solution can help an organization increase recurring donations by 36 percent, improve productivity in data entry and reporting by 99 percent, and achieve a 114 percent return on investment.

Forrester took a comprehensive approach to evaluate the impact that a Blackbaud total solution can have on an organization. Specifically, it interviewed Blackbaud subject matter experts, Forrester analysts and an organization currently using a Blackbaud total solution, and constructed a financial model representative of the interview using the TEI methodology. The objective of the framework was to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision.

Forrester interviewed Save the Manatee Club (SMC), an award-winning national nonprofit and membership-based organization whose mission is to protect endangered manatees and their aquatic habitat for future generations. SMC was using seven different solutions for its needs, such as supporting online donations, and managing financial and accounting requirements, and the older, standalone systems were hindering its ability to execute programs and services to further its mission.

The multiple systems SMC used were not integrated, resulting in challenges with visibility of information, the inability to fully understand supporters' efforts and an excessive amount of time spent on manual data processes. To address these common issues, SMC selected a Blackbaud total solution, which in this case includes Raiser's Edge NXT™, a cloud fundraising and relationship management solution; Financial Edge NXT™, a cloud accounting solution; Luminate Online™, an online marketing and fundraising solution; and everydayhero®, an innovative crowdfundraising platform.

"The most important aspects were efficiency and integration; having an integrated solution creates a more efficient workflow—that saves time, which saves money, which allows us to focus on our programs," said Tonya Higgins, director of Development and Operations, Save the Manatee Club. "The better we can understand our donors, the more we can grow as an organization and ultimately serve our mission."

After Deploying its Blackbaud Total Solution, Save the Manatee Club Experienced:

• Efficiency of core processes, such as processing online donations and generating reports improved significantly. The most significant benefits experienced were in data entry and reporting, where SMC saved a significant amount of time and errors were reduced.
• Donations increased due to improved campaigns. SMC leveraged capabilities to send more targeted requests for recurring donations, resulting in increased revenue on an annual basis.
• Legacy applications were eliminated. Blackbaud's Total Solution replaced multiple legacy solutions, eliminating the recurring fees to support the older solutions and reducing SMC's expenses.

Learn more about how Save the Manatee Club raised more and spent less with a Blackbaud total solution by downloading the Forrester Total Economic Impact study at www.blackbaud.com/RaiseMoreSpendLess. Join Blackbaud, SMC and guest Forrester on Jan. 10 at 2 p.m. ET to learn more about this story in webinar form.

About Blackbaud Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world's leading cloud software company powering social good. Serving the entire social good community—nonprofits, foundations, corporations, education institutions, and individual change agents—Blackbaud connects and empowers organizations to increase their impact through software, services, expertise, and data intelligence. The Blackbaud portfolio is tailored to the unique needs of vertical markets, with solutions for fundraising and relationship management, digital marketing, advocacy, accounting, payments, analytics, school management, grant management, corporate social responsibility, and volunteerism. Serving the industry for more than three decades, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com .

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Source: Company press release.