Partnering to make a difference Quick Look Company: Blackbaud Industry: Software supplier and services CEO: Michael Gianoni Headquarters: Charleston, South Carolina Website: blackbaud.com Founded: 1981 Microsoft and the Microsoft Partner Network are helping businesses around the world modernize. As a result, they’re increasing operational efficiency and better serving their customers. While the bottom line is a key measurement of success for many companies, with nonprofits success is measured by whether a their mission was fulfilled. Blackbaud was founded in 1981 by Anthony Bakker who answered an ad posted by the private Nightingale-Bamford School in New York. The school was looking for an accounting solution and Bakker’s proposal REVENUE was accepted. He built a team and shortly thereafter delivered their software solution. With that, Blackbaud was born. $ 35 years later, Blackbaud’s offerings have expanded to provide software solutions focused on the nonprofit, philanthropic vertical, and have grown to become the largest software vendor in this space. These industry-optimized solutions enable nonprofit organizations to drive effective marketing campaigns and fundraising initiatives. “Within the first six months This complete suite of nonprofit-focused applications has allowed of turning it on, they Blackbaud to grow immensely. By 2015, $100 billion of the $358 billion given in the US was either raised or managed by a Blackbaud application. saw 1 million dollars of unforecasted revenue Blackbaud has philanthropic expertise to support animal welfare, arts and culture, foundations, healthcare, education, and public broadcasting. come in.” In addition to supporting their software solutions, Blackbaud provides rich - Amy Lucia, Vice President data into the world of giving through insights and trends in charitable Blackbaud giving. This information is rolled up into research, reports, prescriptive analytics, and data intelligence that help identify potential donors, saving charitable organizations resources and time typically spent mining data and generating reports themselves. Why Microsoft? The Microsoft Partner Network empowers organizations to improve efficiencies and make a difference in the lives of people around the world. A subscription model benefits charities dead or missing, 2.7 million others homeless, and over and businesses alike $6 billion in damage. The Greenes’ engineering firm received requests for water Like many Microsoft Partners, Blackbaud is transforming treatment systems and during their research they discovered their clients’ business with cloud-based applications and a how dire the need for safe drinking water was around the world. subscription model. This can particularly help address the This realization led to the creation of Water Mission, and the financial challenges of nonprofits. “Pay for what you need, decision to dedicate their lives to solving the problem. we can grow with you. Over time, as your mission grows, we can grow with you. You never have to pay for more than you need,” says Amy Lucia, Vice President, Corporate Brand Increasing the efficiency and Communications, Blackbaud. “In the past with on-prem, of charitable fundraising software would require updates and would often become stale. To maximize revenue and operational efficiency, Water Mission But with the subscription model, we’re also updating looked to Blackbaud and Microsoft technology. The organization the software continually.” implemented Microsoft Office 365 which has resulted in an The biggest challenge nonprofits struggle with is funding. estimated two hours of productive work time per employee, At its core, this affects every aspect of a nonprofit’s business. per week. Addressing revenue, they increased their fundraising Nonprofits are under immense pressure to attract and retain intelligence with an implementation of Blackbaud’s Raiser’s philanthropic donors and to make the most of the money Edge NXT. This Azure-powered application enabled Blackbaud they raise. This presents an opportunity for companies like to identify 897 donors within their records with the potential to Blackbaud who create scalable, cloud-based solutions for give $1,000 individually. At the time these donors didn’t have a this vertical. The advantages of subscription-based cloud relationship manager assigned to them to build relationships and solutions have been realized by for-profit corporations: solicit donations. If realized, this overlooked revenue which was the flexibility to scale up or down capacity as business discovered by Blackbaud’s application would have helped provide needs demand, low investment and administrative costs, mobile 100,000 additional people with safe drinking water for the rest capability, and more. Because nonprofits are universally beset of their lives. with funding challenges, there is a lot of growth opportunity for Blackbaud and its cloud solutions provide as more nonprofits become aware of the advantages of the model. Technology brings hope and relief around the world Water Mission was founded by Molly and George Greene who were running an environmental engineering firm in Charleston, SC when in 1998 Hurricane Mitch blew through the Caribbean. With maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour and reports of 75 inches of rain, the storm left 22,000 people Learn more and engage with Microsoft Partners on Connect. Since 2001, Water Mission has provided clean water, sanitation, and Within the first six months of deploying Raiser’s Edge NXT, hygiene solutions for millions of people in more than 50 countries Water Mission increased revenue by over $1 million. The increased around the world. One solution that Water Mission created is a small, efficiencies gained from using Microsoft and Blackbaud technologies simple water purification system that can be flown into a disaster site also helped Water Mission achieve an 87% program-to-expense ratio, and assembled by anyone in as little as 20 minutes. When up and resulting in a Charity Navigator rating which landed them within the running, this system provides safe water for 5,000 people a day. top 1% of nonprofits in the US. High Charity Navigation ratings like this distinguish how efficient a charity is, which helps drive donations. In addition to setting up the water systems, Water Mission also teach the community how to maintain them, creating jobs. To support the communities that receive these systems, The difference a good partner can make Water Mission has a Microsoft ASP.NET monitoring system in “The Microsoft Partner Network has been extremely valuable to place that sends alerts so problems can be fixed immediately. us, not just because of the resources it provides, but because of the connections that are made. Last year the Worldwide Partner Conference was a game changer for us. Not just in meeting Microsoft folks that could help us, but also in connecting with potential partners and like-minded organizations,” says Lucia. “Blackbaud finds Microsoft to be a very approachable, collaborative partner. No matter where we go, we run into Microsoft people who say ‘You’re our partner, we value you, and we’re going to roll up our sleeves to help you.’” Blackbaud growth opportunities in the cloud with non-profits Microsoft Partners are making a difference by improving the way businesses function, but among nonprofits, these partners are improving our ability to help each other to build a more compassionate world..