Advancement Reimagined: A Peer-to-Peer Look at the AI-Driven Future

Whether you work in Higher Education advancement or alongside those at your college who do, you know sector headwinds are real. Institutional sustainability, fluctuating enrollments, volatile revenue pipelines—these aren’t just buzzwords, they’re the hurdles that keep advancement leaders up at night. Add to that the pressure to keep the doors open for deserving students to access the transformative power of higher education, and it can feel overwhelming.

I get it because I’ve been there. Before joining Blackbaud, I served as both a scholarship provider and Foundation partner, to execute donor agreements. I collaborated with institutions nationwide balancing donor stewardship, student support, and mission advancement with limited resources.

That’s why I’m excited about what Blackbaud is surfacing within the very solutions that you rely on today. We’re at a point where technological innovation—particularly AI—can make the difference between surviving and thriving.

Where AI Meets Advancement
Blackbaud’s Intelligence for Good® strategy is about enhancing how you do what you do— making it easier and more certain for you to accomplish your goals. AI isn’t here to edge you out or put fundraising on autopilot. It’s here to clear the clutter, reveal opportunities, and free you to do the strategic work only you can do.

When we connect the dots of innovation across the Blackbaud products most heavily relied upon by higher education professionals, something powerful happens. Let me break it down:

• Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®: Annual fundraising and major gift cultivation are both streamlined by powerful AI within Raiser’s Edge NXT. With Prospect Insights, gift officers can zero in on high-potential prospects with predictive analytics that guide cultivation strategies. It’s like shining a spotlight on the donors in Raiser’s Edge NXT who are most ready and able to give more. And simplified, streamlined, AI-powered online giving forms are optimized for conversion and upsell – with outstanding results, like one-time and monthly recurring gift sizes that average 3x the industry norm. Soon, chat and assistants powered by Blackbaud AI (available early 2026) will help fundraisers work even more efficiently by summarizing donor history, generating outreach content, and building out cultivation and engagement plans.
• Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®: Finance leaders gain transparency into budgets, expenses, and revenue pipelines with a complete fund accounting General Ledger—making it easier to forecast and align advancement priorities with institutional goals.
• Blackbaud Award Management™: Scholarship administrators can be more strategic with built-in workflow automation and streamlined review processes. Match the right scholarships with the right students to increase fund utilization while reducing administrative burdens, advancing equity and the student experience, and improving donor stewardship outcomes.

Individually, each product drives value. Together? They create an ecosystem that advances your institution’s ability to recruit, retain, and steward resources with agility.

Imagine AI Advancements in Advancement
Think about it: enrollment volatility has a ripple effect. Fewer students mean tighter budgets, and tighter budgets put pressure on advancement to fill the gaps. But with AI-powered Raiser’s Edge NXT, your fundraisers know exactly where to focus their efforts. Finance leaders using Financial Edge NXT can forecast revenue on demand, aligning advancement dollars with institutional needs. Meanwhile, Award Management ensures that scholarships are awarded to the most deserving students, helping them complete college without inordinate debt.

Looking forward, Blackbaud is exploring new ways AI can serve advancement leaders. Imagine what could come next:

• Predictive Enrollment/Advancement Modeling that integrates enrollment forecasts with pipelines so advancement teams can anticipate funding gaps and mobilize donors proactively, complete with early alerts for financial need indicators to proactively mitigate dropout risks.
• AI-Powered Donor Journey Maps that adapt in real time, guiding each prospect along the most effective path to engagement, showcasing where the greatest need exists with visualizations illustrating the impact of their donated dollars.
• An AI Matchmaker that instantly connects donor passions with student needs, creating compelling stewardship touchpoints with immediate reasons to give.
• An Institutional Health Dashboard that brings Raiser’s Edge NXT, Financial Edge NXT, and Award Management into a single AI-driven view, showing where your strategies are working and where to pivot quickly to impact outcomes—with an AI Campaign Coach that monitors campaign momentum in real time and advises advancement teams where to focus next.

It’s not just about solving a single pain point—it’s about creating resilience across the entire advancement cycle.

Why Blackbaud?
There’s a lot of hype around AI, but not all AI is created equal. Blackbaud’s Intelligence for Good® strategy is built specifically for the nonprofit and education sectors, not retrofitted from a one-size-fits-all approach.

Blackbaud’s tools aren’t just smart in theory. They’re infused with insights from decades of working alongside institutions like yours. That’s what makes Blackbaud practical, trustworthy, and effective.

AI as a Partner, Not a Replacement
The unknown can be unnerving, but when the AI you’re using is crafted specifically for institutions just like yours, modeled on proven higher education processes and using your own sector’s specialized data, you eliminate some of the ambiguity. You can trust the recommendations because it’s purpose-built with advancement and higher education in mind. AI isn’t a colleague you’re competing with—it’s a partner that can make you sharper, faster, and more effective.

If you’ve ever wished for thank you notes to be written for you, it’s now possible with Blackbaud’s AI, complete with reminders of who to thank and message framing suggestions. Blackbaud AI won’t set your budget priorities, but it will give you the clarity to make the best calls. It won’t sit across the table from a donor, but it will help you be better prepared to show them how their dollars change students’ lives.

AI will give you more space to do what you entered this field to do: build relationships, steward generosity, and ensure students have access to educational opportunities.

A Colleague’s Perspective
As someone who has walked alongside advancement leaders and scholarship administrators just like you, I know the stakes are high right now. But with the right tools, you can amplify your impact so your institution can continue to open its doors to the students who need it the most. And that’s work worth leaning into together, leveraging AI to make it happen.