UC San Diego Foundation

The UC San Diego Foundation unlocks clear, concise data through a partnership with Blackbaud.

With Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®, the University of California San Diego Foundation
streamlined its complex accounting needs while reducing the burden on its IT staff.

As a leading public research university and one campus within a larger system, University of California San Diego faces complex financial reporting and a need for the right tools to put data to work accurately and efficiently.

The UC San Diego Foundation team turned to Blackbaud for its fund accounting solution decades ago and recently migrated to Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, Blackbaud’s cloud fund accounting solution. Controller Kierstin Sykes said she wanted her team to adopt the flagship solution to realize the benefits of moving to the cloud and reduce the IT burden on her colleagues at UC San Diego.

She found that Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT updated automatically and required less work. “Moving to the cloud netted a significant time savings,” Sykes said.

The UC San Diego Foundation’s objectives are simple: “Our goals are to make sure we’ve accounted for everything accurately, that we can easily report to our end users that we use donor money as intended, and report to our donors that we’ve properly stewarded their gifts,” Sykes said.

The path to reaching those objectives is less straightforward. The Foundation must create internal reports, quarterly audits and quarterly reports to the board of trustees, an external audit and nonprofit tax filings, and a report to the president’s office.

“Technology is huge,” Sykes said. “Every quarter, we’re able to do our work faster.”