Blackbaud Newsroom

With Landmark Announcement, Blackbaud Signals Groundbreaking Transformation in Church Technology Landscape

Cloud Software leader expands church offerings and announces the Cloud Solution for Faith Communities;
end-to-end church capabilities can now consolidate 8-12 systems

Charleston, S.C. (July 19, 2018) — After decades serving the faith community, Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world’s leading cloud software company powering social good, today announced the Cloud Solution for Faith Communities with the introduction of Blackbaud Church Management. With this move, Blackbaud now provides integrated, end-to-end cloud capabilities that enable churches to digitally transform their day-to-day operations through a single, connected experience. The announcement was made in conjunction with Blackbaud’s participation in the Church Network Annual Conference, currently underway in New Orleans.

“Our goal is to help church leaders drive vitality and care for their congregations with easy-to-use, scalable solutions for churches of all sizes,” said Mike Gianoni, Blackbaud president and CEO. “The Cloud Solution for Faith Communities does just that; bringing our historical strengths—namely financial management, fundraising and CRM, marketing and analytics—together with our new Blackbaud Church Management capabilities. This means churches will finally have a comprehensive, modern cloud solution built for the way they work from a single, accountable provider who can help them reduce their IT footprint by eight to 12 systems.”

Blackbaud Church Management at a Glance

Thousands of organizations in the faith community, including churches, currently benefit from Blackbaud’s capabilities. The company’s newest capability set, Blackbaud Church Management, offers the ability to track gifts and tithing, assimilate new members, directly communicate with their congregations via multi-channel communication, enable members to make online and mobile contributions, manage small groups and volunteers, implement secure child check-in, conduct background checks, provide bulk tax statements, manage facilities, and more. Churches can also add other Blackbaud capabilities from the new Cloud Solution for Faith Communities as their needs scale—all through one integrated experience, which is powered by Blackbaud SKY®, Blackbaud’s platform for social good cloud innovation.

“Part of the ministry of the church is to be able to connect well with our attendees, to meet their needs and get them connected to the life of the church,” said Kert Parsley, chief operations officer at James River Church in Springfield, Mo. “As a large multi-site church, for several years we looked at a variety of vendors but never felt we had one who could meet all our needs and reduce the multiple software systems that we were using. Blackbaud’s church management solution has risen to the top and met that challenge. Their team has a collaborative approach and we are looking forward to this new all-inclusive cloud solution.”

The Cloud Solution for Faith Communities: Church Management and So Much More

Blackbaud’s Cloud Solution for Faith Communities, which includes church management, fundraising and relationship management, financial management, marketing, and analytics, is built to enable churches to drive meaningful relationships, a connected church and effective ministry. Key outcomes include enabling churches to:

  • Strengthen relationships with congregations through automated workflows, increase engagement with small groups and events, and gain insight with unmatched analytics and reporting
  • Connect and better serve their staff, volunteers, and congregants with one holistic system
  • Care for their congregation with safe check-in, smooth registration and more
  • Save time and work more effectively with specialized capabilities for each church’s ministries
  • Manage and demonstrate financial accountability while securely managing multiple channels to make giving, pledging and dues simple for congregations

“Current market offerings are not meeting the comprehensive needs of churches both large and small—and given the positive impact made by faith communities, Blackbaud intends to transform the status quo in partnership with the church community,” said Kevin Knight, president and general manager, Blackbaud Faith Solutions. “Our proven expertise in cloud software for social good, our commitment to listening to the market and our expert staff who come from the church space uniquely position us to provide church leaders with an unmatched experience that addresses all their unique needs and breaks the mold of typical church software solutions.”

To learn more about how Blackbaud is changing the landscape of church technology and the Cloud Solution for Faith Communities, visit Blackbaud’s booth (#611-613) in the exhibit hall during the Church Network Annual Conference or visit hello.blackbaud.com/realizeyourimagination.

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

Blackbaud Media Contact
Nicole McGougan
Public Relations Manager
843.654.3307
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 the introduction of new products and product features, as well as the expected benefits of the new 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, particularly in larger organization; 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.