Making Waves with Blackbaud NetCommunity
Blackbaud recently announced the release of Blackbaud NetCommunity 5.5 and one of the major new features that customers are most excited about is the Wave social networking feature:
“With Wave, Blackbaud has introduced a new way to leverage social networking—both within the application and by integrating to social network services like Facebook—which will add to the viral nature of our work,” said Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Director of Information Technology Michael Sola. “Being able to have an easier way to reach out through social networking channels will help us extend our audience as we move more and more in that direction."
Here at Blackbaud, we're even more excited to see how NetCommunity users will leverage this new feature as part of their social networking strategy. In a video statement, Vice President of Blackbaud Interactive Shaw Drummond said:
"Thanks to innovations like Wave, NetCommunity's new social networking platform, you can have confidence that Blackbaud is going to work with closely with industry leaders to see around the corner and ensure that you have everything you need in a website solution for years to come."
You can also hear from Steve MacLaughlin, Director of Internet Solutions why Blackbaud chose to "build" a native social networking component over the "partner" or "do nothing" options. He says, "The resounding response from the customers that we interacted with and spoke with was that they wanted Blackbaud to build a social networking component that would be part of Blackbaud NetCommunity, that would be out of the box as a part of the overall solution."
Finally, Blackbaud Interactive Marketing Manager Allison Van Diest discusses the top two questions she hears from nonprofits about social networking:
1) How am I going to control my brand?
2) Is social networking a panacea for everything that is difficult in fundraising today?
Check out the answers to these questions, all three videos and additional feature information that has been posted online.