February 2010 - Posts
New research from Blackbaud and Charity Dynamics of 1750 events with nearly 1 million participants finds that nonprofits can greatly increase awareness and support by providing social media tools to event participants
Charleston, S.C. (February 24, 2010) – Social media continues to drive new levels of success for nonprofit event fundraising, according to a recent Blackbaud, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLKB) and Charity Dynamics research project. "The popularity of social media websites like Facebook®, Twitter®, and YouTube® has given rise to promising new ways for event participants to raise money online," said Mark Davis, co-author of Making Event Participants More Successful with Social Media Tools and Blackbaud’s director of technical solutions. "While some people still doubt the fundraising potential of these tools, special event participants continue to be an exception and have shown strong fundraising success by tapping into the power of social networking."
The new research paper from Blackbaud and Charity Dynamics provides an in-depth look at the growing impact of social media tools on peer-to-peer fundraising and how event participants are using these online tools to more effectively support nonprofits. As part of the research project, the team analyzed data from 1,750 events that provided social media tools to nearly 1 million participants during 2009.
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Charleston, S.C. (February 16, 2010) – Blackbaud, Inc., (Nasdaq: BLKB) the leading provider of software and services for nonprofit organizations, today announced that Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the largest art museum in the western United States, has selected and will implement its integrated solution for arts and cultural organizations.
“Blackbaud will not only be our keystone business systems provider, they will also be an important strategic partner, helping us to re-engineer our business processes for resource efficiency and improved audience services,” said Peter Bodell, LACMA’s Chief Information Officer. “LACMA is in the midst of several multi-year transformation initiatives that include a phased Information Technology refresh that has been conceived and designed to position the Museum to more efficiently serve its visitors and staff.”
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From the Philanthropy Journal:
By: Gilman Sullivan, practice manager for Blackbaud and Amy Adams, principal for Blackbaud.
In difficult economic times, nonprofits are implementing changes to deal with the results of increased demand for services, decreased endowment value and smaller donations: downsizing, reorganizing, reducing programs, upgrading systems technology.
Impact of change
The key elements of organizational effort are people, process and technology.
Every change we might typically consider affects one or more of these elements. Changes are unsuccessful if the critical resource, people, is overlooked.
Any change to what the organization does, how it is done, who is leading and what the strategy is, affects people, who then become stakeholders.
If you overlook engaging, educating and committing stakeholders, then your change will fail.
When a major change is made, people experience that change much as they experience personal loss.
Once change is announced, there is a downturn in performance. Denial, anger, avoidance and a growing frustration with change can occur.
Decreased performance may return to a previously acceptable level but not to the level required
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Online contributions for Haiti earthquake-relief efforts are setting giving records, topping early totals for other major disasters and opening new support sources for humanitarian groups.
Electronic donations for the first five days after the Jan. 12 disaster totaled 19% more than during the same time frame after the 2004 Asian tsunami and 109% higher than the equivalent following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to Blackbaud, a software and services provider for 22,000 non-profit groups.
Similarly, users of the online-payment system PayPal raised more than $1.8 million for Haiti relief efforts in the first five days of fundraising after the tragedy. That surpassed the $1.5 million contributed via PayPal in the month after the devastating 2008 earthquake in China.
"The Haiti disaster is yet another example that when major disasters strike, it's online where givers increasingly turn first," said Steven MacLaughlin, Blackbaud's Internet solutions director.
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Charleston, S.C. (February 3, 2010) – Blackbaud, Inc., (Nasdaq: BLKB) today announced its global conference schedule, including the 2010 Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits™ — North America on October 20 to 22 (Updated 2/18/2010) at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center, Washington, D.C. and the 2010 Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits™ — Europe on October 11 to 12 at Victoria Park Plaza, London.
“We’re so excited to bring Blackbaud’s 11th annual North American Conference for Nonprofits to Washington D.C. this year and to once again hold our European Conference for Nonprofits, which has a strong focus on supporter relations, in London,” said Mary Beth Natarajan, Blackbaud’s director of communications. “This year’s conferences will provide unprecedented networking and learning experiences, partnering opportunities and fresh, new interactive sessions.”
Blackbaud’s 2010 Conference for Nonprofits — North America will provide nonprofit professionals with four days of specialized educational content and opportunities to network and interact with peers and nonprofit experts.
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Blackbaud, Inc., (Nasdaq: BLKB) today announced that it is partnering with The Salvation Army World Service Office to power its Haiti relief online fundraising efforts. The site, which is now live, is processing donations at https://donate.salvationarmyusa.org/.
The Salvation Army has had a presence in Haiti since 1950 and currently operates schools, clinics, a hospital, feeding programs, children's homes and church-related activities spread across two major facilities in Port au Prince, close to the epicenter of the earthquake. The Salvation Army continues to mobilize people and resources to assist with the international relief effort in Haiti. With the tremendous response from the public to this disaster, Blackbaud was asked to assist The Salvation Army with an unprecedented surge of online donations.
"We are working with partners like Blackbaud to maximize our ability to process donations that provide needed supplies to the people of Haiti," said Major George Hood, national community relations secretary. "We turned to our Blackbaud team to provide technology that we could count on to handle such tremendous volume. Blackbaud's rapid response helped us get our Haiti relief site up and running in a matter of hours, with no disruption to our fundraising efforts."
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