BBNC API Allows Form and Function

Blackbaud formally announced today that all Blackbaud NetCommunity customers can now receive The Raiser's Edge API without having to pay a software license fee. The BBNC API has always been free to use for clients and this was the next logical step to encourage more development. Our BBNC API wiki also continues to grow and expand as well.

At last week's NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference there was a whole lot of talk about open API's and what various companies and organizations were doing with them. But about 97% of the discussions and spin about open APIs were all about data or functionality. Very little of the conversations were about data and functionality. A user could move data from this system to that system a bit easier. Or a user could build new features on top of a single platform. But not both.

The major difference about what Blackbaud is doing with our API initiatives is to allow clients the ability to do data exchange and functionality development. You want to surface information unique to your organization online? Great! It's all there and we've given you the ability to do it. (Not just limited sets of the data.) You want to build your own functionality in the application, but take advantage of the built-in security, transaction capabilities, or content editor? Great! That's all there too. It's form and function with no limits.

Last week I got an email about this kind of stuff in action. The U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation launched the latest version of their online website built using BBNC. USNA is one of several clients that have built their own data exchange and functionality using the BBNC API. USNA's Garrett Keating, who runs his own Customizing Blackbaud NetCommunity blog, showed me a Google Maps + BBNC + Raiser's Edge data part that they built just for their alumni community members to use.

This is an example of some of the really powerful things that the plat form allows you to do. Garrett references some other parts built using the BBNC API on his blog. All is this is pretty exciting stuff and I have been talking to a lot of clients that have also developed their own parts or have partnered with Blackbaud Interactive to assist them in this development work. Look for some more examples and news in the near future.