Big 12 Development Conference

I'm in Oklahoma City for the Big 12 Development Conference. The conference is made up of schools from Baylor University, University of Colorado, Iowa State University, University of Kansas, Kansas State University, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, University of Texas, Texas A&M University, and Texas Tech University.

Blackbaud works with nearly all these institutions to provide solutions around fundraising management, financial management, wealth screening and analytics, and Internet solutions. The higher education market is an area where we've been able to provide a lot of domain expertise to our customers.

I'm presenting a session called "What Social Networks Should Be Doing For You" that demystifies why social networks are important, who's using them, how to start building a strategy to use them, and their role in nonprofit fundraising.

I will also be covering some just released statistics from Nielsen Online and their Global Faces and Networked Places report. There are some good findings in the report, including that Social network and blogging sites are now the fourth most popular activity on the Internet. Nielsen also provides some updated usage statistics, many around Facebook, and the global reach these sites now have.