Connections : BBNC API

Blackbaud Nonprofit Central Helps Community Foundations

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:05:00 GMT

Blackbaud recently announced the availability of Blackbaud Nonprofit Central, a solution created specifically for community foundations that enables them to connect nonprofit organizations with donors of similar philanthropic interests. Blackbaud Nonprofit Central gives local nonprofits a central place to highlight their mission and gives donors the information they need to give wisely.

Community Foundation Focus
Blackbaud Nonprofit Central allows community foundations to connect donors with local nonprofits that meet the donors’ philanthropic interests. The solution contains information about all organizations in the United States that file a 990 return with the IRS. This gives local nonprofits a central place to better inform donors about their work, add additional profile information, and gives donors a very robust portal to help make giving decisions.

Partnering for Success
Communities Foundation of Texas used Blackbaud Nonprofit Central to create DonorBridge. They partnered with Blackbaud, the Center for Nonprofit Management in Dallas, the Institute for Urban Policy Research at The University of Texas at Dallas, and also received support from The Dallas Foundation. The site is focused on nonprofits in and around the Dallas area.

Big Launch and Big Results
DonorBridge was launched last week and on its first day received 8,400 donations to 353 organizations totaling over $4,000,000. That shattered previous single-day online giving records and sets a new standard among community foundations. That's a credit to the hard work and effort of CFT and the other organizations involved in this project.

APIs, Infinity, Integration, and Beyond
Behind the scenes, Blackbaud Nonprofit Central uses various technologies to make it all happen. Blackbaud is leveraging the Infinity Platform to deliver information about 500,000 nonprofit organzations. Fusion Labs, a Blackbaud Strategic Application Partner, leveraged Blackbaud's open APIs to develop key portions of the solution. Blackbaud NetCommunity drives the content management and email marketing tools. This gives community foundations a fully integrated total solution for their CRM, accounting, grants management, and online giving and communication needs.

This is a great new offering that is getting measureable and sizable results from day one. A big round of applause to everyone who was involved in this project and I'm really looking forward to seeing what's next.

Early December News & Notes

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:51:00 GMT

Here are a few newsworthy and noteworthy items worth a look:

The Salvation Army Southern Territory Selects Blackbaud Enterprise CRM
A very exciting announcement about the latest Blackbaud Enterprise CRM customer. TSAS leads the mission of The Salvation Army in the southern United States across nine “Divisions” representing 15 southeastern states and the District of Columbia. At a national level, The Salvation Army raised $2 billion in 2007 and recently ranked No. 2 in The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “Philanthropy 400” list of organizations that raise the most funds from private sources.

The Baudcast - Episode 20
The latest episode of The Baudcast does a recap on Blackbaud's 2008 Conference for Nonprofits. Lots of topics are covered including the NetCommunity Developer Challenge, Google map mashups, Facebook apps, custom development, data transparency, social media sessions, PCI compliance, FreeCause, and more. The panel discussion includes Chad Norman (Internet Marketing Manager), Danielle Brigida (Associate Operations Coordinator, National Wildlife Federation), Garrett Keating (United States Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation), Michael Sola (Director of Information Technology, Chesapeake Bay Foundation), and Joe Meehan (Manager of Database Administration, Milken Institute), and myself.

Create Custom Donation and Payment Forms for BBNC
Check out the newest creation by Michael Andrews at Blackbaud Labs. The sample code allows a BBNC developer to record a donation, use gift attributes, including how to get all gift attribute types from RE7, selecting a Raiser's Edge Appeal using the CFAPicker Server Control, clearing a Credit Card, designing and sending a custom email acknowledgement that uses custom merge fields, using the EmailEditor Server Control, and using jQuery scripts and images from embedded resources.

The Geiger Counter Blog starts clicking
Richard Geiger, non-profit veteran and Blackbaud practice manager, has joined the rest of us bloggers. Richard has spent more than fifteen years in the nonprofit world and really knows his stuff. I'm looking forward to reading some of his insights and opinions.

Updates from Around the Interwebs

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:59:00 GMT

Here are a couple of articles and announcements that I thought were worth passing along:

The New York Times Giving Section — Some new articles and featured content worth giving a look. Start with the "Bracing for Lean Times Ahead" article by Stephanie Strom and work your way around. Another article called "Taking Science Personally" covers the Michael J. Fox Foundation, a nonprofit that uses Blackbaud's Internet solutions.

World's largest Ronald McDonald House selects Blackbaud NetCommunity — Blackbaud continues to see BBNC adopted by a significant number of large nonprofits for their online fundraising, communication, and integrated marketing needs.

The Bullseye Blog Launches — The newest Blackbaud blog covers our Direct Marketing solution. You can get a complete list of all the Blackbaud blogs here.

Rock Your NetCommunity with jQuery — The latest post on Blackbaud Labs covers using jQuery with BBNC. You can get lots of technical information and download examples of jQueryScript and jQuery ThemeRoller code.

Blackbaud NetCommunity Developer Network Challenge

Steve MacLaughlin — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:19:00 GMT

Who doesn't like a good contest? Who wouldn't want to win an iPhone? Who wouldn't love free maintenance on BBNC for a year? We thought so too! That's why Blackbaud started the first annual Blackbaud NetCommunity Developer Network Challenge!

The developer that creates the most compelling customization for Blackbaud NetCommunity will be awarded an iPhone, and will also win their organization a year’s free BBNC maintenance. The contest, which is open to the public, is based on leveraging the NetCommunity Open Platform, accessible at www.blackbaudlabs.com.

The challenge will remain open until October 31, and entries, including code and a description of the application, should be submitted at http://labs.blackbaud.com/NetCommunity/contest. Entries will be posted to Blackbaud Labs after the 31st to allow review and sharing prior to judging. To learn more about how to write a custom part, visit Anatomy of a Custom Part.

The judging will take place at Blackbaud’s Conference for Nonprofits, being held in Charleston, South Carolina on November 16 to 19. All entries will be featured in the marketplace for other users to vote on, and the winner will be announced on the last day of the conference. All entries will be publicly available at Blackbaud Labs. To view sample code that is currently available, visit NetCommunity API Downloads.

The BBNC development team is also running its own internal contest. I can't wait to see the entries and what people are able to do with the toolset.

Blackbaud NetCommunity Gets Some REST

Steve MacLaughlin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:10:00 GMT

The latest post on Blackbaud Labs shows off using REST and Blackbaud NetCommunity. The release of BBNC v5.5 added Custom Handlers to the API. This extends the ability for BBNC to use Representational state transfer (REST) and takes things to a whole new level.

"In its very basic terms, and as far as its application to the web is concerned, REST is the model of making a web request and getting an appropriate response. REST keeps it simple. It defines the underlying concept that by just specifying a URL I can get a response that is appropriate for my task." - Michael Andrews, Blackbaud Distinguished Engineer

In the post, Michael Andrews goes on to show an example of how to write a Facebook Canvas application that a Facebook user can add to their Facebook profile that surfaces content in Facebook that comes from your NetCommunity site.

Michael's post goes on to demonstrate writing REST based custom request handlers with the NetCommunity Platform API. A lot of "do it yourself" instructions are provided. And he leaves us with a teaser about a future article showing lots of cool Blackbaud things surfacing on Facebook.

Blackbaud NetCommunity v5.5 Release News (Part 1)

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:42:00 GMT

There's a lot excitement around Blackbaud this week with the release of Blackbaud NetCommunity v5.5 on the horizon. This week's blog postings will be devoted to covering lots of news, notes, and information about the product. Here are a few things to have a listen and look at for today:

The Baudcast - Episode 12
This episode's panel discusses Blackbaud NetCommunity v5.5, efficiency thru integration, multi-channel messaging, BBNC API, BBNC Idea Bank, social networking, Blackbaud Delivers, NetWits Live @Portland, Socialthing, VoteTheBay.org, and more. The panel discussion includes Chad Norman (Internet Marketing Manager), Melanie Milonas (Public Relations Manager),Garrett Keating (The U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association & Foundation), Michael Sola (Chesapeake Bay Foundation), and me.

BBNC Custom Menu
Over at Blackbaud Labs there is a another new custom part sample that has been posted. This one is a custom menu sample that shows off some of the new changes in the Blackbaud NetCommunity v5.5 API improvements. The sample demonstrates how to build a completely custom menu with <ul><li>-based hierarchy represented, CSS based elements, no Javascript required, no dynamic pop-out sub menus, and graceful down-level rendering for accessible and mobile browsers. This puts a lot of flexibility and capability in the hands of clients to enhance their online solution.