In case you are a grantmaker, you know the way vital it’s to have a dependable and environment friendly software program system that may assist you handle your grants, observe your affect, and collaborate together with your stakeholders. You most likely additionally know that the world of philanthropy is altering quickly, and your software program must sustain with the brand new challenges and alternatives that come up.
Over the previous 30 years, Blackbaud Grantmaking™ has been serving foundations and nonprofit grantmakers with software program that continues to evolve with you.
Analyzing The Previous: Historical past and Timeline of Blackbaud Grantmaking
Consider it or not, what we all know as Blackbaud Grantmaking has been round for the reason that Nineteen Nineties in a single kind or one other. MicroEdge was established again in 1985 and launched their Grants Administration Software program “GIFTS On-line” in 2009. Blackbaud acquired MicroEdge and inherited what we now know as Blackbaud Grantmaking in 2014.
As a path blazer within the social affect house, Blackbaud had already been serving a big selection of nonprofit and public sector organizations. It was now trying to broaden their companies even additional to assist clear up the ache factors of grantmakers. Since MicroEdge was acquired, there have been a big selection of modifications to the product interface and performance to maintain up with the wants of contemporary grantmakers.
In 2020 Blackbaud Grantmaking made the complete transition to Blackbaud SKY. Blackbaud SKY is an built-in open cloud platform uniquely constructed for the social affect neighborhood that many different modern Blackbaud options run on, together with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT and Blackbaud Monetary Edge NXT.
With Blackbaud SKY got here a streamlined, trendy consumer interface and an built-in expertise, bringing collectively Blackbaud options, best-in-class third celebration options, and the Blackbaud Accomplice Community. This additionally meant making it simpler for Blackbaud to ship modern product enhancements on an accelerated schedule and provides prospects entry to industry-leading cloud companies to make sure their knowledge is backed up and safe. At this level, Blackbaud’s imaginative and prescient of a completely built-in suite of merchandise constructed for nonprofits, instructional establishments, hospitals, foundations, and different social affect organizations was properly on its means.
Flash Ahead to the Current: Onwards and Upwards
Since Blackbaud Grantmaking transitioned to SKY view, Blackbaud has continued to prioritize fixed enhancements and modifications to supply a utterly configurable GMS that may be constructed round a corporation’s distinctive processes and workflows. It’s a system that’s intuitive sufficient for the typical consumer to make use of however can be modified simply with out intervention from builders or needing to name Blackbaud’s help each time a change is required.
We’ve heard from prospects that Blackbaud Grantmaking has already saved them hours of time to allow them to concentrate on what’s vital—their mission. A number of the newest updates we’re enthusiastic about embrace new doc administration capabilities, new methods to delete knowledge in bulk, a very reimagined applicant-centric portal, and the introduction of SKY API®.
The artwork of organizing: From chaos to readability
By way of participating in discovery calls with grantmakers, now we have discovered that administrative duties like managing paperwork and coping with massive quantities of knowledge is a large time suck for his or her organizations. Grantmakers had been coping with cluttered recordsdata filled with paperwork that they needed to always re-download to view or make modifications to. That’s the reason we’re making it doable to view and edit Microsoft paperwork immediately inside Blackbaud Grantmaking. What’s extra, these paperwork are tied on to your contact data, so your employees members can have all the things they want at your fingertips.
Delete with goal: time to declutter
Along with the sheer quantity of things to maintain organized, we discovered that worldwide prospects had a creating have to take away knowledge after a sure interval to respect native privateness legal guidelines. We knew we wanted to make it simpler to handle massive knowledge units so we added new choices that make it simpler to delete request and phone data in bulk. We additionally added new search fields, together with “Declination date” and “Contact final up to date” to assist additional slim your outcomes
Empower candidates and grantees whereas saving time internally
Our recent applicant and grantee expertise will deliver with it thrilling new updates in three completely different areas:
1. New methods of managing submitted purposes
We hope to avoid wasting grantmakers much more time by offering intuitive search capabilities and the power to control columns to simply discover what you might be in search of and keep organized.
2. A reimagined applicant-centric portal
Filling out grant purposes might be an all-consuming course of for people and nonprofits which might be looking for funding, and as a grantmaker you play an enormous position in making that have as easy as doable for potential grantees. The quantity of care you place into crafting an equitable utility course of will immediately affect your means to create and domesticate optimistic relationships together with your grantees. Not solely will it save your candidates tons of time, however your grant employees also can count on to obtain larger high quality and error-free purposes in return. It’s a win win! For this reason now we have optimized the applicant portal to avoid wasting candidates time by making it simpler than ever for candidates to submit an utility and observe its standing.
Pondering past the thrilling new items of performance, one outstanding shift is that with the introduction of this new applicant portal now we have additionally added Blackbaud Grantmaking to the record of Blackbaud options that makes use of Blackbaud ID. Because of this organizations can check in utilizing one login for all their Blackbaud options and think about each utility that was submitted utilizing a Blackbaud answer in a single place.
3. A streamlined kind builder
We’ve got lowered the time it takes to construct a single utility kind and the variety of types wanted by introducing conditional logic. It’s even simpler to handle model controls and format your kind, so it’s not solely visually interesting, but additionally simply is smart. For our world viewers, now we have launched kind translation capabilities that may translate types into 30 completely different languages, together with French, Spanish, and Welsh simply to call just a few!
Develop what’s doable with integrations and companions
SKY APIs are industry-standard REST APIs that make it a lot simpler to amplify the ability of Blackbaud Grantmaking™ permitting prospects to combine and lengthen the product’s capabilities with different options of their grantmaking ecosystem. Endpoints for Funds and Organizations are already out there right now, with extra thrilling information to roll out by to the top of the 12 months. Keep tuned!
The Future Is Vibrant: The place We’re Headed Subsequent
Seeking to the longer term, we’re always maintaining an eye fixed out for brand new AI use instances for grantmakers that may assist clear up actual and significant challenges. Do not forget that amidst all of the hype round AI, Blackbaud has been incorporating AI into its merchandise for a few years. For instance, our Information Intelligence portfolio already permits our prospects to faucet into billions of {dollars} of unrealized income. As a pacesetter in important software program for social affect, Blackbaud’s Intelligence for Good® technique acts as our framework to make sure that we create AI that’s accessible, highly effective, and reliable.
With the introduction of SKY API and new endpoints being added on a rolling foundation by till the top of the 12 months, we can be closely centered on constructing extra out-of-the-box integrations and including companions to the Blackbaud Market. A few of our most extremely requested integrations embrace a deeper connection between Blackbaud Grantmaking™ and Monetary Edge NXT™, DocuSign, and Microsoft Energy BI.
Is there something you want to present suggestions on? A use case that you just really feel might be made extra highly effective or productive by new performance or AI? Keep updated with the most recent product enhancements and supply suggestions to our product workforce by becoming a member of Blackbaud Grantmaking’s neighborhood group and don’t overlook to register for our Product Replace Briefings!
