Blackbaud Newsroom

Blackbaud’s 2020 Social Responsibility Report: Helping Good Take Over

Annual report highlights the company’s commitment to its higher purpose in a year of change

Charleston, S.C. (April 19, 2021) — Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world’s leading cloud software company powering social good, today released its 2020 Social Responsibility Report illustrating ways the company brought its purpose to life to help good take over. The report includes stories of impact from across the Ecosystem of Good®. Blackbaud is honored not only to help power these stories with cloud software, services, data intelligence and expertise, but also to participate in this Ecosystem of Good through partnership, giving, volunteering and corporate citizenship.

“The past year presented a unique opportunity to rethink change—for our customers, for us as individuals, and for Blackbaud as a company,” said Mike Gianoni, president and CEO, Blackbaud. “I’m proud to share our 2020 Social Responsibility Report, which demonstrates how our company responded to what we heard from our communities—and how we used an environment of tremendous change to drive powerful impact toward our higher purpose.” 

Supporting Customers
As the devastating impacts of COVID-19 spread across the globe, the missions of Blackbaud’s customers grew more urgent, their challenges became more intense, and their ways of working transformed overnight. 

Highlights of customers making incredible impact in 2020 with Blackbaud technology include:

  • The late Captain Sir Thomas Moore, who set a goal of walking 100 laps in his garden before his 100th birthday to raise money for NHS Charities Together, which supports the UK’s National Health Service—ultimately raising an astounding £38.97 million through JustGiving® before passing away in early 2021, creating a lasting legacy around the globe
  • Montreal General Hospital Foundation, which launched the Code Life Ventilator Challenge to gather the best ideas from around the world to design low-cost and easy-to-produce emergency ventilators, galvanizing supporters to fund this critical work through Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®
  • Umpqua Bank, which not only shifted its own operations and services during COVID-19, but also quickly adapted its social responsibility efforts, offering ways for employees to get involved virtually and expanding its company donation match to 3:1 using Blackbaud’s YourCause®
  • River Oaks Baptist High School, which moved all of its 900 students to online asynchronous learning in just three days with Blackbaud’s total school solution

Blackbaud was proud to play a role in supporting customers in this time of need with:

  • New technology and capabilities to help customers address unique needs during the pandemic
  • 99.7%+ uptime in cloud solutions and award-winning user support, maintained throughout the pandemic
  • 100+ free, insight-packed COVID-19 resources for customers
  • Free access to the entire Blackbaud University curriculum of recorded eLearning courses and an increase of 118% in completion of these courses in the first six months of the pandemic
  • A free, virtual bbcon, which allowed 38,000+ registrants around the world to attend the company’s annual tech conference to gain insight and inspiration

Supporting Employees
Blackbaud employees stepped up to support the social good community—both inside and outside of work—demonstrating the company’s core value of giving back. The company also continued investing in its employees. 

Blackbaud is proud to share that the company is comprised of 46% female employees and 54% male employees—an industry-leading ratio. Blackbaud is committed to continuing to create a diverse and inclusive environment where employees can bring their authentic selves to work.

Highlights of Blackbaud’s workplace culture in 2020 include:

  • Hiring the company’s first Diversity and Inclusion Officer Michael B. Moore, who will support ongoing initiatives including Unconscious Bias and Respect at Work workshops, Blackbaud’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Council and Blackbaud’s nine employee affinity groups
  • Transitioning all employees to remote work and announcing a new workforce strategy to support flexible work moving forward, which has reduced the environmental impact of Blackbaud’s locations around the globe
  • Providing virtual support for employees, including access to LinkedIn Learning content for professional development, creating virtual volunteering opportunities, piloting the Blackbaud After School Program to support working caregivers, and starting a weekly Mindful Mondays series to support physical, mental and emotional well-being
  • Continuing to drive innovation by pivoting the company’s annual Off the Grid innovation marathon to a virtual event, which allowed more employees to participate and to even include their families

Furthering Corporate Citizenship
Blackbaud was proud to stand alongside its communities this year—supporting them in their vital work while doubling down on its own corporate citizenship efforts to drive more good. 

Highlights include:

  • Expanding the company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) program, recommitting to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and joining the UN Global Compact
  • Donating funds to disaster relief efforts, increasing the company’s matching gift benefit by 30% for all employees and seeing employees participate in the matching gift program at 1.2x the global average
  • Creating a culture of giving back where 92% of employees volunteered over 100,000 hours and 25% served on social good boards or committees
  • Launching the Blackbaud Social Good Startup Program—a unique, year-long accelerator designed to support early-stage startups with the potential to impact the Ecosystem of Good

Blackbaud has expanded its 2020 Social Responsibility Report to include voluntary ESG reporting disclosures that align with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and internal company metrics.

“Blackbaud believes not only in helping good take over, but also in tracking and transparently reporting on progress to lead by example in building a better world,” said Rachel Hutchisson, vice president, corporate citizenship and philanthropy, Blackbaud. “We are proud of the progress we made in 2020, and we are resolutely focused on continuing to invest in this vital work.”

See the full Blackbaud 2020 Social Responsibility Report here, and hear from Blackbaud President and CEO Mike Gianoni here.

About Blackbaud
Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world’s leading cloud software company powering social good. Serving the entire social good community—nonprofits, higher education institutions, K–12 schools, healthcare organizations, faith communities, arts and cultural organizations, foundations, companies and individual change agents—Blackbaud connects and empowers organizations to increase their impact through cloud software, services, expertise and data intelligence. The Blackbaud portfolio is tailored to the unique needs of vertical markets, with solutions for fundraising and CRM, marketing, advocacy, peer-to-peer fundraising, corporate social responsibility, school management, ticketing, grantmaking, financial management, payment processing and analytics. Serving the industry for more than three decades, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, and has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit  www.blackbaud.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

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Forward-looking Statements
Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding expected benefits of products and product features. Although Blackbaud attempts to be accurate in making these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based. In addition, other important factors that could cause results to differ materially include the following: general economic risks; uncertainty regarding increased business and renewals from existing customers; continued success in sales growth; management of integration of acquired companies and other risks associated with acquisitions; risks associated with successful implementation of multiple integrated software products; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; risks associated with management of growth; lengthy sales and implementation cycles, particularly in larger organization; technological changes that make our products and services less competitive; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in the SEC filings for Blackbaud, copies of which are available free of charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov or upon request from Blackbaud’s investor relations department. All Blackbaud product names appearing herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackbaud, Inc.