CHARLESTON, S.C., Jan. 29, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blackbaud, Inc. (Nasdaq:BLKB) today announced the results of a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting, examining the potential return on investment enterprises may experience by deploying Blackbaud CRM™ in the North American higher education sector. Forrester found that over a five-year period, a large state university system can expect to experience an increase in fundraising revenue of $13.3 million, avoided labor costs of $3 million and IT costs of $400,000.
Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact Blackbaud CRM can have on an organization. Specifically, it interviewed Blackbaud subject matter experts, Forrester analysts and a large state university currently using the solution, and constructed a financial model representative of the interview using the TEI methodology. The objective of the framework was to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision.
The university Forrester interviewed has approximately 25,000 undergraduates, 8,000 post-graduate students and more than 230 staff members in its central fundraising organization. In addition, prior to deploying Blackbaud CRM, the central fundraising organization had a legacy fundraising management system that was approaching end-of-life and had over 15 subsystems that were used to perform functions such as web support, email blasts, letter generation, scanning backup, reporting, and data transfer to financial systems.
The multiple systems and constituent databases that existed resulted in challenges such as the inability to have a single, comprehensive view of its donors and to adopt the latest fundraising best practices, and technology risk associated with unsupported systems with multiple integration points. To overcome the limitations of its fundraising systems, the organization decided to deploy a centralized constituent relationship management system, Blackbaud CRM.
After deploying Blackbaud CRM, the institution experienced:
- Improved labor efficiencies by moving from a decentralized to centralized system for maintaining data records
- Formalization of business processes
- Improved insight into overall fundraising capacity of its constituents, in particular major giving
- Creation of a new development plans by gift officers
- Fundraising lift attributable to Blackbaud CRM
- Improved workforce productivity
- Elimination of IT maintenance expense for legacy systems
"Higher education represents an important and strategic vertical within the industry Blackbaud serves," says Mike Gianoni, president and chief executive officer of Blackbaud. "We're committed to helping university executives and application delivery professionals understand the financial implications of deploying an enterprise wide solution. Forrester's predictive economic model correlates a comprehensive financial ROI assessment with the impact Blackbaud technology has on institutional advancement--not the least of which is strong, long-lasting supporter relationships."
Blackbaud CRM brings industry-leading fundraising, online applications, actionable prospect research and analytics, and multichannel direct marketing together in one platform to enable an integrated view of the constituent experience, across your organization.
To learn more about Blackbaud CRM and to download the Forrester Total Economic Impact study, visit www.blackbaud.com/forresterstudy.
About Blackbaud
Serving the nonprofit, charitable giving and education communities for more than 30 years, Blackbaud (Nasdaq:BLKB) combines technology solutions and expertise to help organizations achieve their missions. Blackbaud works in over 60 countries to support more than 30,000 customers, including nonprofits, K12 private and higher education institutions, healthcare organizations, foundations and other charitable giving entities, and corporations. The company offers a full spectrum of cloud and on-premise solutions, and related services for organizations of all sizes, including nonprofit fundraising and relationship management, eMarketing, advocacy, accounting, payment and analytics, as well as grant management, corporate social responsibility, education and other solutions. Using Blackbaud technology, these organizations raise, invest, manage and award more than $100 billion each year.Recognized as a top company, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.
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 projections about returns on investment in technology. 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 related to our dividend policy and share repurchase program, including potential limitations on our ability to grow and the possibility that we might discontinue payment of dividends; risks relating to restrictions imposed by the credit facility; 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.