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 aid you handle your grants, monitor 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.
Inspecting The Previous: Historical past and Timeline of Blackbaud Grantmaking
Consider it or not, what we all know as Blackbaud Grantmaking has been round because the 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 area, Blackbaud had already been serving a big selection of nonprofit and public sector organizations. It was now seeking to develop their companies even additional to assist clear up the ache factors of grantmakers. Since MicroEdge was acquired, there have been a big selection of adjustments to the product interface and performance to maintain up with the wants of contemporary grantmakers.
In 2020 Blackbaud Grantmaking made the total transition to Blackbaud SKY. Blackbaud SKY is an built-in open cloud platform uniquely constructed for the social affect group that many different revolutionary Blackbaud options run on, together with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT and Blackbaud Monetary Edge NXT.
With Blackbaud SKY got here a streamlined, fashionable person interface and an built-in expertise, bringing collectively Blackbaud options, best-in-class third occasion options, and the Blackbaud Accomplice Community. This additionally meant making it simpler for Blackbaud to ship revolutionary product enhancements on an accelerated schedule and provides clients entry to industry-leading cloud companies to make sure their information 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 effectively 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 person to make use of however will also be modified simply with out intervention from builders or needing to name Blackbaud’s assist each time a change is required.
We’ve heard from clients that Blackbaud Grantmaking has already saved them hours of time to allow them to give attention to what’s vital—their mission. Among the newest updates we’re enthusiastic about embody new doc administration capabilities, new methods to delete information 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, we have now discovered that administrative duties like managing paperwork and coping with giant quantities of information is a large time suck for his or her organizations. Grantmakers had been coping with cluttered recordsdata filled with paperwork that they needed to consistently re-download to view or make adjustments to. That’s the reason we’re making it attainable 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 pieces they want at your fingertips.
Delete with function: time to declutter
Along with the sheer quantity of things to maintain organized, we discovered that worldwide clients had a creating must take away information after a sure interval to respect native privateness legal guidelines. We knew we would have liked to make it simpler to handle giant information units so we added new choices that make it simpler to delete request and call data in bulk. We additionally added new search fields, together with “Declination date” and “Contact final up to date” to assist additional slender 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 functions
We hope to avoid wasting grantmakers much more time by offering intuitive search capabilities and the flexibility to control columns to simply discover what you might be searching for and keep organized.
2. A reimagined applicant-centric portal
Filling out grant functions could be an all-consuming course of for people and nonprofits which might be searching for funding, and as a grantmaker you play a giant position in making that have as easy as attainable for potential grantees. The quantity of care you set into crafting an equitable utility course of will immediately affect your skill to create and domesticate constructive relationships together with your grantees. Not solely will it save your candidates tons of time, however your grant employees can even anticipate to obtain increased high quality and error-free functions in return. It’s a win win! This is the reason we have now optimized the applicant portal to avoid wasting candidates time by making it simpler than ever for candidates to submit an utility and monitor its standing.
Pondering past the thrilling new items of performance, one outstanding shift is that with the introduction of this new applicant portal we have now additionally added Blackbaud Grantmaking to the record of Blackbaud options that makes use of Blackbaud ID. Which means that organizations can sign up utilizing one login for all their Blackbaud options and examine each utility that was submitted utilizing a Blackbaud resolution in a single place.
3. A streamlined kind builder
We now have 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 in addition simply is sensible. For our international viewers, we have now 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 attainable 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 clients to combine and prolong the product’s capabilities with different options of their grantmaking ecosystem. Endpoints for Funds and Organizations are already out there in the present day, with extra thrilling information to roll out by means of to the tip of the 12 months. Keep tuned!
The Future Is Vivid: The place We’re Headed Subsequent
Trying to the longer term, we’re consistently retaining a watch out for brand new AI use circumstances 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 Knowledge Intelligence portfolio already permits our clients 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 means of till the tip of the 12 months, we will likely 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 embody 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 may very well be made extra highly effective or productive by means of new performance or AI? Keep updated with the newest product enhancements and supply suggestions to our product workforce by becoming a member of Blackbaud Grantmaking’s group group and don’t overlook to register for our Product Replace Briefings!
