Blackbaud Announces Expanded Partnerships with Almabase and SwipeTrack to Accelerate Customer Impact

Blackbaud offers partner solutions that complement and extend its capabilities to offer the ultimate choice, flexibility and impact for customers

CHARLESTON, S.C., April 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the leading provider of software for powering social impact, announced expanded partnerships with Almabase, a specialist in software tools for educational institutions to build alumni-centric programs and SwipeTrack Solutions, a leading provider of technology solutions for creating modernized patron experiences.

Blackbaud continuously seeks opportunities to add value to customers and their constituents by investing in both innovation and ecosystem enablement through partnerships. These first and third-party capabilities accelerate the measurable impact for customers. 

"Our goal is to accelerate the impact of our customers first and foremost," said Liz Price, senior director of Global Partners at Blackbaud. "These partnerships are an integral part of doing that and underscore how we are committed to both innovation and extending our offerings to expand what is possible. This focus allows us to meet and stay ahead of what purpose-driven organizations need to accelerate their impact."

Almabase: Redefining Digital Engagement and Fundraising for Higher Education and K-12 Schools

In a digital-first world, educational institutions have been challenged to find creative and engaging ways to reach and nurture relationships with their alumni. Blackbaud and Almabase partnered to create a seamless and secure integration with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT^® that enables advancement services professionals to move constituent, gift, and event data between systems without friction, so they have access to secure, up-to-date alumni information.

"With rising tuition costs, we want to help our school partners diversify their donor pipeline with new donors at the top of their funnel," said David Benjamin, chief commercial officer at Blackbaud. "With a focus on the school's alumni group, tools like Almabase can provide value to alumni so that they feel connected and engaged to the school's mission." 

A digital-first engagement platform, coupled with a strong fundraising CRM, gives advancement professionals at higher education institutions and K-12 schools a 360-degree view of their actionable insights and data that they need to drive value-led alumni engagement and fundraising to help their institutions retain and grow relationships and funding. 

"Our mission at Almabase is to make education affordable by helping every institution increase alumni participation," said Kalyan Varma, co-founder and CEO of Almabase. "The best schools understand that maintaining strong relationships with alumni is mission critical and are proactively engaging alumni, meeting them where they are. Our expanded partnership with Blackbaud and strong integration with Raiser's Edge NXT is a game-changer for any higher education institution or school that wants to drive up their fundraising outcomes through alumni." 

Almabase is available in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia.

XTruLink by SwipeTrack: Modernizing the patron digital experience and back-office operations for Arts and Cultural organizations

Arts and cultural organizations care deeply about the experience of their guests, patrons, members and visitors. That experience became even more critical and complex due to the physical distancing imposed by the pandemic. In response, Blackbaud and SwipeTrack Solutions partnered to a create seamless and secure integration between Blackbaud Altru^®, Blackbaud Merchant Services^™ and SwipeTrack's XTruLink. This collaboration enables patron services teams to offer digital, self-serve membership options, kiosks and hand-held check-ins for a modern, efficient patron experience as well as providing access to more data than ever before, giving teams the ability to truly understand their patrons to grow membership and fundraising programs.

XTruLink provides a custom-designed portal for online ticket purchasing as well as integrated hardware that include self-service kiosks—available in counter options and a stand-alone version—along with hand-held scanners that allow staff to scan in ticket-ready guests for faster entry.

"The pandemic created an urgent need to redefine the digital guest experience. Arts and cultural organizations had to quickly adapt to the changing patron management landscape," said Kevin McDearis, chief technology officer at Blackbaud. "Blackbaud software is designed to work flexibly with partner applications, and SwipeTrack Solutions built XTruLink to be deeply integrated with Blackbaud Altru and Blackbaud Merchant Services to create a modern front-of-house guest experience while providing a user-friendly way to process and interpret the data efficiently for the back-office team."

These teams need technology to support their growing online ticket sales in addition to walk-up sales and member check-ins. Most organizations are getting back to pre-pandemic levels of visitors but are experiencing staff shortages. Technology is used to keep lines moving and provide guests and members with a fast and easy way to enter their locations.

"Our goal with XTruLink was to provide a modern, self-serve guest experience to meet the demands of the new pandemic world," said Fred Tawil, president and co-owner, SwipeTrack Solutions. "We wanted to remove as much friction from the ticketing, entry and online member access experience as possible. And with the integration with Blackbaud Altru and Blackbaud Merchant Services, we do just that."

Learn more about the Blackbaud Partner Network here. 

About Blackbaud

Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the leading software provider exclusively dedicated to powering social impact. Serving the nonprofit and education sectors, companies committed to social responsibility, and individual change makers, Blackbaud's essential software is built to accelerate impact in fundraising, nonprofit financial management, digital giving, grantmaking, corporate social responsibility and education management. With millions of users and $100 billion donated, granted, and invested through its platforms every year, Blackbaud's solutions are unleashing the potential of the people and organizations who change the world. Blackbaud has been named to Newsweek's list of America's Most Responsible Companies, Quartz's list of Best Companies for Remote Workers, and Forbes' list of America's Best Employers. A remote-first company, Blackbaud has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom, supporting users in 100+ countries. Learn more at 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. 

SOURCE Blackbaud