Blackbaud's Cultural Management Solution Sees Dramatic Momentum with Arts & Culture Organizations Nationwide

CHARLESTON, S.C., Nov. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world's leading cloud software company powering social good, today announced record momentum in product innovation and unprecedented customer response as it continues to bring new capabilities to market through Altru®, its cultural management solution.

Altru is a market leading cloud solution that equips arts and culture organizations to consolidate admissions, membership, fundraising, merchandise, marketing and more, giving users a simple yet comprehensive view of their supporters. "Our relationship with Blackbaud is about so much more than software," said Laura Lott, president and CEO, American Alliance of Museums (AAM). "Blackbaud has become an integral member of the museum community and our partner in advocating for the industry. We both strive to empower all types of museums–from aquariums and historic sites to art museums and zoos–to achieve their missions."

"The partnerships we have with organizations like the American Alliance of Museums, Association of Children's Museums and American Public Gardens Association, as well as the direct feedback from our customers provide us with continuous insight into what arts and cultural organizations need to further their missions," said Kevin Knight, Blackbaud's senior vice president and general manager, Arts & Cultural. "We have implemented 140 community ideas into the product already and plan to continue that trend moving forward."

Blackbaud's Altru Strengthens Arts and Culture Organizations Nationwide

Altru's customer-focused approach to continuous improvement has powered significant customer momentum during the past two quarters.

• After embarking on a new capital campaign to raise $20 million by 2021, Seneca Park Zoo chose Altru to help with its donor engagement, and ticketing and general admission management needs. "We looked at multiple platforms and solutions, but none had the database power and potential of Altru. Every day, I realize more and more of the benefits of Altru, for example, our month end reconciliation reports used to take me two days, and now they take me 10 minutes!" — Ruth Northrop, Data Manager
• Long-time Blackbaud customer Oklahoma City Museum of Art migrated to Altru to better engage and understand patrons with a best-in-class fundraising, ticketing and operations management solution for arts and culture organizations. "Being an Altru customer has opened us up to new insight about our visitors, given us an improved web interface and the ability to sell tickets online, made us capable of selling via mobile and tablet, and has untied us from our desks. Those are my favorite aspects of Altru." — Jack Madden, Facilities Operations Director
• Academy Arts Museum (AAM) had outgrown eTapestry^®, which is built for developing nonprofits, and knew that Altru was the smart choice to streamline and manage its operations going forward. "The organizational calendar for our classes has been a money saver. It allows users to see what we have available, to keep better track of classes, and to have full view of class details." —Tracey Mullery, Visitor Services Manager
• To make better use of their data and overcome the challenge of driving membership sales and event attendance, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art made the move to Altru and was able to increase memberships by 40 percent year-over-year. "The migration of our donor information and giving history data was seamless, it was a one-time process from Raiser's Edge to Altru. We have been extremely impressed with Altru and the access we have to the Blackbaud team." — Christopher Lawing, Vice President of Programming and Research
• Altru strengthens connections at Pretend City Children's Museum and helps the team operate more effectively so they can focus on the job at hand – "building better brains." "We looked at other software but they didn't give us the ability to integrate our ticking and fundraising systems together. Altru allows us to easily integrate these and pull in the previous 12 years of our Raiser's Edge database – it was incredible! Now, my team and I can access this information no matter where we are." — Sandra Bolton, Executive Director
• Transitioning from another vendor's system to Altru gave Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve exactly what it needed—a more efficient, effective way of handling its constituency and operations. "We love being able to email customers' receipts and handle the membership process immediately at the front desk. Online sales and registrations are wonderful, our younger visitors and members love being able to take care of business while still in their jammies!" —Barb Dinger, Visitor Services Manager

The company also integrated solutions in Altru from Blackbaud Technology Partners Red Rook for CounterPoint SQL to allow gift shop staff to see member information from Altru at the point of sale and VolunteerHub to enhance volunteer management capabilities. "Enabling VolunteerHub for Altru bridges the gap between organizations' volunteer lists and donor lists, giving them an enhanced 360-degree view of each supporter," said Michael Carr, CEO of Carr Engineering (VolunteerHub). "We're excited that Altru customers are already seeing such a positive impact from the integration and our ability to offer simple hour tracking, help engage more volunteers and build new efficiencies."

During bbcon 2016, its annual conference, Blackbaud announced new Altru features including member-only events, online pre-sales and guest pass tracking, with more coming in 2017 like enhanced performance and cloud operations. Blackbaud is also in the early adopter stage of integrating Altru and Luminate Online™, its advanced marketing solution offering, which enables a complete engagement package for arts and cultural organizations including marketing automation.

To read the latest tips and insights for arts and cultural professionals, as well as additional customer spotlight stories, visit http://arts.blackbaud.com/. For more information about Altru, visit www.blackbaud.com/altru.

About Blackbaud

Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world's leading cloud software company powering social good. Serving the entire social good community—nonprofits, foundations, corporations, education institutions, and individual change agents—Blackbaud connects and empowers organizations to increase their impact through software, services, expertise, and data intelligence. The Blackbaud portfolio is tailored to the unique needs of vertical markets, with solutions for fundraising and relationship management, digital marketing, advocacy, accounting, payments, analytics, school management, grant management, corporate social responsibility, and volunteerism. Serving the industry for more than three decades, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.

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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. 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.

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SOURCE Blackbaud, Inc.

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