Schools Advance Productivity Across All Departments, Save Time and Money with The Blackbaud Cloud Solution for K-12 Schools

CHARLESTON, S.C., June 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) today announced the results of a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study¹ conducted by Forrester Consulting, examining the return on investment that schools may experience by deploying an integrated fundraising, school management, marketing and financial solution. Forrester found that over a three-year period, a school can achieve a 63 percent return on investment, reduce delinquency and increase payment collection to boost revenue by $126,829 and avoid labor costs by $228,114 with the Blackbaud Cloud Solution for K-12 Schools.

Forrester took a comprehensive approach to evaluate the Blackbaud Cloud Solution for K-12 Schools' economic impact. Specifically, it interviewed Blackbaud subject matter experts, Forrester analysts and a school currently using the Blackbaud Cloud Solution for K-12 Schools 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.

Forrester interviewed St. Paul's Episcopal Day School, a private primary school in Kansas City, Missouri with approximately 450 students and 55 faculty and staff members whose mission is to develop confident learners, ethical leaders and compassionate, engaged citizens. The school's multiple systems were not integrated, resulting in growing challenges surrounding its campus technology, including inefficient workflows, data silos, an inability to locate information and an overall customer experience that lagged behind modern expectations.

To address these common issues, St. Paul's turned to the Blackbaud Cloud Solution for K-12 Schools, utilizing the onBoard® enrollment management system, onCampus® learning management system, onRecord® student information system, onMessage® school website system, Smart Tuition™, Raiser's Edge NXT® fundraising and Financial Edge NXT® fund accounting. "Having everything in one solution has greatly increased our productivity and has reduced the number of places people have to go for information to basically one," said Christina Cutcliffe, special projects manager, St. Paul's Episcopal Day School.

After deploying the Blackbaud Cloud Solution for K-12 Schools, St. Paul's experienced:

• Increased administrative staff productivity by 12,800 hours resulting in avoided additional labor costs of $228,114. Unifying the school's technology portfolio under a single, integrated solution significantly reduced the labor for manual data entry, verification and management.
• Reduced delinquency and increased the payment collection rate to boost revenue by $126,829. St. Paul's increased its monthly cash flow by offering an online payment portal, batching charges and enabling auto-payment.
• Replaced legacy technology, avoiding $117,032 in expected costs over three years. By reducing the number of separate technologies, St. Paul's was also able to greatly improve its data security.
• Transitioned to digital-only communications, decreasing postage, printing and labor costs by at least $17,393. With a purely digital admissions and enrollment process, St. Paul's eliminated eight other mass mailings per year, increased the speed of communications and reduced the school's environmental impact.

"Parent accessibility was a big goal of this transition; giving parents real-time access to their student billing account has been important – they can see all their charges broken down, when before the upgrade, they had no access to them – now they can ask better questions, or often, avoid needing to ask at all," Cutcliffe added. "Parents use the Blackbaud portal to see the formation of their child's attendance, assignments, and grades. Access to this data puts teachers and parents on a level playing field with better information so they can have better conversations."

Download the Forrester Total Economic Impact study to learn how St. Paul's improved productivity across every department, and saved time and money using the Blackbaud Cloud Solution for K-12 Schools. Join Blackbaud and guest Forrester Consultant Benjamin Brown on June 14 at 2 p.m. ET to learn more about this story in webinar form. 

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, healthcare 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 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 and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.

Blackbaud Media Contact
Nicole McGougan
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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.

¹ The Total Economic Impact™ Study, a May 2018 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Blackbaud

SOURCE Blackbaud

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