The Blackbaud Institute Releases the SDG Connector: a Valuable Resource for All Social Good Organizations

SDG Connector Uses Codes from the NTEE, ICNPO, and NAIC Taxonomies to Create a Shared System Enabling Grantmakers and Grantseekers to Demonstrate Progress Toward Achieving the SDGs

CHARLESTON, S.C., April 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Blackbaud Institute, a research division of Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world's leading cloud software company powering social good, today published a free resource to enable social good organizations to align their missions to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

The SDG Connector, developed in partnership with Candid and the Council on Foundations, will help organizations tie their impact to the highest-level issues facing the world. Nonprofits and grantmaking organizations will be able to use the alignment to the SDGs to help identify strategic partners, clearly communicate goals in reporting and storytelling, and measure their progress toward these goals using a common structure provided by the SDG targets and indicators. Companies looking to support social impact causes will be able to more readily identify organizations aligned to their objectives. Ultimately, this provides a framework and common language to enable all social good organizations to achieve outcomes and make progress toward achieving the SDGs. 

"By bringing three social-impact focused organizations together to create this resource, our hope is to encourage, support and drive strategic philanthropy for the global Ecosystem of Good^®," said Ashley Thompson, managing director of the Blackbaud Institute. "This work helps create a connected community with uniform benchmarks, common best practices and shared vision for creating a better and more sustainable future." 

The SDG Connector uses the IRS National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE), the UN International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations (ICNPO), and the North American Industry Classification System (NAIC) codes to classify the activity and programs of social good organizations and connect them to the SDGs and related targets.  

The SDGs are a set of 17 interconnected global goals devoted to addressing hunger, poverty, health, equality, peace, justice and more that strive to "leave no one behind." Adopted in 2015 by 193 countries, including the United States, they serve as a call to action to governments, the private sector, foundations, nonprofits and individual change agents to make significant improvements in life, on land and under water by 2030.  

"This tool can help organizations better integrate SDGs into their work and measure impact," said Zohra Zori, vice president of networks, Candid. "It supports the robust SDG-related efforts already occurring in the U.S. and will help organizations collaborate to advance progress in achieving their shared goals." 

The SDG Connector stems from work that began in 2017, that's now being expanded by publishing the tool as an open-source resource that the entire social good community can utilize to align their missions with the 17 goals and additional related targets. 

"We're excited to launch this tool as part of the Blackbaud Institute's mission to develop and share leading-edge research and insight, and this is just a starting point," Thompson said. "The SDG Connector can help organizations further their work in aligning to outcomes, and we look forward to adding more depth into certain categories like equity as we look to foster dialogue between grantors and grantees." 

Access the SDG Connector and learn more at blackbaudinstitute.com/SDGConnector. 

About The Blackbaud Institute 
The Blackbaud Institute drives research and insight to accelerate the impact of the social good community. It convenes expert partners from across the philanthropic sector to foster diverse perspectives, collective thinking, and collaborative solutions to the world's greatest challenges. Using the most comprehensive data set in the social good community, the Blackbaud Institute and its partners conduct research, uncover strategic insight and share results broadly to drive effective philanthropy at every stage, from fundraising to outcomes. Knowledge is powering the future of social good, and the Blackbaud Institute is an engine of that progress. Learn more, sign up for our newsletter, explore our  knowledge base  of social good best practices and trends, see the latest quarterly statistics on giving, and check out our most recent resources at www.blackbaudinstitute.com.   

About Blackbaud
Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world's leading cloud software company powering social good. Serving the entire social good community—nonprofits, higher education institutions, K–12 schools, healthcare organizations, faith communities, arts and cultural organizations, foundations, companies and individual change agents—Blackbaud connects and empowers organizations to increase their impact through cloud 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 (CSR) and environmental, social and governance (ESG), school management, ticketing, grantmaking, financial management, payment processing and analytics. Serving the industry for more than four decades, Blackbaud is a remote-first company headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, with operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit  www.blackbaud.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

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