Blackbaud Launches Social Score to Help Nonprofits Identify and Reach Social Influencers

CHARLESTON, S.C., Jun 29, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- With social media becoming an increasingly important channel for nonprofits, Blackbaud, Inc. BLKB +2.03% today announced the availability of Social Score(TM) a new social media data enrichment service that provides organizations insight into their supporters' social media activities and influence.

"Social Score improves our understanding of our supporters, helps us respectfully communicate with them, and gives us actionable next steps to ensure that we play a positive role in their lives," said Danielle Brigida, National Wildlife Federation's manager of social media.

The new Social Score service provides nonprofits analysis and categorization of donors, volunteers, peer fundraisers and other constituents by measuring their level of influence and reach through publicly-available social media activities on networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The data are then made actionable for organizations by including analysis on how to increase awareness by cultivating high-value relationships with influencers, positively guide reputation, and potentially raise more money while increasing memberships and event attendance.

"We are interested in utilizing social data to better engage our constituents across multiple facets of our organization; major gifts, advocacy, special events and direct response," said Kate Rooper, American Diabetes Association's vice president of campaign development. "We believe this added intelligence will allow us to better steward our donors and our participants in a more thoughtful way, lending to increased retention and acquisition."

The service is available through Target Analytics(R), a Blackbaud company that offers solutions for donor acquisition, prospect research, donor benchmarking, custom modeling, and data enrichment services to more than 6,000 nonprofits.

"Social data delivers groundbreaking insight and actionable information to the entire organization like never before," said Mark Davis, Blackbaud's director of product marketing. "We are proud to empower nonprofits with key data they can use right away to raise more money and to cultivate deeper and more passionate support for their campaigns and events."

Free resources for nonprofit social media managers

To help nonprofits understand how to use social data, Blackbaud has released a new white paper, Understanding the Value of Your Social Media Influencers: How to identify and empower those who can engage an entire community. The paper explores four categories of social media influencers, and provides insights and recommendations on how to effectively engage each of the different types of social media users. It features multiple case studies and examples from National Wildlife Federation, highlighting how to best use social data to support advocacy, fundraising, volunteer recruitment and other activities.

In partnership with NTEN, Blackbaud is also offering a free six-part webinar series, "An Insider Look at Nonprofit Success in Social Media," that examines how nonprofits are using social media successfully. Drawing from more than 300 case studies submitted by respondents to the 4th annual 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report, this Insider Look series gets beyond the statistics and explains how nonprofits are making social networking thrive.

Over the next six months, the seminar series will feature nonprofits that have successfully built their bases and engaged their communities on social outlets like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. The series will kick-off with the following web seminars:

• Making Change at the Local Level Using Social Media -- Friday, July 13, 2:00 p.m. ET
• What is Social Influencer Really Worth to Your Nonprofit -- Monday, July 23, 2:00 p.m. ET

Learn more about the new Social Score service, download the whitepaper and register for the webinar series at www.blackbaud.com/social-influencer .

**About Blackbaud **Serving the nonprofit and education sectors for 30 years, Blackbaud BLKB +2.03%combines technology and expertise to help organizations achieve their missions. Blackbaud works with more than 27,000 customers in more than 60 countries that support higher education, healthcare, human services, arts and culture, faith, the environment, independent education, animal welfare, and other charitable causes. The company offers a full spectrum of cloud-based and on-premise software solutions, and related services for organizations of all sizes including: fundraising, eMarketing, social media, advocacy, constituent relationship management (CRM), analytics, financial management, and vertical-specific solutions. Using Blackbaud technology, these organizations raise more than $100 billion each year. Recognized as a top company by Forbes, InformationWeek, and Software Magazine and honored by Best Places to Work, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has employees throughout the US, and in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

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.

SOURCE: Blackbaud, Inc.