New Enhancements Further Strengthen
Performance, Scalability, Stability, and Reporting Power for
Blackbaud Impact Edge Customers
CHARLESTON, S.C., July 29,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackbaud (NASDAQ:
BLKB), one of the leading providers of software for powering social
impact, today announced the integration of multiple Microsoft
products – including Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft
Power BI – into Blackbaud Impact Edge™, the company's new data and
storytelling solution that's currently under development. The
enhancements to the product architecture through Azure OpenAI
Service and enhanced reporting through Power BI will enable
Blackbaud Impact Edge corporate customers to rapidly produce more
contextualized reporting on their social impact programs.
Additionally, the company announced that Blackbaud Impact Edge will
include the first release to a corporate audience of Blackbaud's
generative-AI chatbot, Blackbaud Copilot.
Blackbaud Impact Edge enables corporate impact professionals to
easily monitor, report on, and articulate the various aspects of
their organization's social impact initiatives. The software brings
together an organization's impact data spanning employee engagement
programs, philanthropic programs, and educational
initiatives—incorporating rich data from both YourCause® from
Blackbaud® CSR solutions and EVERFI® from Blackbaud® community
education initiatives—along with other trusted external data
sources. Whether an organization needs to produce a global, unified
view of their impact or dive into a granular local community
initiative, Impact Edge instantly delivers data, insights, and
AI-powered narratives, with best-practice security principles built
in.
In collaboration with Microsoft, Blackbaud has integrated new
features and solutions into Impact Edge that align with security
best practices and expand the robust artificial intelligence
capabilities and reporting dashboard.
The integration of Microsoft's Power BI Embedded platform will
enable better data visualization and put key outputs at the user's
fingertips. This integration will also allow Blackbaud to design a
more stable and scalable reporting experience within the dashboard
while increasing overall performance.
In addition to updates to Impact Edge's dashboard, Microsoft
engineers are supporting the development of key elements of
Blackbaud Copilot that is being built into Impact Edge. The
features being developed for this version of Blackbaud Copilot will
allow Impact Edge to answer questions and generate content based on
trusted sources of information, such as the company's brand voice,
information on their website, or other public-facing web domains.
With future, more advanced Copilot features, Impact Edge will
provide stronger data visualizations, the ability to ingest
different formats of data, and improved access to structured
data.
"The architecture we are building with Microsoft will help
increase overall performance, stability, and scalability for our
customers while helping keep their information secure," said
Dale Strange, president and chief
operating officer, Corporate Impact, Blackbaud. "Microsoft is a
leader in secure and scalable AI capabilities, and their strategic
consultation and support have allowed us to build out the
cutting-edge reporting and AI features of Impact Edge to produce
this incredibly powerful platform that the industry has never seen
before."
"Blackbaud has been using Microsoft services in an innovative,
intelligent way," said Eduardo
Kassner, chief data & AI officer, Software & Digital
Platform, Microsoft. "With the support of our engineering teams,
Blackbaud has designed their architecture to enable a sophisticated
generative AI, data access, and visualization experience, using
Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Power BI solutions."
Blackbaud is preparing for the next phase in the roll out of
Blackbaud Impact Edge for Corporate Impact customers following a
successful early adopter program. Limited availability of Blackbaud
Impact Edge has begun with select customers. All features will
continue to be enhanced and improved throughout limited
availability, plus new features will be added, like data alignment
to industry standards such as the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals, the Community Reinvestment Act, and other
globally relevant standards, as well as the ability to input and
manage toward program goals. Blackbaud Impact Edge general
availability is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024.
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 over $100 billion raised, granted or managed through
Blackbaud 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 X/Twitter, LinkedIn,
Instagram and Facebook.
Media Inquiries
media@blackbaud.com
Blackbaud 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.
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SOURCE Blackbaud