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Blackbaud Empowers “The Connected School” at Annual K-12 User Conference

Tech leader’s modern cloud delivery model helps schools stay competitive, innovative and sustainable 

Charleston, S.C. (July 12, 2017) — Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world’s leading cloud software company powering social good, today welcomed hundreds of change-makers for its annual three day K-12 user conference. Private school professionals from across the sector convened in Boston to discuss industry best practices, collaborate with peers, participate in over 90 hands-on training sessions and hear from company executives.

“We designed this event to further educate, connect and support private school administrators and staff who make so much possible in the world,” said Travis Warren, president of Blackbaud’s K-12 Solutions. “We are working every day to deliver on what you need to ensure your school stays competitive, innovative and sustainable. Our priority is to revolutionize the way private schools operate by creating one solution for school data that enables schools to better achieve their goals.”

Blackbaud’s President and CEO, Mike Gianoni, kicked off the conference reflecting on the company’s rapid innovation highlighting stories of customer success and making commitments to continue delivering purpose-built, high-impact, integrated and open solutions for K-12 private schools.

Dr. Natalie W. Nixon, design strategist at Figure 8 Thinking and founding director of the Strategic Design MBA program at Philadelphia University, joined as opening keynote to share some of the disruptive thinking around inventiveness, play and the future of learning that has been transforming the field of education over the past decade.

Blackbaud highlights latest innovation in response K-12 community needs:

  • Unmatched efficiency to private schools through one solution
  • Rapid innovation and advancements powered by Blackbaud SKY
  • High-velocity enhancements conceptualized by the community
  • A doubling of Blackbaud Partner Network providers to expand solution offerings for K-12 private schools

“We’ve completed a significant number of ideas from our K-12 community such as rubrics, schedule maker improvements, gradebook enhancements and contracts integration with Smart Tuition and onBoard,” said Mike Gianoni, Blackbaud’s president and CEO. “We know that adopting intelligent solutions has moved from important to critical in the K-12 space, and our Intelligence for Good approach — combining big data, analytics, artificial intelligence and expertise — in our solutions can help schools optimize that data to make strategic decisions.”

Blackbaud’s Chief Technology Officer, Mary Beth Westmoreland, shared more on the company’s open cloud innovation, including SKY API and SKY Reporting. Westmoreland and her team discussed roadmap plans that resulted from customer feedback in the areas of: helping schools turn student data into actionable insights, communicating performance, problem-solving for the registrar’s office and more.

Blackbaud will wrap its third and final day of its K-12 user conference on Friday, July 14. To learn more about its annual K-12 User Conference, visit http://k12hub.blackbaud.com/. For more information about Blackbaud’s K-12 solutions, visit k12hub.blackbaud.com.

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

Media Contact
Nicole McGougan
Public Relations
843.654.3307
media@blackbaud.com

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