Press Coverage Highlights from 3/12/16 – 3/25/16

 Our data, expertise and more were featured in many prominent publications, such as  Forbes, The Huffington Post, Charleston City Paper, Think Advisor, and Charleston Regional Business Journal.

• Forbes – Five Ways to Spur Customers to Be Advocates – Celebrating advocates’ achievements from simple recognition, like badges, to special award ceremonies at conferences generates more consistent, and tenured, participation.” Also she suggests that, “Showing appreciation and saying ‘thank you’ are the simplest and best ways to keep advocates engaged. Reflecting one way to visibly show appreciation Ramos cites nonprofit software provider Blackbaud’s Amy Bills who says: “Having a platform let us grow our advocates and maintain the personal relationship — to say ‘we’re thinking of you’ at scale.”

• The Huffington Post – Millennials Are Not as Selfish as You Think – If you look at the numbers, a hefty 84 percent of millennials made a charitable donation in 2014. And on average, millennials give an annual gift of $481, according to Blackbaud’s Next Generation of American Giving report. Considering millennials have been dubbed Generation Debt, that’s a telling statistic about our willingness to give. Moreover, by 2017, millennials will have the largest buying power in the U.S.

• Charleston City Paper – Best of Charleston 2016: Blackbaud Voted Best Technology Company – Blackbaud is a tech company with heart, and we don’t say that about just anyone. These guys create software for nonprofit organizations, and according to their website, they help these nonprofits earn monetary gifts nearly double that of average industry gifts. With 30 years in the Lowcountry and over 28,000 active clients, Blackbaud is also a huge employer for our area, giving hundreds of locals jobs.

• Think Advisor – Do Political Campaign Donations Cannibalize Charity Gifts? – The current presidential election cycle promises to bring in record contributions from political donors. The question is, how does competition from political fundraising affect donor giving to nonprofit organizations? New research from Blackbaud, which examined the influence of political giving on charitable giving in the 2012 election year, finds that donors who made federal campaign gifts that year contributed 0.9% more to charities than they did in 2011.

• Charleston Regional Business Journal – Companies adapt to recruit, retain millennials – There’s no question that fundraising today is no longer “one size fits all.” In fact, it is quite the opposite.  Nonprofits now can easily access data and resources to ensure their efforts reach and resonate with different audiences. In this post, I want to share what we take away from Blackbaud’s Next Generation of American Giving report.