The Total Economic Impact™ Of Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRM™

Increase In Funds Raised

Evidence and data. A recurring theme across the interviews was that Blackbaud CRM helped increase the productivity of frontline fundraisers by strengthening the capabilities of the broader advancement and development organization. Before adopting Blackbaud CRM, their organizations’ ability to increase funds raised was constrained by legacy CRM environments that made it difficult to consistently identify, prioritize, cultivate, and engage the right donors at the right time. Donor and prospect data was often incomplete, difficult to access, or spread across systems, limiting teams’ ability to identify high-potential opportunities, manage donor movement through the fundraising lifecycle, and provide frontline fundraisers with timely, actionable insights.

Interviewees said that Blackbaud CRM helped address these constraints by providing a fundraising-specific platform with stronger donor and prospect data management, more integrated portfolio and moves management capabilities, improved visibility into donor history and engagement, and better tools for tracking opportunities from discovery through solicitation and stewardship. These capabilities enabled the interviewees’ organizations to operate more systematically and productively across both broad-based and higher-touch fundraising activities, helping frontline fundraisers focus on better-qualified prospects, accelerate engagement cycles, and ultimately increase funds raised. Interviewees also highlighted incremental improvements in planned giving programs, driven by enhanced capabilities for identifying planned giving prospects, coordinating solicitation efforts, and consistently tracking donor engagement and stewardship activities. Improved visibility into the planned giving pipeline and more accurate forecasting of long-term commitments further contributed to increased fundraising effectiveness over time.

• The fundraising operations director for the specialized healthcare foundation explained: “We saw a 10% increase in major giving revenue. That was tied to the ability to have a 360-degree view of our constituents, which allowed us to target our marketing efforts [and improve] stewardship tracking, prospect planning, and moves management.” The IT director from the same organization observed: “The [third-party marketing] data is now in our system, whereas before it wasn’t. So we can now market to them differently. Having this data integrated was helpful in creating new programs and new revenue streams.”

• The advancement systems director for the pediatric healthcare foundation noted: “I think there are more sophisticated tools in the CRM now. It has a more centralized management system for prospect development and managing those kinds of major gift functions.”

• The senior director of advancement systems for the private higher education institution said: “Blackbaud CRM has made us more educated in our work because we are using more data in our decision-making and solicitations. We are also much more efficient in our work because the system is all integrated rather than various pieces we need to keep in sync.”

• The CIO of the public higher education foundation shared: “By moving into [Blackbaud CRM], we were better able to stress the utilization of tracking our stages of prospects — basically moves management. We started using plans and opportunities with more dedicated effort from our frontline fundraisers.”

• The CRM director for the global health nonprofit organization stated: “Our growth suggests that [Blackbaud CRM] been successful for us. Our ability to manage our donors and manage our sustainer audience has been very robust.”

Modeling and assumptions. This benefit focuses on the increase in funds associated with changes in major gift cycle time, moves management, data mining capabilities, and frontline fundraiser productivity. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization raises $200 million of funds in Year 1 under the baseline scenario without Blackbaud CRM, growing by 2.9% CAGR over the analysis period.

• The composite organization realizes an incremental uplift in growth rate percentages of 3.0% to 6.3% above the baseline after deploying Blackbaud CRM.

• The gross growth uplift for the composite after deploying Blackbaud CRM is 5.6%. The net gift-giving growth uplift enabled by Blackbaud CRM is 4.5% in Year 1, 5.0% in Year 2, and 5.6% by Year 3 reflecting the solution’s implementation ramp.

• The net increase in funds raised by the composite organization enabled by Blackbaud CRM is $9.0 million in Year 1, $10.3 million in Year 2, and just over $11.8 million by Year 3.

• Forrester attributes 40% of the full fundraising uplift to Blackbaud CRM to reflect the role of people, process, and broader fundraising strategy.

• The composite organization has an operating margin of 80%.

• In its prior state, the composite raised an average of $5.7 million per frontline fundraiser. With Blackbaud CRM, this average is $6 million.

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and that results may vary from organization to organization based on:

• Differences in advancement and development operations across higher education institutions, healthcare foundations, and enterprise-scale nonprofit organizations.

• The relative emphasis placed on major, planned, principal, and annual giving programs.

• The frequency and magnitude of one-time gifts of out-sized proportion, which may be driven by factors beyond the CRM platform.

• The cost of fundraising.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of more than $6.9 million.

Advancement Operations Team Productivity-Driven Savings

Evidence and data. Interviewees said Blackbaud CRM not only improved the productivity of frontline fundraising teams, but that it also enhanced the productivity of the core advancement and development operations teams that supported fundraising execution. Prior to Blackbaud CRM, the interviewees’ organizations’ advancement and/or development operations teams were burdened by manual, repetitive, and fragile processes required to keep fundraising systems running and data usable. Staff spent significant time extracting and importing data, reconciling information across disconnected systems, maintaining lists and reports, managing data quality issues, supporting integrations, and responding to routine CRM administration needs. This is work that would have required additional operations FTEs as fundraising volumes, donor counts, and organizational complexity grew.

Blackbaud CRM helped reduce the need for incremental hiring by automating and streamlining many of these operational activities. Interviewees described improvements related to data imports and exports, integration capabilities, workflows, data access, reporting refreshes, and infrastructure maintenance. As a result, interviewees reported being able to support larger and more complex fundraising operations without proportionally expanding advancement operations teams, making this benefit one of cost avoidance through productivity and scale rather than headcount reduction.

• The senior director of advancement systems for the private higher education institution estimated: “We would have probably had to add at least 10 more people just because of the volume of transactions if we were working at today’s levels with the old system.”

• In the context of integration between systems, the senior fundraising analyst for the global health nonprofit organization recalled: “When we were [using our legacy CRM tool], we had one person [whose sole responsibility was working with a separate online giving tool]. Now we don’t have that because one person can do multiple things.” They summarized: “We have seven to eight people now [in development operations]. I would say we probably would have needed 10 to 12 [without Blackbaud CRM].”

• The advancement systems director for the pediatric healthcare foundation noted: “From an operation standpoint, I would say Blackbaud CRM has increased productivity because of the abilities to automate tasks. If we didn’t have Blackbaud CRM, we would need to add a couple more positions.”

• The IT director for the specialized healthcare foundation shared: “Less time [is] spent after hours now. Before Blackbaud CRM, imports were just a disaster. Even with data entry, we were never on time. I believe you can equate it to one FTE savings in terms of the efficiency on the dataset alone.”

• The CIO of the public higher education foundation observed: “Overall for all aspects of the system, we have probably experienced a 10% to 15% gain in productivity, not just fundraising, but the way that we enter records and run the operations.”

Modeling and assumptions. This benefit focuses on productivity benefits for the advancement operations team. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Without Blackbaud CRM, the composite’s advancement operations team would consist of 22 FTEs in Year 1, 23 in Year 2, and 24 in Year 3.

• The gross improvement in advancement operations team productivity for the composite is 20%. The net improvement in team productivity is 16% in Year 1, 18% in Year 2, and 20% in Year 3.

• Productivity improvements enable advancement operations team FTEs to be assigned to higher-value tactical and strategic tasks.

• The blended fully burdened annual salary for an advancement team FTE is $113,400.

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and that holistic productivity improvements for advancement operations teams will vary among institutions depending on:

• Differences in advancement operations team structures across higher education institutions, healthcare foundations, and enterprise-scale nonprofit organizations.

• The scale of the organization.

• The capabilities of the legacy CRM tool stack.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of nearly $1.1 million.

Cost Savings From Legacy Environment Modernization And Simplification

Evidence and data. Interviewees said Blackbaud CRM helped their organizations reduce CRM-related operating overhead by replacing fragmented legacy environments that required ongoing software maintenance, hardware support, manual administration, and ancillary tools for analytics, data movement, enrichment, and integration. In the prior state, several organizations relied on self-hosted or aging CRM environments that placed recurring demands on IT and operations teams, including server upkeep, upgrade coordination, database administration, troubleshooting, and support for point solutions used to fill gaps in reporting, imports, or donor data management.

While many interviewees said their organization had migrated from self-hosted environments, they described this benefit primarily as a reduction in CRM-related operating overhead rather than purely as infrastructure elimination. Interviewees reported reducing dependence on some legacy tools and administrative activities. Blackbaud CRM provided platform maintenance, integration and data access capabilities, and fundraising-specific functionality that supported these changes.

• The senior fundraising analyst for the global health nonprofit organization explained the challenge of previously having multiple point tools: “At that time, [our online giving tool] and our legacy CRM tool didn’t talk to each other. We had to manually import the files every day. We even had to use a third-party vendor to use its import product to get the two tools to communicate. With Blackbaud CRM, we were able to eliminate these tools.”

• The CIO of the public higher education foundation said: “We wanted to move from on-premises to something that was cloud-based. Previously, I had a server room that had 106 physical and virtual servers that we were able to eliminate.”

Modeling and assumptions. This benefit focuses on reductions in CRM-related operating overhead and elimination of legacy infrastructure. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite realizes annual savings of $170,000 from reduced CRM-related software maintenance, hardware upgrades, and related servicing expenses.

• The composite realizes annual savings of $25,000 from the elimination of ancillary tools for online giving, data integration, and related functions.

• The composite eliminates two IT FTEs dedicated to supporting on-premises hardware and the legacy tools.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for an IT FTE professional is $121,500.

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and that cost savings from legacy environment modernization and simplification may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The size of the organization.

• The organization’s ability to secure favorable pricing terms.

• The number of legacy hardware and software tools previously supported.

• The number and costs of FTEs dedicated to supporting legacy hardware and software tools.

• Legacy environment licensing contract terms.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $980,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:

• Improved data confidence and decision-making discipline. Interviewees described Blackbaud CRM as helping their organizations operate with more complete, accessible, and reliable data, which improved confidence in reporting, planning, and day-to-day fundraising decisions. This was less about analytics productivity and more about the organization’s ability to rely on CRM data for strategy and execution, providing a single source of truth. The IT director for the specialized healthcare foundation said, “Teams have now started to depend on data to make their decisions with more confidence, and even to strategize.” The composite organization may experience similar benefits through improved reporting, planning, and fundraising decision-making. This benefit could be quantified through improvements in data quality metrics, reporting accuracy, or fundraising outcomes associated with data-driven decision-making.

• Enhanced donor and supporter experience. Interviewees noted that Blackbaud CRM helped their organizations support donor-facing interactions through more complete data, more timely information, and capabilities such as donor portals and self-service access. For the composite organization, this enables more responsive stewardship activities and gives donors more convenient ways to interact with the institution. The IT director for the specialized healthcare foundation explained: “We’ve designed a supporter portal where you can go in, download your tax receipt, and change your monthly giving without needing the APIs on the back end of CRM. There would be no way of doing that [without Blackbaud CRM].” This benefit could be quantified through donor satisfaction, donor retention, digital engagement, giving participation metrics, and associated fundraising outcomes.

• Improved ease of use driving user adoption. Interviewees noted that Blackbaud CRM provided a more usable environment than the legacy systems it replaced, which helped increase willingness to use the CRM across advancement, development, operations, and adjacent teams. They said this benefit was especially important because better usability supported more complete data entry, broader adoption, and more consistent use of fundraising processes. The senior director of advancement systems for the private higher education institution noted, “Because the system is so much easier to use compared to the other one, we have more people that are willing to use it.” This benefit could be quantified through user adoption rates, CRM utilization metrics, data completeness measures, or productivity improvements.

• Broader organization visibility enabling cross-functional usage. Interviewees observed that Blackbaud CRM became a centralized source of donor, alumni, constituent, and giving information for stakeholders beyond the core fundraising team, including leadership, finance, academic units, marketing, and stewardship teams. The composite organization may similarly benefit from broader access to constituent and fundraising information across departments, enabling more informed planning, reporting, stewardship, and decision-making activities. This benefit could be quantified through user adoption rates, the number of departments actively using the platform, or reductions in duplicate reporting and data-management activities.

• Access to implementation and migration expertise. Several interviewees said they valued Blackbaud’s experience supporting fundraising operations through CRM implementations and migrations, which helped reduce uncertainty during complex CRM transitions. This was particularly important for organizations moving from deeply embedded legacy systems where conversion, training, and continuity were major concerns. The senior fundraising analyst for the global health nonprofit relayed how this experience factored into the organization’s selection of the platform: “Blackbaud was more established. They had a game plan for nonprofits. Obviously, they do conversions all the time. It was a key factor in our decision.” The composite organization may similarly benefit from access to implementation guidance, migration resources, and fundraising-sector expertise during platform transitions. This benefit could be quantified through reductions in implementation time, project delays, or external consulting requirements during deployment.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Blackbaud CRM and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Adaptability to support future growth. Several interviewees described Blackbaud CRM as a platform that helped prepare their organizations for continued growth, more sophisticated fundraising activities, and evolving operational needs. As the composite organization’s fundraising programs, donor engagement strategies, and operational requirements evolve over time, it may be able to leverage Blackbaud CRM to support future growth initiatives without requiring a significant platform change.

• Configurability across different operating models. Interviewees said they valued that Blackbaud CRM gave their organizations the ability to configure views, fields, workflows, data lists, and user experiences around their specific fundraising processes rather than forcing teams into a rigid operating model. The CRM director for the global health nonprofit organization observed: “Blackbaud has done well by making their systems more extensible. For example, their SKY API product allows us to integrate more easily with different products and different systems.” As the composite organization’s fundraising strategies, reporting requirements, or stakeholder needs evolve, it may be able to adapt the platform to support new operating models, business requirements, and integration needs.

• Support for new programs, channels, and constituent engagement. Some interviewees noted that Blackbaud CRM helped their organizations incorporate data and workflows that legacy systems could not easily support, such as third-party marketing data, supporter portals, planned giving needs, and more targeted stewardship or marketing approaches. The advancement systems director for the pediatric healthcare foundation explained: “Increased automations, the customization, the ability to configure, and the connectivity between systems — these capabilities have opened up new avenues for us.” As the composite organization’s fundraising strategies evolve, it may be able to extend its use of Blackbaud CRM to support new fundraising programs, constituent engagement channels, supporter experiences, and fundraising initiatives in the future.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).