Agenda Builder

The future of fundraising isn’t built alone, it’s shaped with you, the organizations doing the work every day. Kick off bbcon with a clear look at how your ideas and feedback are driving the next steps for Raiser’s Edge NXT.

Join Blackbaud’s product leaders to see how your needs inspire innovation, from streamlining gift processing and stewardship advancements to the expanding role of AI in fundraising. You’ll get a preview of how these updates are helping organizations like yours work smarter, grow donor networks, and strengthen relationships.

If you’re looking for more than inspiration—if you want a clear vision of where Raiser’s Edge NXT is heading—start here. This session begins a series of Raiser’s Edge NXT sessions designed to show you what’s coming next.

Nonprofit finance professionals carry a significant weight in their organizations: the 30-day reporting cycle that never stops, the cash flow forecast that feels personal, and the disconnection from the mission that brought you to this work as you're buried in spreadsheets and data. Meanwhile, your own life runs unattended in the background.

Stephanie Skryzowski spent nearly two decades as a CFO for mission-driven organizations around the world before discovering the framework that she needed all along: the nine types of prosperity, a holistic approach to thriving in work, wealth, and wellbeing. In this luminary session, she dismantles the belief that meaningful work requires sacrificing your own prosperity, and shows why the usual fixes for burnout don't work. Through her own story and the real experiences of finance professionals at every level, from the AP clerk to the CFO, she makes the case that the people who steward the sector's money deserve lives that thrive as much as the causes they serve. When they do, their organizations' impact multiplies.

You'll leave with a new lens on your whole life, a guided reflection completed in the room, and one clear, achievable step to take before you leave the conference.

What if virtually any data in Blackbaud CRM could be accessed through SKY API? Explore the new data form access endpoints and see how they unlock native and custom data alike, enabling powerful integrations, automations, low-code solutions, and innovative user experiences.

Expert Connect sessions are short, 15-minute conversations designed to help you move forward fast. Whether you have a question about an existing case or need guidance on how to do something, our experts will help you clarify your next steps.

Before You Book

• Expert Connect is ideal for questions that need expert guidance, clarification, or discussion beyond self-service resources.
• These 15-minute sessions are designed to help you move forward with recommendations and next steps.
• Appointment availability is limited. To ensure more attendees have the opportunity to connect with our team, please book only one session per customer or site for your highest-priority need.

Important: These sessions are scheduled directly with the Support team. Registering through the conference app will not create an appointment. Click here to schedule your session.

Discover how the new Import feature in Raiser’s Edge NXT web view is designed to make one of your most important data management tasks easier and more efficient. This web view process streamlines how you bring data into your database with fewer steps, faster performance, and a user-friendly workflow.

With a single import process, you can add and update records, quickly spot and fix errors, and keep working while imports run quietly in the background. Plus, you’ll get a sneak peek at what’s coming next—like API support for integrations, phased support for more record types, and an improved Data Management experience.

You'll learn how to:

• Spend less time on imports and more time using your data to drive action.

• Save effort and reduce rework with a simpler, more effective process.

• Boost data accuracy with clear error handling and built-in duplicate detection.

• Scale your strategy with faster processing and tools ready for integration.

• How Power Automate extends the value of Blackbaud solutions
• Common automation scenarios that reduce manual work
• Practical examples that improve operational efficiency and productivity

Every software company on Earth is selling you an “agent” right now. Most of those things aren’t agents. The word has been stretched so thin it covers everything from a chatbot with a new logo to a genuinely autonomous system that can reason, plan, and execute multi-step workflows. If you can’t tell the difference, you can’t evaluate what you’re buying, building, or betting on. This session fixes that.

We’ll build from first principles: what a large language model actually does under the hood, what “orchestration” means in practice, and where the real boundaries are between rule-based automation, workflows, copilots, true agents, and multi-agent systems. You’ll get a clear taxonomy with concrete examples — including assessments of where Blackbaud’s own products fall on the spectrum.

We’ll dig into the orchestration patterns that make agentic behavior possible (tool calling, planning loops, state management) and the “human in the loop” design spectrum from full-approval to fully autonomous.

Along the way, we’ll arm you with a practical scorecard for evaluating any product’s agent claims, so the next time you read a press release or sit through a vendor demo, you’ll know exactly what’s real. No jargon-shaming, no dunking — just clarity, precision, and a vocabulary that makes you dangerous in the best possible way.

 Learn why moving to Online Giving (OG) is essential and how to make the switch with confidence. We’ll unpack the most common adoption hurdles—like the learning curve, the time it takes to recreate existing forms, and the web/communications updates required—and how to overcome them.

For the past several years, much of the investment in Blackbaud Altru has happened behind the scenes. We've focused on strengthening the foundation: improving security, reliability, performance, and integrations to ensure Altru remains a trusted solution for the arts and cultural organizations that depend on it every day. As we've shared before, Altru remains a core part of Blackbaud's long-term strategy. 

Now, we're entering the next chapter.

Join Altru product leaders for an open and candid look at where the solution is headed and how renewed investment will translate into a more visible roadmap into the future. You'll learn about the modernization work already underway, the strategic priorities guiding future development, and the areas where we're focusing resources to improve both staff and patron experiences. Topics will include user experience modernization, evolving digital engagement capabilities, and the long-term vision shaping Altru's future.

Whether you've been looking for reassurance, waiting to see what's next, or simply want a clearer view of the road ahead, this session will provide the context, transparency, and roadmap perspective you've been asking for.

You'll leave with:

• A clear understanding of Blackbaud's commitment to Altru
• Insight into the strategic investments being made today
• Visibility into key modernization initiatives and roadmap themes
• A better understanding of how customer feedback is helping shape what's next

Recommended for: Existing Altru customers, system administrators, organizational leaders, and anyone interested in the future direction of the platform.

In this session attendees will hear from Blackbaud Award Management's (BAM) Product Manager, Aaron Wachholz; and the Associate Director for Financial Aid and Student Scholarships at the University of North Carolina- Asheville, Brian Davis.  Both will share their perspectives on timely challenges administrators face with scholarship applications, awarding, and post-awarding donor management.  A primary take-away for attendees will be hands-on ways to maximize the use of BAM in their scholarship offices to overcome these challenges, ways to utilize the solution to achieve efficiencies in the awarding and impact reporting process.  

As fundraising teams face growing expectations with limited capacity, a clear and intentional discovery process is essential to identifying, qualifying, and engaging donors with leadership giving potential. This session will introduce USA for UNFPA’s discovery process which is designed to move donors from data points to meaningful relationships through a structured, measurable, and scalable approach.

Participants will receive a clear outline of the discovery framework, including how prospects are identified and segmented, how outreach is prioritized and tracked, and how insights gathered through discovery inform next-step strategy and portfolio development. Speakers will also share the tools and systems used to support the process, the key performance indicators that guide decision-making, and lessons learned from implementing discovery within a small but growing team.

Designed as a practical overview, this session offers a replicable model that organizations of all sizes and sectors can adapt to build stronger, more sustainable leadership giving programs. 

Looking to turn a single campaign into a scalable fundraising engine?

Join this real-world case study to learn how Harry Chapin Food Bank partnered with WINK News to build March to a Million Meals—a media-driven, multi-channel campaign that has raised over $4 million since 2021 and more than $800,000 in 2026 alone, including donor-covered fees.

You’ll learn how we used JustGiving as the campaign hub to power a month-long peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, create a dynamic real-time thermometer, and integrate donor engagement directly into live TV broadcasts. What started as a scrappy workaround—manually updating graphics between newscasts—evolved into a reusable, scalable campaign model that drives acquisition, engagement, and retention.

We’ll break down how local media became a true acquisition channel, how donor recognition (comments, shoutouts, real-time updates) drove engagement, and how simple tools—combined with iterative thinking—can transform a campaign into a movement.

This session includes a live walkthrough of the campaign experience, showcasing the thermometer, donor comment wall, and how digital activity translated directly into live media moments.

This content has been presented to peers across the Feeding America network, demonstrating strong engagement and validation as a replicable model.

After this session, you’ll walk away with a clear, repeatable framework to build your own multi-channel fundraising campaign using tools you already have.

Demo Moment 
This session includes a live walkthrough of the JustGiving campaign, including the real-time thermometer, donor comment wall, and how campaign activity translated into live TV engagement, showing exactly how the model can be replicated.

Life is full of precious moments.

Your first kiss... The birth of a child.... The first time you implement an automation flow that creates tax letters and emails with the click of a button....

Seize your moment by joining Stacy Cope, Austen Brown and Nic Prenger for the fourth annual installment of bbcon’s most popular session. 

Automation tools like Microsoft Power Automate are transforming how development offices operate. In this fast-paced session, attendees will learn six brand new, game-changing automations that Blackbaud customers are using to save time, raise more money and streamline their processes.

After attending this session, attendees will look at their job in a whole new light. Each boring, repetitive task will become an opportunity to automate, improve or streamline.  Food will taste better. Birds will sing more sweetly. The sun will lift from behind the clouds, and life will be worth living.

What happens when a corporate–nonprofit relationship moves beyond funding and becomes a true ecosystem for shared impact? In this refreshed Based on their published case study, leaders from Bread Financial and Ruling Our eXperiences (ROX) will expand upon their partnership-centered philanthropy model and share how it has continued to evolve.

Together, they will explore how trust-based funding, strategic sponsorship, cause marketing, associate engagement, executive leadership, storytelling, research, and partner-network activation can combine to help a nonprofit scale its mission while deepening a company’s purpose-driven community investment. Attendees will hear updated results from the partnership, including expanded national reach, increased funding, and deeper stakeholder engagement, while gaining practical ideas for building corporate–nonprofit partnerships that are durable, measurable, and mutually valuable.

This session is designed for corporate social impact leaders, nonprofit professionals, and partnership builders who want to move beyond transactional giving and create long-term relationships grounded in trust, alignment, accountability, and shared value.

Are you struggling to make the most of your Blackbaud Grantmaking reporting tools? Are reviewing requests, payments, and applications taking up too much of your time? 

Join Blackbaud Grantmaking experts for practical, time-saving tips to streamline reporting. Chrissy and Henry will demonstrate how to create fast, effective reports for tasks such as reviewing pending requests, tracking incoming payments, identifying overdue activities, and monitoring applications from the online portal—now included in the reporting menu.

They’ll also show how to tailor report outputs, improve readability, and adjust color schemes using the Ad-Hoc feature. In addition, they’ll cover how to automate reports with the Schedule Report component, a simple “set it and forget it” tool that can help your foundation build a stronger reporting practice and make more informed, data-driven decisions.

By the end of the session, your team will have practical strategies to save time, work more efficiently, and get more value from the system. Don't miss out!

Your donor database powers fundraising, reporting, stewardship, and strategy. But when roles aren’t clearly defined, even the best system breaks down.

Who enters gifts? Who creates fields? Who runs reports? Who fixes errors? And the big one ... who enters actions?

Contact reports and activity tracking are often the fault line between fundraising and operations. Should gift officers enter their own actions? Should database staff clean them up? What happens when no one does? What about the rest? When expectations are vague, information doesn’t get recorded, pipelines lose visibility, and leadership loses confidence in the data.

Role confusion doesn’t just create inefficiency — it creates friction. Work gets duplicated. Corrections feel personal. Accountability feels awkward. And the database slowly becomes less trusted.

This session tackles the real-world tension of shared database ownership. We’ll break down who should own what, how to separate decision rights from task execution, and how to clarify responsibility for action entry without adding bureaucracy.

Participants will leave with practical frameworks to eliminate the “I thought someone else was doing that” cycle and build a database culture grounded in clarity and accountability.

Because your database isn’t just a system. It’s a mirror of how clearly your organization defines responsibility.

How do you motivate a 5th-reunion alumnus and a 50th-reunion alumnus to engage with the same fundraising initiative? You rely on hyper-targeted campaign strategies, and you back them up with flawless data. This case study explores St. Mark’s School’s highly structured "Race to Reunion End Zone Challenge." We’ll show you how St. Mark's used optimized donation forms and RENXT tools to direct distinct alumni cohorts toward engagement and fundraising goals. 

Every institution faces alumni and donors who drift out of engagement. At Ripon College, the question wasn’t whether disengagement happens; it was how to identify it early, operationalize re-engagement, and measure progress in meaningful ways.

In this session, Ripon College and Almabase will walk through how advancement services, annual giving, and alumni engagement partnered to define what “lapsed” truly means in their CRM, build actionable segmentation, and create reporting frameworks that track movement across engagement stages.

The promise of AI in Advancement is clear: turning that promise into results requires decisive leadership.

In this session, leaders from Boston University and Blackbaud share how institutions are leveraging AI in practical, high‑impact ways—while focusing on the leadership strategies that make adoption successful. Rather than a technical deep dive, this presentation explores how executives can modernize ways of working, empower teams to move faster, and build a more agile and resilient advancement organization. Attendees will gain actionable insights to move from experimentation to enterprise‑level impact.

Manual reconciliation. Month-end scrambles. AP backlogs that outlast the fiscal year. These aren't just inefficiencies — they're mission costs. This hands-on session introduces the full Financial Edge NXT agent strategy: a connected suite of AI agents designed to automate core workflows, surface financial anomalies before they become problems, and give nonprofit CFOs the real-time intelligence they need to lead with confidence. Walk away with a clear picture of today's agent capabilities, the roadmap ahead, and how your organization can prepare to adopt them.

Discover how the new Import feature in Raiser’s Edge NXT web view is designed to make one of your most important data management tasks easier and more efficient. This web view process streamlines how you bring data into your database with fewer steps, faster performance, and a user-friendly workflow.

With a single import process, you can add and update records, quickly spot and fix errors, and keep working while imports run quietly in the background. Plus, you’ll get a sneak peek at what’s coming next—like API support for integrations, phased support for more record types, and an improved Data Management experience.

You'll learn how to:

• Spend less time on imports and more time using your data to drive action.

• Save effort and reduce rework with a simpler, more effective process.

• Boost data accuracy with clear error handling and built-in duplicate detection.

• Scale your strategy with faster processing and tools ready for integration.

Discover how Single Row Query makes working with your data easier and more efficient. This enhanced web view feature streamlines the process, combining the familiar Export functionality into one simplified workflow. With Single Row Query, you can easily create one-row-per-record datasets ideal for mailings, imports, reporting, and analysis.

During the demo, we’ll show you how to build single-row queries, prepare your data faster, preview results before exporting, and reuse the same query across reports and workflows. We’ll also quickly highlight asynchronous processing, API integrations like Power BI, and tools to help transition existing database view exports to web view.

You’ll learn how to:

• Save time by focusing on insights instead of data prep.

• Create one query that supports multiple needs.

• Expand what you thought was possible with query.

• Plan for a smoother transition to web view.

Join us and make the most of your data!

Ready to spend less time copy-pasting data and more time doing the work that actually matters? This panel dives into how everyday Raiser’s Edge NXT users are using Microsoft Power Automate to cut down on manual work, reduce errors, and reclaim their time—no developer skills required.

Panelists will share why they jumped into automation, how they got started (hint: it was easier than expected), and the small “aha” moments that led to big efficiency wins. You’ll hear honest stories about what worked, what didn’t, and what they wish they’d known sooner.

The session will also demystify the Power Platform: why Power Automate is approachable for non-technical users, how guided templates and ready-to-use connectors make building flows less intimidating, and how many Blackbaud connectors are already included with existing subscriptions. This isn’t about building perfect systems—it’s about making meaningful improvements with tools you already have.

Whether you’re automation-curious or ready to level up beyond your first flow, you’ll walk away with practical ideas, realistic starting points, and the confidence to start experimenting.

Target Audience: 

• You are deeply, personally tired of copying and pasting the same data into multiple systems.
• You’ve been told “we should automate that” but no one ever explains how.
• You assume automation requires a developer, a consultant, or a minor miracle (spoiler: it doesn’t).
• You use Raiser’s Edge NXT and have a nagging feeling you’re not getting your money’s worth yet.
• You enjoy deleting unnecessary manual processes almost as much as you enjoy not recreating spreadsheets.

What we learned when we let data — not assumptions — drive how donors experience checkout.

Winning a grant is only the beginning. For many organizations, the real challenge is managing what happens next: tracking spending, coordinating across teams, and preparing accurate reports without last-minute scrambling. Yet grant budgets, accounting data, and program activity often live in different places, making it difficult to maintain a clear, shared picture of grant progress.

In this session, Kellie Swikoski, Grant Compliance and Database Specialist at YWCA Kalamazoo, will share how her team is creating a simple, repeatable reporting rhythm after a grant is awarded. By establishing regular checkpoints between grants, finance, and program staff, YWCA Kalamazoo is improving visibility into grant spending, reducing manual reconciliation, and strengthening reporting readiness.

Ryan Stastny will connect this real-world example to a broader framework that other organizations can apply. Attendees will leave with practical strategies for structuring internal reviews, aligning teams around grant budgets and expenses, and preparing for funder reporting well before deadlines approach.

As data volumes grow and AI expectations accelerate, CRM architecture must evolve. This session breaks down how to design Blackbaud CRM as the core of a modern, connected architecture—extending into data platforms, analytics environments, and AI-driven workflows.

Explore key considerations including integration patterns, data strategy, and system extensibility—along with lessons learned from organizations building architectures that scale. Gain clarity on how to position CRM within a broader enterprise ecosystem while maintaining performance, governance, and trust.

Managing 75,000+ alumni with a small advancement team requires more than great events. It requires infrastructure.

In this session, Jacksonville State University shares how they moved beyond traditional homecoming-centric programming and built a scalable, data-led engagement system. By standardizing segmentation, defining engagement signals, and tracking repeat attendance, Jax State transformed events from one-off moments into measurable relationship-building tools.

A key part of this shift was integrating Almabase with Raiser's Edge NXT, allowing event participation, updated contact information, and engagement signals to sync directly into the CRM. This eliminated manual list pulls, reduced siloed reporting, and made it possible to connect event data with giving outcomes in a more intentional way.

Attendees will leave with a practical framework for turning alumni events into actionable engagement intelligence that advancement services teams can operationalize and scale.

Many Blackbaud CRM organizations are replacing or modernizing their finance platforms, and discover the biggest integration risk isn’t the ERP — it’s what has to change inside Blackbaud CRM to keep financial data accurate and auditable. 

In this joint client/partner session, Zuri Group and The College of William & Mary share a practical roadmap for treating a finance system change as an organizational redesign— not “just” a Post to GL (PTGL) file tweak. We’ll walk through the most common pressure points: rethinking the GL account structure and segments before they become fixed by posting activity, aligning transaction mappings and segment mappings so gifts don’t slip through unmapped, understanding batch template impacts, and updating PTGL output logic to meet new journal entry requirements. 

We’ll also unpack the hardest decision teams face: whether — and how — to update historical GL distributions without creating reporting, reconciliation, or audit headaches, plus what we’ve learned about testing, cutover planning, and validating summary/detail output patterns so Finance can trust the feed.

Stepping into a new role and inheriting an eTapestry database can feel overwhelming—especially when the people who set it up are long gone, documentation is spotty (or nonexistent), and you’re under pressure to “just make it work.”

In this breakout session, we’ll walk through a practical, non-scary approach to getting your arms around an inherited eTapestry database, whether you’ve had formal training, partial training, or no training at all. Using real-world examples, you’ll learn simple ways to understand how your data is structured, spot common issues that come from staff turnover, and prioritize what to fix first so you can support fundraising instead of just reacting to problems.

You’ll leave with a short list of concrete action items you can start on right away. Things like: questions to ask, areas to review, and habits to build, so you can move from “I have no idea what’s in here” to “I have a clear plan for this database.” This session is designed for new eTapestry database managers and fundraisers (or new to org database managers) who want to feel more confident, proactive, and in control of their data.

Successful campaigns depend on aligning the right prospects with the right asks—but many organizations struggle to move from data to an actionable campaign plan. This session will show you how a small investment in upfront strategy and planning, powered by Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT and Blackbaud’s data intelligence tools, transforms guesswork into actionable, data-driven results. The best part? By streamlining your approach, you’ll save valuable time and spend more of it where it matters most: building authentic relationships with donors.

Discover how to leverage Prospect Insights, Prospect Insights Pro, and/or Blackbaud ResearchPoint™ to identify prospects with capacity and likelihood to give and build a realistic campaign giving table. Execute the plan by maintaining key prospect data, drafting campaign opportunities, and assigning fundraisers. Learn time-saving tips using generative AI tools to create opportunities, design cultivation plans, develop constituent profiles, and prepare for meetings. Additionally, take advantage of standard reporting tools to monitor progress during every stage of your campaign.

Tailored for organizations planning or running campaigns, this tips-and-tricks session focuses on repeatable workflows, smart decision points, and reporting tools that empower both campaign leaders and frontline fundraisers. Walk away with an adaptable campaign prospecting framework that fits your staffing, data maturity, and campaign goals using tools already in Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT.

Dashboards don’t just report results—they can explain them. When designed and shared thoughtfully, dashboards become powerful storytelling tools that connect daily activity to mission‑level outcomes and help stakeholders understand not just what is happening, but why it matters.

In this session, you’ll learn how to transform custom dashboards into clear, compelling narratives that highlight trends, surface change over time, and guide action. We’ll explore practical techniques for framing insights for different audiences—from operational teams to senior leadership—so your data tells the right story to the right people.

You’ll see how to use dashboards to create alignment across teams by sharing consistent views of performance, and how comparative and benchmarked data can add context and credibility to your reporting.

Examples and best practices will be drawn from dashboards in Raiser’s Edge NXT, Financial Edge NXT, and Blackbaud’s Education Management Solution, with a focus on practical, real‑world use—not theory.

Attendees will leave with actionable ideas for improving dashboard design, increasing stakeholder engagement, and using data more effectively to support decision‑making and advance their organization’s mission.

Tina Shelton, Sr. Manager of Community Development Operations and Bruce Baughman, Sr. P2P Engineer, share how they created a cross-department collaboration and sustained it. With multiple concurrent programs and a team spread across the country, collaboration and maintaining success require work like any relationship. This can be applied to any organization regardless of the size.

Within our fully remote environment at Susan G. Komen, working across time zones it can be difficult to ensure our events and programs get the attention they need. Annually we have six Signature Series and a significant number of Third-party Peer to Peer Events. New Events and opportunities are a constant; we also need to maintain our long running Signature events and remain agile for new opportunities. Maintaining a strong communications and collaboration supports that effort.

There will also be time for your questions and an open dialog.

Nonprofits, foundations, and educational institutions are under pressure to produce more content than ever to promote their work and drive engagement, including through blogs, emails, reports, webinar scripts, and social posts. Generative AI and LLM‑powered tools can dramatically increase content velocity and effectiveness, but only when used responsibly and with the right strategy and guardrails in place.

This session will show how organizations can integrate AI into their content development process to scale impact, maintain brand consistency, and improve efficiency. Attendees will walk away with real examples and practical next steps to safely and meaningfully leverage AI in their content marketing.

In today’s dynamic environment, nonprofit finance leaders are essential partners in shaping organizational strategy and ensuring long-term viability. This session moves beyond basic budgeting to explore the critical intersection of strategic planning and fiscal sustainability. Participants will learn how to integrate financial foresight into their mission-driven strategy, transforming the finance function from a reporting role to a key driver of strategic growth and resilience. We will delve into methods for scenario planning, optimizing financial models, and building diverse, sustainable revenue streams that align with the nonprofit’s core purpose.

This session qualifies for CPE credit.

The most effective nonprofit leaders aren't just strategically sharp and mission-aligned. They're prosperous across every dimension of their lives: mindset, finances, purpose, time, relationships, health, creativity, and more. And when you're personally thriving, you're not just benefiting yourself. You're shaping the decisions you make, the cultures you build, and the people you retain.

Most leaders have optimized their professional game. But personal prosperity across all dimensions? That's where the next level of leadership lives, and most people have never had a framework for it.

This session introduces the Prosperity Score, a research-backed assessment that measures where you are across nine dimensions of prosperity and shows you exactly where to focus next. You'll leave with a personal score, a tool you can bring back to your leadership team, and a new strategic lens on what it means to lead a truly high-impact organization.

The sector has invested in the tools and technology to drive impact. This is the human strategy that makes all of it work.

Schools rely on accurate, timely data across admissions, enrollment, advancement, and fundraising—but too often, critical student and family information lives in disconnected systems. Join us for this session to learn how Blackbaud’s Common Records Engine creates a shared, synchronized record between Blackbaud’s Student Management System and Raiser’s Edge NXT, helping schools operate as one connected community.

In this session, we’ll explore how the Common Records Engine automatically identifies, matches, links, and synchronizes student and family records across systems—eliminating duplicate data entry, reducing errors, and ensuring updates made in one place are reflected everywhere they matter. With transparent match‑and‑merge tools and a true two‑way sync, schools maintain control over their data while benefiting from seamless integration between education and advancement teams.

Many organizations hesitate to enable fee cover because of concerns about donor behavior, conversion rates, or overall fundraising impact. In this session, John Humphreys, Director of Product Management, Blackbaud Payment Services, will examine the most common fee cover myths and compare them against real-world outcomes. You'll leave with a clearer understanding of how fee cover works, why donors increasingly embrace it, and how your organization can use Blackbaud's flexible options to maximize net revenue from online giving.

For Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC), every minute spent on manual administration is a minute lost for patient support. Before 2025, the team struggled with significant information fragmentation. Data from web forms, event registrations, and marketing campaigns lived in isolated systems, requiring hundreds of hours of manual "Excel gymnastics" to bridge the gap with their Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT. This manual data gap created a digital bottleneck, delaying response times for those seeking urgent help.

In this customer-led case study, we explore LBBC’s journey to unify their disconnected digital ecosystem. By centralizing their imports and automations using SmartSYNC, SmartMAILCHIMP, and SmartIMPORT, the team transformed their workflows from fragmented to fluid. Crucially, by leveraging tools built on the Blackbaud SKY API, LBBC ensured their integration is future-proofed, moving away from brittle legacy methods toward a more stable, scalable infrastructure.

We will dive into the specific hurdles faced—moving away from manual file manipulation—and the collaborative strategy used to connect these platforms for real-world impact. Attendees will see how LBBC reclaimed thousands of hours annually—time now reinvested into accelerating the LBBC Fund, expanding community programs, and delivering critical mission-driven resources. This session is a roadmap for moving from administrative friction to strategic growth. Discover how to move your focus from the database back to the heart of your mission: the people you serve.

Grantmaking organizations depend on the data that drives workflows to evaluate proposals, process grants, and carry out their mission. Often, the data they collect every day is not treated as an important asset of the organization. Data governance provides a framework for how your organization manages information as a strategic asset. With strong data governance you have confidence in your work, informational consistency across the organization, and better coordination among staff. You gain efficiencies in business processes, and you give leadership the tools to make strategic decisions confidently. In this session, we will review the typical elements included in a data governance policy, a checklist for getting started, and suggestions for how to build a policy that promotes collaboration and teamwork.

Rolling out new technology is often the easiest part of the process. Getting people to actually use it, and feel confident doing so, is where many organizations struggle.

This panel discussion brings together nonprofit peers from different organizations to explore the human side of technology adoption. Panelists will share real-world experiences navigating staff resistance, change fatigue, and varying comfort levels with technology, and the practical steps they’ve taken to bring people along rather than push change onto them. 

Change management is a broad topic, and this session focuses specifically on how culture, communication, and inclusion can influence adoption outcomes. Throughout this session, panelists will highlight small but effective practices that help technology feel less intimidating and more empowering. 

Attendees will leave with realistic, people-centered strategies they can apply immediately to upcoming system rollouts, enhancements, or process changes. 

Blackbaud Verified Network is more than just a nonprofit profile. It's a growing connected experience that helps organizations increase visibility, streamline funding, and demonstrate impact. Join Blackbaud experts Garth Ralston and Kayla Barnes for an inside look at how nonprofits can maximize the value of Blackbaud Verified Network, including best practices for profile optimization, the latest innovations in Expedited Giving and Expedited Giving+, and a preview of upcoming impact reporting capabilities. Whether you're just getting started or looking to get more from the network, you'll leave with practical insights to help your organization access support faster and strengthen relationships with funders, companies, and donors.

With a major focus on bringing functionality from database view into web view coming to a close, what does gift processing look like moving forward? 

Let's envision a system where we can remove artificial boundries around gift entry, stewardship and reporting see what the gift processing looks like if we can focus on outcomes and not steps.  

The landscape of enterprise intelligence is rapidly evolving—shaped by growing data volumes, increasing expectations for real-time visibility, and the rise of AI-driven insights. In this panel discussion, advancement leaders share how their organizations are navigating this shift—connecting Blackbaud CRM data with broader analytics ecosystems, integrating data across systems, and rethinking how insights are delivered across the enterprise.

Hear how peers are approaching key decisions around data architecture, BI tools, and access to timely, actionable insights for stakeholders at every level. Panelists will discuss what’s working, where challenges remain, and how their strategies are adapting to support more informed, data-driven decision-making.

Join this conversation to compare approaches, learn from real-world experiences, and gain perspective on how to navigate the next phase of enterprise intelligence.

Things move quickly, and bbcon is often where many of Blackbaud's latest innovations, announcements, and priorities come together in one place. Join Blackbaud Customer Support leaders for a timely discussion on recent developments across Blackbaud and what they mean for our customers.

As we get closer to bbcon, session content will continue to evolve to reflect the most current and relevant information available. Whether we're discussing new innovations, major announcements, emerging trends, or upcoming changes, this session is designed to help you better understand what's happening across Blackbaud and how Customer Support can help you navigate what's ahead. Bring your questions and hear directly from Support leaders on the topics shaping the customer experience.

Hebrew Union College operates in a reality many institutions recognize: they have a highly concentrated revenue base, limited staffing resources, as well as the additional challenge of having a donor population that spans international borders. 

During this session HUC and their analytics consultant will share how the institution has built a high‑confidence, data‑driven fundraising strategy that prioritizes major and planned giving with remarkable focus.

This session explores how HUC combines predictive modeling, internal indicators, wealth screening, and external international data sources to create a clear, actionable prospect prioritization framework—one that frontline fundraisers trust, use and even depend on. Attendees will see how HUC built its own “green‑flag” analytics system, integrating multiple data sources (including international wealth data), and how that has empowered major gift officers to focus on the prospects most likely to move the needle.

Rather than chasing volume, HUC demonstrates how precision fundraising can drive results.

Discover how the new TeamRaiser Event Creation Wizard streamlines the process of building peer-to-peer fundraising events, helping you launch faster with greater confidence. This demo showcases an intuitive, step-by-step workflow packed with smart defaults and modernized design themes, ensuring your event is visually cohesive, accessible, and ready to engage participants and donors right from the start. Explore key features like the reimagined greeting page, seamless registration experience, direct entry to Participant Center 4, and integrated optimized donation forms—all designed to reduce friction, drive engagement, and boost outcomes. Whether you’re creating your first event or enhancing a long-standing tradition, this session highlights tools to save time, maximize impact, and deliver a polished experience every step of the way.

AI is already transforming how social impact organizations operate, but using it effectively and responsibly requires more than access to new technology. In this session, you'll get an inside look at the free, expert-led AI for Social Impact Certification Program, created by the AI Coalition for Social Impact to help professionals build practical AI knowledge, strengthen responsible AI practices, and confidently apply AI in their daily work.

Learn how thousands of learners are building foundational AI skills, explore what the certification offers today, and get a preview of what's coming next.

• What Blackbaud AI connectors are and how they work
• How Blackbaud data remains protected through existing permissions
• When to use Copilot or Claude versus built-in Blackbaud AI experiences
• How to connect and start experimenting in minutes

Expert Connect sessions are short, 15-minute conversations designed to help you move forward fast. Whether you have a question about an existing case or need guidance on how to do something, our experts will help you clarify your next steps.

Before You Book

• Expert Connect is ideal for questions that need expert guidance, clarification, or discussion beyond self-service resources.
• These 15-minute sessions are designed to help you move forward with recommendations and next steps.
• Appointment availability is limited. To ensure more attendees have the opportunity to connect with our team, please book only one session per customer or site for your highest-priority need.

Important: These sessions are scheduled directly with the Support team. Registering through the conference app will not create an appointment. Click here to schedule your session.

Every successful donation depends on decisions charities never see: how payments are routed, how failures are reduced, how security and compliance are handled, and how systems adapt as donor behaviour changes. At Blackbaud, we invest heavily behind the scenes so charities can focus on their mission while donors experience fast, reliable, and trusted giving.

In this panel session, leaders from across Blackbaud will share how we optimise payments across our platforms today, including how we improve acceptance rates, reduce friction, and continuously test and refine payment experiences at scale. Using examples from products such as JustGiving, we will explain how centralised payment optimisation helps charities benefit from best practices without needing to manage complexity themselves.

We will then look ahead. The same foundations that enable reliable payments also make Blackbaud increasingly ready for agentic and AI‑supported experiences. We will discuss what “agent‑ready” really means in the context of payments, why clean workflows and strong controls matter, and how AI can responsibly support better outcomes without removing human oversight or trust.

The session will be interactive and discussion-led, with audience questions shaping the conversation. The goal is to give charities clarity on how Blackbaud protects and improves donation outcomes today, and confidence in how we are preparing the payment foundations for the next generation of intelligent giving experiences.

In an era of rapid automation and "big data," it is easy to lose sight of the people behind the percentages. This session explores the critical intersection of operational analytics and human-centered leadership, demonstrating why neither can truly succeed without the other.

Things move quickly, and bbcon is often where many of Blackbaud's latest innovations, announcements, and priorities come together in one place. Join Blackbaud Customer Support leaders for a timely discussion on recent developments across Blackbaud and what they mean for our customers.

As we get closer to bbcon, session content will continue to evolve to reflect the most current and relevant information available. Whether we're discussing new innovations, major announcements, emerging trends, or upcoming changes, this session is designed to help you better understand what's happening across Blackbaud and how Customer Support can help you navigate what's ahead. Bring your questions and hear directly from Support leaders on the topics shaping the customer experience.

Funders and nonprofits share a common goal—driving meaningful impact—but too often, misaligned expectations, resource constraints, and process inefficiencies create friction that slows progress on both sides.

In this interactive session, we’ll open the conversation around the real constraints funders and nonprofits face, from capacity and compliance pressures to reporting requirements and limited flexibility. Together, we’ll explore how these challenges show up across the grants lifecycle and where they most often create tension or misunderstanding.

We’ll also highlight how some funders are actively working alongside nonprofits to improve collaboration, reduce burden, and build trust—shifting from transactional grantmaking to more transparent, partnership‑driven approaches. Attendees will hear key considerations for both funders and nonprofits, including where expectations can be clarified earlier, how feedback loops can be strengthened, and what “good partnership” looks like in practice.

A featured conversation with Angela Finley Hunter, Grants Manager at The Imlay Foundation, will bring these ideas to life. Angela will share her experience forming and leading a Grant Advisory Group, an initiative designed to engage nonprofits directly in shaping grant applications, requirements, and processes. Through meaningful dialogue with grantees, her foundation has worked to improve clarity, equity, and efficiency—resulting in a grants experience that better serves everyone involved.

Whether you sit on the funding or receiving side (or both), this session offers practical insights, candid discussion, and real‑world examples of how funders and nonprofits can work better together—from application through reporting—to maximize impact.

Donation forms have evolved far beyond simple online transactions—and the right design choices can directly impact donor conversion, average gift, and long‑term sustainability. In this session, we’ll explore how Blackbaud Donation Forms are built to help organizations raise more, reduce processing costs, and create faster, more intuitive giving experiences for today’s donors.

You’ll learn when to use Standard vs. Optimized Donation Forms, how features like Intelligent Ask, recurring gift upsell, social sharing, and fee coverage drive measurable results, and what modern, high‑converting donation experiences look like in practice. 

Is your business office spending too much time on manual processes and workarounds in QuickBooks? Join us for a practical session on how K–12 private and independent schools are streamlining financial management with Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT® and Blackbaud Tuition Management™. Learn how to identify the signs you've outgrown QuickBooks and explore how integrated solutions can improve reporting, compliance, and tuition tracking—while saving your team valuable time. 

Discover how Raiser’s Edge NXT is evolving into a unified, connected data management solution designed to simplify your workflows and boost efficiency. With Query at the center of your process, you’ll define record groups that can be exported and import them back to ensure your data stays clean and accurate. This modernized approach minimizes handoffs and enables scalable data management directly in web view. You’ll also get a first look at future enhancements to Query, Export, and Import, and learn how this improved functionality compares to database view processes, so you can confidently utilize these enhancements and understand the benefits for your daily work.

Nonprofits rarely rely on a single system to support fundraising, events, digital engagement, and communications. At National Park Foundation, trying to force one platform to do everything led to data silos, manual workarounds, and slowed collaboration across teams.

In this session, National Park Foundation shares how it intentionally built a connected systems ecosystem anchored by Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT while integrating specialized platforms where needed. Rather than replacing systems wholesale, NPF focused on advancing integrations and workflows so each tool could be used for what it does best, leaning into the continual improvement model and learning by trial and error where to lean into tools and when to find a different solution.

Attendees will hear how this approach improved data flow, reduced organizational friction, and strengthened cross‑department collaboration. The session will also explore how thoughtful design of online donation experiences, supported by connected systems, helped NPF elevate digital performance and establish internal best practices.

Who should attend
Advancement operations leaders, CRM owners, and digital and IT partners managing complex technology stacks

Endowments and restricted funds represent long-term commitments between donors and the institutions they support. Yet many advancement teams still rely on manual reporting processes and fragmented data when communicating how those funds are used and stewarded.

At Bennington College, advancement leadership recognized an opportunity to strengthen both donor transparency and institutional decision-making around fund usage. In this session, Dan Snyder, Director of Advancement Services at Bennington College, will share his perspectives on how his team began transforming their approach to fund management and donor reporting. 

By improving visibility into fund activity, strengthening collaboration between finance and advancement, and modernizing stewardship processes, the college is taking important steps toward providing clearer insight into how donor funds are supporting students and programs.

The session will explore how institutions using Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT can better connect financial and advancement data to support stronger stewardship, improved fund utilization, and more meaningful donor communication.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in nonprofit operations, fundraisers are facing a critical inflection point: how to leverage AI responsibly while adapting to rapidly changing donor behaviors across technologies and generations. Most notably how younger donors are redefining what generosity looks like, favoring spontaneous, values‑driven, and convenience‑based engagement over traditional models of giving. 

How can fundraisers keep up and recognize which trends truly matter? How can they connect with donors in meaningful ways and stay focused amid constant change? And how can we keep fundraising first—while thoughtfully incorporating AI tools to drive real results?

Senior strategic analytics consultants Lauren Enlow and Marleen Lucas explore the intersection of AI adoption, generational giving trends, and fundraising performance, using current sector research and applied examples in an interactive session. They will demonstrate how human‑centric AI is evolving from content creation to workflow automation and improved stewardship, how spontaneous giving functions can be powerful acquisition pathways, and why trust, ease, and relevance are all necessary for donor retention.

Attendees will gain a practical framework for aligning technology, data, and fundraising strategies to meet donors where they are—without overextending staff or resources, all while gaining a better understanding of why they might use AI tools in the first place.

Your team isn't getting bigger. Your workload is.

AI has the potential to change that, but only if you know where to apply it. This session breaks down the back-office functions where AI is already delivering, the ones where it's not ready yet, and how to build a low-risk pilot that gets you real data without a major investment.

Come with your questions. Leave with a plan.

You’ve got the money. You’ve built the application. Now you need to reach your applicants. Taking a page from CASE – let’s all share what works for reaching student applicants! Our scholarship programs work differently, but we all share the challenge of finding qualified applicants and motivating them to apply. In this panel, you will hear what’s worked for four institutions. We represent Community Colleges and Universities and between us we manage institution-wide scholarships, division-specific scholarships, institutional and foundation funding dollars, and even athletics scholarships. We’ll share ideas for marketing to applicants, including how we’ve leveraged Blackbaud Award Management™ to reach our intended student population. Come ready to hear what works for us and share what works for you! We hope that everyone (panelists included!) will leave the session with at least one new scholarship marketing/outreach idea to try!

Blackbaud Verified Network is more than just a nonprofit profile. It's a growing connected experience that helps organizations increase visibility, streamline funding, and demonstrate impact. Join Blackbaud experts Garth Ralston and Kayla Barnes for an inside look at how nonprofits can maximize the value of Blackbaud Verified Network, including best practices for profile optimization, the latest innovations in Expedited Giving and Expedited Giving+, and a preview of upcoming impact reporting capabilities. Whether you're just getting started or looking to get more from the network, you'll leave with practical insights to help your organization access support faster and strengthen relationships with funders, companies, and donors.

Effectively Managing time based grants is key to attracting and retaining additional funding needed by growing organizations. This session will cover:

Organizational Requirements for Managing and Allocating Labor: Peter Saul, Director of Blackbaud Solutions - will review the various labor management activities that Organizations deal with on a daily basis:

• Managing and Processing Employee Timesheets
  Time-based Budget Enforcement

• Payroll Processing

• Preparing and processing time-based allocations for Grants & Programs

• How these activities can be managed in Financial Edge NXT

• What are the GAPs/Issues commonly encountered during these processes

Effort Track Demonstration from Robbie Pollock, Vice President of Product Development will feature:

• Timesheets

• Approval Workflows

• Budgeting by time

• Payroll Processing with Effort Track

• Creating and processing time-based allocations with Financial Edge NXT

• Effort Track; Time Reporting with Financial Edge NXT and Effort Track

This session qualifies for CPE credit.

Discover how gift communications in Raiser’s Edge NXT has become smoother and more efficient in web view. Gift communications in web view now aligns with the functionality of database view, bringing the tools your team relies on into a single, unified workflow.

In this demo, you’ll see how your team can easily manage the entire gift communication process—from creating acknowledgments and reminders to generating receipts and statements—all in a way that’s more connected and user-friendly. We’ll show you how new features simplify your tasks, improve consistency, and help you send timely, personalized messages to your donors. Learn how web view supports key gift communication activities, including enhanced receipting, acknowledgments, reminders, customization options, and tools designed to make your work easier and more effective.

You'll discover how to:

• Manage all your gift communication tasks in one place.

• Save time by streamlining receipts, acknowledgments, reminders, and statements.

• Build stronger donor relationships with better control and insights.

• Deliver personalized messages while increasing team productivity.

How do fundraisers turn scattered prospects, complex portfolios, and endless stewardship tasks into a streamlined engine for philanthropic growth? 
During this interactive session, you'll join a guided discussion exploring essential topics in prospect pipeline management. Areas of focus may include leveraging prospect insights, utilizing constituent tiles, conducting research analysis, and making the most of the Work Center. The conversation will also address effective fundraiser management, identifying and managing opportunity records, and designing workflows. 
Additional highlights include best practices for documenting moves within your pipeline, fostering cross-team collaboration, performing comprehensive fundraising analysis, setting and tracking goals, and customizing dashboards to meet your organization's unique needs. This attendee-driven exchange is designed to offer practical demonstrations, expert tips, and the chance to share and learn from your peers. 

SKY Add‑ins provide a powerful—but often underused—way to extend the Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® user experience with custom, embedded content. In this demo‑driven session, you’ll see how Raiser's Edge NXT® can be enhanced by displaying full‑screen, contextual information directly within the application using standard SKY Add‑in techniques.

We’ll walk through a real‑world example of embedding an Event Calendar Power BI report inside the Raiser's Edge NXT® workspace, then explore how the same patterns can be applied to surface Adaptive Cards, custom HTML, and other external content. The focus is on practical implementation—what’s possible, how it works, and repeatable approaches you can use to deliver richer, more interactive experiences for Raiser's Edge NXT® users.

Urgent‑need grantmaking challenges everything we know about risk, review, and readiness. Join Blackbaud and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy for a candid conversation on evolving due diligence models for disaster and crisis response. We’ll explore how grantmakers can build flexible, trust‑based processes that move quickly while still safeguarding resources, strengthening internal controls, and supporting grantees when it matters most.

Blackbaud's online fundraising solutions offer may options for donors to cover the cost of credit card processing fees, platform fees, or both. Your donors want more of their donation to go toward your mission. You can make your operations more efficient by allowing them to direct more of their gift so their support goes to your mission, not to credit card fees. Learn about the various options for fee cover in all of Blackbaud's products, see stats on how covering costs doesn't negatively impact conversion, and hear from nonprofits about improved donor satisfaction and operational efficiencies. 

The road from initial meeting to money in the bank is a long one, and each step needs to be in eTapestry. In this session, we will take a high level look at planned gifts, including their definition, key characteristics, and the various funding methods. We will talk about where and how to record the gift, its intention, and all the steps leading to its acquisition. This session is for organizations of all sizes, and particularly for those in the early stages of a planned giving program.

In this fun, fast-paced session, PSG will (anonymously) induct some of the strangest, riskiest, and most painful database practices we’ve encountered into the 2026 Hall of Shame. Join Nic, Andy, Stacy and Austen from PSG for this chance to laugh, shake your head in disbelief, and squirm uncomfortably in your seat when some of the examples hit too close to home. And for every jaw-dropping client example, we’ll show you a better way to use Raiser’s Edge. Attendees will walk away with a smile and a long list of ideas to implement back home.

Heading into 2026, federal grant funding levels remain largely intact. But the way agencies allocate, evaluate, and monitor those funds is evolving, driven in large part by artificial intelligence. 

AI is influencing everything from how opportunities are structured to how applications are screened, scored, and audited. At the same time, new federal investments in workforce innovation, digital infrastructure, and AI-related initiatives are opening fresh funding pathways for forward-thinking organizations. 

In this upcoming session, we’ll unpack how AI is reshaping the federal grants landscape and what grantseekers must do to stay competitive. You’ll discover: 

• Where funding priorities are emerging 
• How application evaluation criteria are changing 
• What steps organizations should take to align strategy, compliance, and technology 

War Child Canada operates in a complex humanitarian landscape where every fundraising decision directly affects children living through conflict. With limited time, lean teams, and rising donor expectations, the organization needed a smarter way to focus effort where it would have the greatest impact.

In this session, DeeAnn Sagar, a long-time professional fundraiser and former Senior Manager of Development at War Child Canada, joins Blackbaud Advisory+ consultant Kimberley Côté to share how War Child Canada embedded AI‑powered predictive analytics into their everyday fundraising strategy using Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®.

Attendees will hear how War Child Canada moved from broad, manual segmentation to AI‑driven prioritization that supports human decision‑making rather than replacing it. Predictive models helped surface under‑giving major donors, identify lapsed supporters most likely to return, and guide targeted calling and direct mail strategies. These insights enabled the team to focus conversations where they mattered most, contributing to measurable outcomes including strong lapsed donor recapture and exceeding major donor upgrade goals.

DeeAnn will share how her team approached AI adoption thoughtfully, emphasizing transparency, stewardship, and trust, while ensuring insights remained explainable and actionable for fundraisers. Kimberley will provide context on how these tools are designed to support ethical, mission‑aligned fundraising.

This session offers a practical, peer‑led look at how responsible AI can help fundraising teams work smarter while keeping relationships and mission at the center.

Get more from Blackbaud CRM with practical tips, hidden gems, and proven techniques from experienced users, solution architects, and product experts. Discover ways to streamline everyday tasks, improve data quality, optimize workflows, and unlock capabilities you may not be using today. From productivity shortcuts and Page Designer best practices to workflow automation and reporting efficiencies, you'll leave with actionable ideas you can put to work immediately. Bring your own tips and questions for an interactive discussion with fellow Blackbaud CRM users. 

Nonprofits operate on trust — with donors, boards, and communities. As AI becomes embedded in Raiser's Edge NXT, leaders must ensure innovation strengthens, rather than erodes, human connection. This session examines governance, communication, and trust-building strategies for AI adoption.

Finance teams spend hours matching transactions, validating deposits, and explaining fee discrepancies across systems,often relying on manual exports and spreadsheets. In this session, we’ll break down what’s happening behind the scenes in Blackbaud Integrated Payments (BBIP),from donation to disbursement. Then, we’ll explore how AI can start to simplify this experience.

See how an AI-powered assistant in the BBIP portal can help you quickly find transaction details, surface related gift records, and answer common reconciliation questions, without digging through multiple systems. Instead of searching across reports, you can ask targeted questions and get clear, contextual answers in seconds.

How do we move away from a "that's how we have always done it" philosophy to find a middle ground between tradition and progress? In this session, we will discuss the 3 golden rules to streamline processes between the Development and Finance department: Consistency, Communication and Efficiency.

Nonprofit finance teams are often asked to deliver more insight with fewer resources—yet many still struggle with inefficient, inconsistent month-end close processes. This session provides a practical, field-tested framework for optimizing your month-end close using clear ownership structures, internal controls, automation within Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, and standardized reporting packages.

Drawing from real-world nonprofit CFO experience, we will walk through how to design a 10-day close model that improves accuracy, reduces audit risk, strengthens internal controls, and enhances leadership confidence in financial reporting. Attendees will learn how to build structured reconciliation deadlines (bank, credit card, AP, AR), implement daily cash validation procedures, create a standardized month-end deliverable package, and leverage system tools to reduce manual journal entries.

We will also cover common breakdown points—migration issues, timing differences, audit adjustments, and staff accountability—and how to fix them without expanding headcount.

Endowments represent one of higher education's most vital financial resources, yet finance office often struggle with unclear spendable balances, manual allocation and reporting processes, and communication gaps across stakeholders. These challenges not only affect regulatory compliances and audit readiness, but can also erode the trust of donors, campus partners, and governing boards. This session offers practical, experience-based strategies for strengthening endowment oversight and improving the day-to-day accounting and reporting needed. Drawing on lessons learned over 24 years at the University of South Carolina Foundations, the session highlights how intentional fund structure and segmentation can transform endowment stewardship.

This session qualifies for CPE credit.

Higher education and K-12 leaders are navigating a new reality: more data, more systems, more expectations, and more pressure to act quickly. Yet despite unprecedented access to information, institutions face the same challenge — turning that information into confident, trusted action.

Join education, technology, and cybersecurity leaders for a candid conversation on how AI, connected data, and human-centered leadership are helping institutions lead through change with clarity and confidence. From identifying student needs earlier to strengthening relationships with families, alumni, donors, and communities, this session explores what it truly means to become an intelligent institution — one where people, data, and technology work together to advance outcomes and mission impact.

The discussion will also spotlight the growing importance of connected ecosystems, including the Blackbaud and Student First partnership, and how institutions can bring together the full educational journey — from recruitment to lifelong engagement — with trust, security, and purpose at the core.

Key topics include:

• AI as a force multiplier for decision-making and institutional knowledge
• Trust, cybersecurity, governance, and responsible AI adoption
• Leading through organizational change and uncertainty
• Strengthening relationships across the educational ecosystem
• Connecting data across departments to create actionable intelligence
• How the Blackbaud and Student First partnership is helping institutions connect the journey from recruitment through lifelong engagement
• Turning insight into measurable enrollment, student success, advancement, and community outcomes

Your gift agreements get signed and filed. Your invoices get approved and archived. And everything valuable inside them, donor intent, payment terms, approval history, stays locked in a PDF that nobody ever opens again but is required for Governance.

Your program team is out doing the mission. Your finance team is stuck re-keying the same invoice for the third time this week.

In this session, JC Franzen, Director, Product Management at BILL, skips the slides and shows AP automation in action: invoices captured and read automatically, line items coded and categorized on their own, approvals that move without anyone chasing a signature, and full visibility into payments after they go out. With every vendor, invoice and payment syncing seamlessly between Blackbaud and BILL without manual uploads or double data entry.

If your team still manages AP by hand or spends hours bridging the gap between your payment processes and your accounting ledger, come and see what trueautomation and integration looks like in real life, not just a description of it.

See what happens when an AI agent joins your accounts payable team. In this quick demo, watch the Financial Edge NXT AP Agent operate across the full cycle: from invoice intake and payment to reviewing invoices, flagging exceptions, organizing the queue, and surfacing cash-aware payment run recommendations, all with your team in control of every approval. Less manual follow-up, more time for the work that matters.

Payment Assistant is entering its next chapter. Join us for a look at an enhanced payment experience that makes paying vendors faster and puts you more firmly in control of how they get paid — all natively within Financial Edge NXT. We'll walk through new vendor pre-enrollment capabilities that let you know exactly how each vendor will be paid before a payment run, invite vendors to enroll directly, and give finance teams even greater visibility and control from approved invoice to delivered payment.

Non-profit organizations rely on accurate, trustworthy, and well-managed data to strengthen donor relationships, measure impact, and drive mission-focused decisions. Yet many organizations struggle to maintain clean, reliable CRM data while also engaging users across departments who have varying levels of data literacy. This session explores how to build, mature, and sustain a successful data governance program tailored specifically to the unique needs and constraints of the non-profit sector.

Attendees will learn a practical framework for developing data governance from the ground up—starting with establishing roles and responsibilities, defining data standards, and implementing clear policies that scale as the organization grows. We will discuss common challenges such as siloed data ownership, inconsistent data entry practices, and system complexities, along with solutions that fit the realities of non-profit staffing and resources.

A major focus will be effective user outreach: how to gain buy‑in, build a data‑aware culture, and inspire cross-team adoption of governance practices. Through real-world examples, we’ll cover training strategies, communication plans, feedback loops, and techniques that empower users rather than overwhelm them.

By the end of the session, attendees will walk away with actionable tools and templates for launching or advancing their own CRM data governance initiatives—ensuring higher data quality, improved user confidence, and better organizational decision-making.

In one of two identical sessions, come learn about Blackbaud's newest solution: Blackbaud Marketing. This AI-driven digital marketing solution makes marketers more efficient in engagement and raising money through the lens of intelligent, targeted messaging and the use of multiple channels. The value is even greater when harnessing the power of a rich data set that only Blackbaud can provide. 

When I joined my organization, I inherited a campaigns, funds, and appeals (CFA) structure that was serviceable but not intentionally designed to leverage Raiser’s Edge NXT’s built-in fundraising dashboards. As a result, the dashboards were not particularly helpful, and meaningful reporting, such as for board presentations, relied heavily on custom queries and Excel spreadsheets. Gift processing also required additional judgment at times, particularly when appeal categories overlapped and certain gifts could logically fit into more than one appeal, creating ambiguity and occasional inconsistency in data entry.

This session shares our journey of refining that structure, including what we kept, what we changed, and the thinking behind those decisions. Using our experience as a case study, I will highlight key considerations when designing or restructuring a CFA framework: defining campaigns as meaningful reporting buckets; structuring appeals around specific solicitations at specific moments in time; avoiding overlapping categories; and establishing clear internal guidelines to ensure consistency.

A central theme of this session is designing your CFA structure with reporting in mind from the start. By intentionally aligning our framework with Raiser's Edge NXT's built-in fundraising dashboards, we were able to rely far more on pre-configured reports, particularly for board reporting, significantly reducing the need for custom queries and external spreadsheets and saving substantial preparation time. Attendees will leave with practical tips and a clear, actionable framework for building a CFA structure that minimizes confusion, streamlines reporting, and maximizes the value of existing RE tools.

Altru holds powerful data about our visitors, members, and donors, but many organizations struggle to turn that data into a clear, shared story across departments. In this session, I want to walk through practical, real-world ways to use Altru to connect ticketing, membership, and fundraising data into a more complete constituent journey.

Designed for everyone, this session focuses on approachable workflows, reporting habits, and cross-team alignment strategies that help organizations move beyond siloed transactions and toward relationship-based engagement. Attendees will leave with concrete examples they can adapt immediately. No advanced integrations or technical expertise required.

Discover how Blackbaud Integrated Payments extends beyond Blackbaud products to power a growing ecosystem of partner-built applications. In this session, we’ll explore how third‑party solutions for activities like telethons, events, memberships, auctions, text‑to‑give, and more can tap into industry‑leading payments capabilities—delivering an optimized checkout experience, automated card updating, advanced fraud protection, recurring gift management, easier reconciliation, and centralized reporting, all while meeting donors where they give.

The anxiety is rational. AI is moving fast, the pressure to modernize is real, and for many fundraisers, DBAs, and ops leaders, the honest feeling isn't excitement — it's the quiet dread that change is happening to you, not with you.  

This session isn’t about AI – it’s about the person in the room who already cares deeply about their mission, already knows their RE NXT environment better than anyone, and is wondering how to lead through change without losing their footing. 

What does mechanical burden actually cost your best people? Where is the friction quietly consuming the hours? And what does it look like to hand that burden to AI as a deliberate, human-governed decision? 

You'll leave with a clear framework for separating what should be automated from what must stay human, and a 30-day starting point that doesn't require a new budget or major transformation. Just the tools and data you already have - and the clarity to use them with confidence. 

Nonprofit teams are used to figuring things out on their own. But at some point, every organization runs into a project, problem, or challenge that stretches internal capacity. Whether it is a major system change, reporting challenges, data cleanup, integrations, or simply not having enough hours in the day, the question becomes: when is it time to bring in a partner?

In this panel session, four nonprofit technology providers will share honest perspectives on when outside help truly makes sense and when it might not. Drawing on real experiences working with nonprofits of all sizes, the panel will discuss common situations where organizations benefit from outside expertise, along with signs that a team may be ready to tackle the work internally.

The panel will include leaders from NPact, AiryDocs, Red Arc, and ReportingXpress. Together, they bring decades of experience helping nonprofits navigate technology, data, reporting, and operational challenges. The discussion will focus on practical frameworks and lessons learned from working alongside nonprofit teams, with clear takeaways to help you evaluate whether partnering with a consultant or technology provider is the right move.

This session will focus on practical advice nonprofits can actually use. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of when it makes sense to bring in outside expertise and how to choose the right partner when the time comes. 

This session aligns with organizations from all verticals.

What happens when your school’s strategic direction sets ambitious goals—but your advancement operation isn’t yet equipped to fund them? Mulgrave School faced that question head-on when its Strategic Direction 2025+ identified priorities spanning teacher housing, endowment growth, and a transformative capital project. Rather than jumping straight to the ask, the advancement team first rebuilt its fundraising infrastructure, assessed its data, strengthened its annual fund, and used Raiser’s Edge NXT to identify and prioritize prospective donors.
This session will take you behind the scenes of that process—from an initial pool of 300 prospective families to 24 donor conversations that generated $5.2 million in commitments. We’ll explore how Mulgrave used constituent data, giving history, property information, Linkage–Interest–Ability ratings, portfolio management, campaign opportunities, and reporting to turn a strategic vision into an actionable donor strategy.
The session will also examine how campaign data is now being used to give senior leadership and the Board the information they need to make major institutional decisions. Along the way, we’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and what we learned about building the infrastructure before making the ask—including the unique challenges Canadian fundraisers face when prospect research data is more limited than in the U.S.
The goal: to show how the right strategy, structure, and data can turn a big institutional vision into a fundable one. 

The Masters of the Universe movie and Netflix is a Joke's Festival's Night of Too Many Stars look like celebrity moments from the outside. Underneath, they're case studies in how BBIP and Startup Showcase winner Pledge turn cultural attention into new revenue streams for Blackbaud nonprofits. This session walks through real-world examples of BBIP-powered fundraising across entertainment activations, in-person events, Giving Days, and university peer-to-peer campaigns, including dorm-vs-dorm challenges that turn students into fundraisers. You'll learn about Pledge, Blackbaud Integrated Payments, see what worked, what drove results, and how to bring the same playbook to your organization. You'll leave with proven strategies to seamlessly integrate best-in-class fundraising into your existing systems, diversify revenue, reach new donors, and meet supporters wherever their attention already is, from the red carpet to the residence hall.

Web view functionality continues to expand so rapidly that we had to come back with even more tasks you can do better and/or faster than in database view.

We'll highlight more of our favorite "wow" factors that make web view an indispensable tool for modern fundraising and donor management. From intuitive dashboards with real-time analytics to data management capabilities, web view offers a range of features designed to enhance your efficiency and effectiveness.

Discover how web view's user-friendly interface can simplify your team’s tasks, improve data accessibility, and provide deeper insights into your donor base. Whether you're a seasoned user or new to Raiser's Edge NXT, this session will equip you with the knowledge and confidence to leverage many of web view's capabilities.

If you (or your team) are hesitant to make the switch to web view, or reluctant to use Raiser's Edge at all, we'll show you a few tips and tricks in web view to make your job easier and to solidify your reputation as your organization's subject matter expert.

With billions in matching gift funds left unclaimed in the sector each year, an effective employer matching gift strategy can provide a crucial boost to your fundraising. Join us as we cover how Phillips Exeter Academy moved beyond passive collection to a proactive, data-driven matching gift marketing strategy that targets the right donors with the right message at the right time.

In this session, we’ll dive into Exeter’s playbook for utilizing Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, in particular its AI-driven insights and advanced reporting, to transform employer data into actionable outreach. We will go behind the scenes of their multi-channel approach, including their successful "Match Like Megan" campaign, to show how they use social proof and hyper-personalized communication to drive conversions. By identifying alums at top matching companies, sharing the personalized 'impact math' that turns $100 into $300, and building a targeted young alumni strategy, Exeter shows exactly how to shepherd donors into impact.

Should we ask donors to cover the fees? And if we do, will they walk away? These are the questions stalling Fee Cover conversations inside nonprofits right now, and they deserve real answers.

Fee Cover decisions get stuck for good reasons. Development, finance, leadership, and donor services teams all look at Fee Cover through different lenses, and getting everyone on the same page is hard. If you are the fundraiser making the case, the CFO running the numbers, or the donor services lead answering the calls, this session is for you.

Hear from practitioners at Susan G. Komen, Central Park Conservancy, and National Park Foundation on insights into why they chose Donor Cover, how they navigated internal buy‑in, and what they have learned about donor response, operational tradeoffs, and ongoing governance. They will share what convinced them, how they brought their teams along, and what donor response has actually looked like.

You will walk away with a practical way to think about readiness, real talk tracks for the tough internal conversations, and a clearer sense of what adoption can look like for your organization. Come ready to ask the hard questions. The panel will answer them honestly.

Small nonprofit finance teams are expected to deliver the same level of accuracy, compliance, and strategic insight as their larger counterparts often with a fraction of the resources. This session addresses that challenge head-on by equipping attendees with practical, immediately applicable strategies for getting the most out of Financial Edge NXT when operating with lean staff.

Drawing on real-world experience working with nonprofits of all sizes, this session will walk attendees through high-impact tips and best practices for maximizing the Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT platform  from automation and reporting to grants management and internal controls. Attendees will leave with a clear action plan for transforming their Financial Edge environment into a force multiplier for their team.

This session qualifies for CPE credit.

Gift processing in Raiser’s Edge NXT is now easier and more intuitive, giving you a seamless way to manage gifts from start to finish. This complete workflow brings everything you need into web view, making it simpler to handle gifts and stay on top of donor contributions.

In this demo, you’ll see how to manage every step of the gift lifecycle—from entering and validating gifts to updating records, making adjustments, and working through more complex scenarios. You’ll learn how improved workflows can simplify your daily tasks, give you clearer insights into gift details, and provide a more connected way to track donor revenue.

You'll discover how to:

• Complete your gift processing tasks with ease in one streamlined view.
• Simplify updates, adjustments, and unique gift types.
• Gain greater accuracy and transparency across the gift lifecycle.
• Spend less time switching between tools and more time focusing on donor support.

Discover how Single Row Query makes working with your data easier and more efficient. This enhanced web view feature streamlines the process, combining the familiar Export functionality into one simplified workflow. With Single Row Query, you can easily create one-row-per-record datasets ideal for mailings, imports, reporting, and analysis.

During the demo, we’ll show you how to build single-row queries, prepare your data faster, preview results before exporting, and reuse the same query across reports and workflows. We’ll also quickly highlight asynchronous processing, API integrations like Power BI, and tools to help transition existing database view exports to web view.

You’ll learn how to:

• Save time by focusing on insights instead of data prep.

• Create one query that supports multiple needs.

• Expand what you thought was possible with query.

• Plan for a smoother transition to web view.

Join us and make the most of your data!

Back for a fifth year by popular demand, the Super User Panel returns with a team of Raiser’s Edge NXT power users known for tackling any question the audience throws our way. This lively, interactive session blends practical expertise, real‑world problem‑solving, and the humor and honesty that have made this panel a bbcon favorite.

This year’s panel features a group of seasoned practitioners and consultants who bring deep experience across fundraising operations, data management, and Raiser's Edge NXT optimization. Together, they’ll dig into strategies for adopting web view with empathy and enthusiasm, explore the most valuable Blackbaud and partner ecosystem resources, and share practical tips, clever workarounds, and expert‑level insights for both Unified and Database View. Whether you’re navigating SKY API updates, troubleshooting a thorny data challenge, or bracing yourself for the day someone finally pries Database View from your Cold Dead Hands, this session has you covered.

As always, the heart of this session is audience participation. Bring your questions—especially the stumpers. We’ll troubleshoot live, offer guidance and validation, and highlight tools and techniques you can take home and use immediately. 

Schools are under increasing pressure to deliver accurate, standardized advancement reports such as VSE and DASL—often on tight timelines and with less-than-perfect data. Meeting these requirements can feel overwhelming, especially when historical gaps, inconsistent coding, or evolving definitions get in the way.

In this session, you’ll learn practical, repeatable strategies for building robust, defensible reports using Raiser’s Edge NXT (RENXT)—even when your data isn’t pristine. We’ll walk through how to leverage RENXT reporting tools and queries as a foundation, then enhance and validate results using Excel and pivot tables to increase confidence and accuracy. Attendees will gain hands-on guidance for identifying common reporting challenges, addressing data inconsistencies, and making informed decisions when assumptions are required.

You’ll also learn best practices for documenting methodologies and preparing your data now to reduce stress and rework in future reporting cycles. Whether you’re new to VSE and DASL reporting or looking to refine an existing process, this session will equip you with tools and techniques you can immediately apply back at your institution.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully transitioned to the new Blackbaud Grantmaking Applicant Portal—you’ve built forms, launched Programs, and started receiving online applications. But are you really getting the most out of the system?

Are automated emails unclear or overwhelming? Should correspondence come from the portal, or is it better to rely on email templates? Do you manage multi-year grants and unsure how to build cohesive grant reports? Are support cases harder to submit clearly than they should be?

Join Paula Lentoni of Mott Philanthropic, a grants manager with over 20 years of Blackbaud experience who currently manages three independent Blackbaud Grantmaking databases, along with Nick Mills of Blackbaud, a business consultant with over 14 years of Grantmaking experience, as they share practical lessons learned from the Applicant Portal transition—and insights on what to expect in year two.

As digital fundraising evolves, expectations around user experience and campaign creativity have grown far beyond standard giving forms. Donors expect interactive, mobile-first experiences, and fundraising teams need tools like leaderboards and challenges — without adding manual processes or disrupting CRM workflows.

In this session, we’ll explore how institutions are connecting Blackbaud with complementary campaign tools to deliver dynamic fundraising experiences while automatically syncing data back into Blackbaud. Rather than replacing your CRM, Advance enhances it as an integrated campaign layer that eliminates manual imports and reconciliation.

Alongside an institutional partner, we’ll share a real-world example of how their team paired Advance with Blackbaud to power more dynamic campaigns, drive engagement, and streamline operations.

We’ll cover:

• How to move beyond static giving forms to dynamic experiences with leaderboards, challenges, and campaign storytelling
• Creating a unified, mobile-first user experience across campaigns and giving days
  Automatically syncing gifts, donor data, and campaign information into Blackbaud in real time
• Reducing manual processes and reconciliation work for advancement operations teams
• Designing fundraising experiences that increase participation and engagement — without increasing staff workload

Attendees will leave with a clear framework for integrating complementary campaign tools with Blackbaud, modernizing their digital fundraising strategy, and delivering better donor experiences — all while protecting data integrity and operational efficiency.

Are you curious about the RE NXT Portal, but haven’t had time to fully explore how to activate and use it for your organization? “Getting Started with RE NXT Portal” is a concise, practical session designed to help you take the first step toward unlocking this powerful opportunity.

In this presentation, we’ll cover:

• The basics of portal onboarding and setup
• A guided tour of available portal features
• How to invite your constituents to access the portal

We’ll wrap up by sharing the future vision for the Portal, including a look at upcoming enhancements.

Things move quickly, and bbcon is often where many of Blackbaud's latest innovations, announcements, and priorities come together in one place. Join Blackbaud Customer Support leaders for a timely discussion on recent developments across Blackbaud and what they mean for our customers.

As we get closer to bbcon, session content will continue to evolve to reflect the most current and relevant information available. Whether we're discussing new innovations, major announcements, emerging trends, or upcoming changes, this session is designed to help you better understand what's happening across Blackbaud and how Customer Support can help you navigate what's ahead. Bring your questions and hear directly from Support leaders on the topics shaping the customer experience.

Join Bruce Baughman - Senior P2P Administrator at Susan G. Komen talk about Blackbaud Integrated Payments and payment processing.  Learn how Komen is staying up to date with latest changes in payments, how they have adopted these changes and lessons they have learned along the way.

As Financial Edge NXT continues expanding in web view, many organizations are rethinking how they manage mass updates as workflows evolve between database view and web view. Rather than relying on manual edits or legacy tools, imports in web view can become a powerful, controlled solution for updating and adding data at scale.

This session provides a practical, step-by-step framework for using imports to perform mass updates, create new records, and maintain custom fields in Financial Edge NXT. Attendees will learn how to leverage queries to isolate specific record groups, use exports to build structured import templates, and execute updates confidently while preserving data integrity.

In addition to practical guidance, Financial Edge NXT product manager, Russel Fulfor, will join to provide insight into how import workflows are evolving. He’ll share how Smart Import Mapping is already reducing manual effort and improving accuracy today, along with a look ahead at the Smart Import Agent—designed to further automate, simplify, and scale data management.

We will also cover import types, required security roles, and real-world use cases that replace common Global Change scenarios, along with best practices for testing, validation, and post-import housekeeping to reduce risk and ensure clean results.

Whether you are a finance team member or system administrator, you will leave with a repeatable process for managing data changes efficiently in web view—along with a clear view of where import automation is heading.

Last year’s Gen Z Donor Engagement bbcon session introduced nonprofit leaders to the values, behaviors, and expectations shaping how Gen Z connects with causes. This year, we take the conversation one step further by putting Gen Z voices front and center.

In this interactive working session, attendees will hear directly from a panel of Gen Z donors as they react in real time to actual nonprofit campaigns. From fundraising emails and text messages to social posts, imagery, and donation page experiences, Gen Z panelists will share candid feedback on what resonates, what feels inauthentic, and what they would or would not share with their peers.

Rather than guessing how Gen Z might respond, participants will observe how Gen Z evaluates nonprofit messaging through the lens of trust, relevance, inclusivity, and shareability. The session will surface common patterns, challenge assumptions, and highlight practical changes nonprofits can make immediately to improve engagement with younger donors.

Attendees will leave with unfiltered insight from Gen Z donors, a clearer understanding of what drives peer-to-peer sharing and giving, and concrete ideas for creating campaigns that feel authentic, respectful, and worth supporting.

We heard your request at bbcon 2025. Now let's take a look at the newest upcoming iteration of Agents for Good™ - Data Health Agent. 

Helping fundraising teams keep their data accurate, complete, and ready to use, the Data Health Agent is your everyday maintenance and improvement data agent. By improving data quality at the source, the Data Health Agent supports greater confidence in fundraising decisions, without adding extra work for already busy staff.

The panel will discuss the research behind the agent, the who, what, where, when, and how of what it is and how to bring the agent on to your team. 

When you walk into a board meeting, sit across from a program officer, or need to rally your team around a hard financial reality, do your numbers actually work for you?

Most nonprofit leaders are trained to report their finances, but very few are trained to lead with them. There is a difference, and it changes everything about how your organization moves.

This session introduces a practical framework called The Metric, the Meaning, and the Move — a three-layer approach to translating financial data into confident leadership narratives. You will learn which metrics carry the most weight in high-stakes conversations, how to calibrate your financial story for different audiences, and what it sounds like to walk into any room and own the numbers rather than just present them.

Through real-world leadership scenarios — board meetings, funder conversations, staff alignment moments — you will practice building narratives that are clear, credible, and strategically timed. Whether your financials tell a strong story or a complicated one, this session will give you the tools to tell it well.

This session qualifies for CPE credit.

Get ready to explore the future of participant engagement and admin control with a quick, action-packed demo of the all-new TeamRaiser Participant Center 4 and Dashboard. In just 20 minutes, we’ll showcase how this modern, mobile-first experience empowers fundraisers to stay connected, track their impact, and drive results like never before. Discover how administrators can seamlessly configure and preview the dashboard to align with your branding and event goals, ensuring a consistent and intuitive experience for every participant. Don’t miss this opportunity to see how these powerful tools can simplify your setup, boost engagement, and strengthen relationships at scale!

Discover how Raiser’s Edge NXT’s Recognition Programs simplifies managing legacy and planned-giving donors. You’ll save time as the system automatically tracks eligible donors and keeps recognition lists up to date. Organizations can set flexible criteria for donors who’ve committed to planned gifts or bequests, and the system automatically updates recognition lists to reflect eligible donors. This live demo highlights how to oversee planned-giving and legacy programs through an intuitive, web-based platform designed to make your work easier.

AI is creating new opportunities for social impact organizations to work smarter, make better decisions, and scale their impact. In this fast-paced demo session, three winners from the inaugural Blackbaud India Social Good Startup Program Challenge will showcase innovative solutions that help organizations unlock knowledge, automate complex workflows, and improve operational efficiency.

Through live demonstrations, attendees will see how organizations can connect and activate institutional knowledge with trusted AI, streamline business processes through intelligent automation, and reduce administrative burden with technology designed to accelerate outcomes. Whether you're exploring practical applications of AI, seeking ways to increase efficiency, or looking to modernize operations without adding complexity, these startups offer real-world examples of how innovation can advance mission-focused work.

Featuring:

• CredResolve- Balaji Koustubha, CEO
• CogniSwitch- Vivek Khandelwal- Co-Founder and CBO
• Vyaptix- Manish Singh- Chief Technology Officer

Expert Connect sessions are short, 15-minute conversations designed to help you move forward fast. Whether you have a question about an existing case or need guidance on how to do something, our experts will help you clarify your next steps.

Before You Book

• Expert Connect is ideal for questions that need expert guidance, clarification, or discussion beyond self-service resources.
• These 15-minute sessions are designed to help you move forward with recommendations and next steps.
• Appointment availability is limited. To ensure more attendees have the opportunity to connect with our team, please book only one session per customer or site for your highest-priority need.

Important: These sessions are scheduled directly with the Support team. Registering through the conference app will not create an appointment. Click here to schedule your session.

• How Power BI can unlock insights from Blackbaud data
• Ways to visualize performance, trends, and key metrics
• Strategies for making data-driven decisions across your organization

Discover how Chat for Blackbaud AI elevates your experience with Raiser’s Edge NXT, making it easier to integrate conversational AI into your daily fundraising tasks. Whether you’re preparing for a donor meeting, analyzing constituent activity, drafting personalized communications, or finding quick answers, Chat saves time on daily work. We will also highlight the Prompt Library that was designed to help you get started, offering ready-to-use prompts and practical examples tailored to everyday fundraising needs.

In this demo, you’ll learn how to:

• Write effective prompts using natural language and prompt engineering techniques.

• Utilize the Prompt Library to access proven prompts for common fundraising situations.

• Integrate Chat into your workflows while following responsible AI practices.

Many scholarship administrators struggle with confiruring continuous multi-term or multi-year awards without creating high-maintenance, manual duplicates. This session looks to demystify its iteration math, year-independent date loops, and offset safety controls.

Attendees will gain a blueprint for structuring varied award lifecycles, ranging from basice Fall-to-Spring renewasl to three-term structure, up to a six-term multi-year sequenses. 

Beyond the backend mechanics, we will share effective operational "practices  used to optimize student outcomes.  Learn to configure Spring renwal opportunites to populate before the Fall semester ends to enable proactive registration monitoring. We will also discuss communication strategies to reminds students to register and be aware of the requirement to their continuing eligibility.

Finally, we will discuss Selective Renewals and automatied termination rules. Attendees will leave with actionable configurations and communication frameworks to minimize manual intereventions, reduce processing timelines, and maxxximize student retention.

In today’s rapidly evolving financial landscape, nonprofit organizations face increasing pressure to build transparent, accurate, and strategically aligned budgets. This session explores how modern, collaborative budgeting practices can dramatically transform the way organizations plan, analyze, and manage their financial resources. Attendees will gain an understanding of the key drivers shaping today’s budgeting environment, including cross‑departmental collaboration, cloud‑based tools, scenario planning, and the growing demand for real‑time insights.

A featured client will share their firsthand experience transitioning from a manual, spreadsheet‑driven process to a streamlined, automated workflow using Zobrio Budgeting & Reporting (ZBR) integrated with Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT. They will discuss the challenges they faced with disconnected systems, version control issues, and time‑consuming reconciliations, and how adopting a unified budgeting platform improved efficiency, reduced errors, and ultimately enhanced decision‑making across the organization. The client will also highlight the impact of features such as position‑level budgeting, dynamic dashboards, workflow automation, and year‑round reforecasting.

Participants will leave with practical strategies for modernizing their own budgeting processes, including best practices for implementation, opportunities to leverage automation, and tactical steps for improving transparency and accountability. Whether your organization is just beginning to refine its budgeting approach or looking to optimize an existing system, this session provides a clear roadmap for building a more collaborative, data‑driven, and resilient budgeting environment.

Recognition Programs in Raiser’s Edge NXT promise cleaner stewardship, more consistent donor recognition, and less manual cleanup — but many teams are unsure where to start or how to transition from legacy workflows.

In this hands‑on product training session, we’ll walk through how Recognition Programs work in practice, from initial setup to real‑world use cases. Attendees will see how to configure recognition programs, identify gifts correctly, manage edge cases, and use recognition data confidently across reports, lists, and donor communications.

This session is designed for practitioners who want to move beyond theory and leave bbcon knowing exactly what to click, how to structure programs, and how to avoid common pitfalls when rolling recognition into their everyday workflows.

Cyber threats continue to evolve, and non-profit organizations are increasingly targeted due to limited resources, complex vendor ecosystems, and sensitive constituent data. This session provides a practical, non-technical overview of today’s cybersecurity landscape and what it means for non-profits of all sizes.

Attendees will learn about current and emerging cyber risks impacting the sector, including phishing, ransomware, third-party risk, and data privacy concerns. The presentation will highlight recent trends and real-world examples to help leaders better understand where attacks originate and why non-profits are attractive targets.

Most importantly, this session will focus on actionable best practices that non-profits can adopt immediately—regardless of budget or technical maturity. Topics include building a culture of security awareness, strengthening identity and access controls, managing vendors responsibly, preparing for incidents, and aligning cybersecurity efforts with organizational mission and risk tolerance.

Designed for executive leaders, IT staff, and operational stakeholders alike, this presentation emphasizes clarity over jargon and strategy over fear. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of their cyber risk, practical steps to reduce it, and guidance on how to prioritize cybersecurity investments that protect their mission, donors, and communities.

Ready to operationalize the move to Web View? This session turns 2025’s transition guidance into a concrete, field‑tested playbook for teams preparing to move off Database View.

We’ll walk through how common Database View tasks translate to modern Raiser’s Edge NXT workflows, including guidance on security and role configuration, when to use Lists versus the Query API for common extracts, and how teams are retiring risky “export for mailings” habits in favor of standard reports and in‑product processes.

You’ll leave with a stepwise migration plan, sample communication points for stakeholders, role‑based training checklists, and a practical risk register you can reuse in your own organization. This session is ideal for teams who followed last year’s migration discussions and are ready to move from planning to execution with confidence.

Blackbaud Verified Network is more than just a nonprofit profile. It's a growing connected experience that helps organizations increase visibility, streamline funding, and demonstrate impact. Join Blackbaud experts Garth Ralston and Kayla Barnes for an inside look at how nonprofits can maximize the value of Blackbaud Verified Network, including best practices for profile optimization, the latest innovations in Expedited Giving and Expedited Giving+, and a preview of upcoming impact reporting capabilities. Whether you're just getting started or looking to get more from the network, you'll leave with practical insights to help your organization access support faster and strengthen relationships with funders, companies, and donors.

Customer expectations continue to evolve, and so does Support. Customer feedback has shaped some of the most important improvements we've made to the support experience, and it continues to help us better understand the needs of our customers.

Join Customer Support leaders as we review recent improvements, discuss future initiatives, and explore opportunities to make support easier and more effective for your organization.

This isn't just an update session. It's a conversation. We'll dedicate time to hearing directly from customers, answering questions, and discussing the experiences, challenges, and opportunities that matter most to your organization. Join the discussion, engage directly with Customer Support leadership, and share your perspective on the evolving support experience.

Change is inevitable — chaos is not. Whether you’re leading a system shift, process redesign, or cultural reset, successful change depends less on the tools involved and more on how people are brought along.

In this session, we’ll explore what it really means to be a change management leader, regardless of title or role. Drawing from real‑world experience, we’ll discuss how to lead change from the top down and the bottom up, create trust during moments of uncertainty, and drive adoption even when timelines are tight and pressure is high.

Attendees will learn how to set expectations, empower end users to engage early, and maintain momentum without burning out themselves or their teams. This session focuses on practical, people‑first strategies for navigating change with confidence — turning disruption into an opportunity for alignment, ownership, and growth.

This session will demonstrate how organizations can use internal and peer benchmarks to make more confident, strategic fundraising decisions—regardless of program size or maturity.

Attendees will learn how benchmarking can move beyond static comparison to become a practical planning tool that helps teams identify opportunities, prioritize effort, and track progress over time. The session will focus on actionable approaches for getting started with benchmarking and translating insights into decisions that strengthen individual giving programs.

The annual giving team from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center will share how they use benchmarking insights to inform strategy and guide program adjustments across their fundraising operation. Specifically:

• Mid‑level giving efforts were refined using peer benchmarks and internal year‑over‑year comparisons
• To support this strategy, the team built internal dashboards aligned to peer benchmark metrics, enabling ongoing performance monitoring and course correction.
   

The session will also include guidance from Blackbaud experts on benchmarking best practices and common pitfalls to avoid.

While centered on OSU Wexner Medical Center’s experience, the session will also reference how organizations interested in benchmarking can utilize donorCentrics™ Collaborative Benchmarking and upcoming benchmarking functionality within Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®.

Worried your data is not ready for AI? You are not alone. Many nonprofits are excited about the possibilities of AI, but meaningful results require more than new tools. They require reliable data, connected systems, clear governance, and practical processes that support responsible use.

Join BrightVine, two nonprofit organizations, and Dataro for a candid discussion about what AI readiness actually requires. We will explore how fragmented data can directly impact trust, personalization and AI readiness, and how leading nonprofits are strengthening their data foundations to address these issues.

Attendees will hear how large organizations are improving data quality, connecting systems, and making smarter decisions about where AI can create real value. They will leave with a clearer understanding of the practical steps nonprofits can take now to move from AI interest to AI readiness.

In an increasingly competitive landscape, business offices need more than standalone tools—they need deeply connected revenue systems that reduce risk, eliminate manual reconciliation, and support measurable operational efficiency. In this 20‑minute session, we’ll explore how our unified Financial Aid, Enrollment, Billing & Fund Accounting platform delivers the only true accounting‑grade integration in the market. We’ll focus on what matters most to business officers: automated data flow from contracts to charges to payments, real financial controls, and a tuition and billing engine that scales with institutional complexity. We’ll also highlight the current strengths of our Financial Aid solution—fully compliant with IRS verification and a refreshed parent experience. Finally, we’ll gauge interest in an emerging need: integrated tuition insurance. With survey data from 20 schools showing that 80% would require or offer insurance options, we’ll share how this upcoming capability will fit seamlessly into Billing and Contracts—another differentiator from other platforms on the market. This is a practical, business‑office‑first conversation designed to equip leaders with clarity on what truly drives back‑office efficiency, financial accuracy, and family experience.

With limited resources and growing fundraising demands, advancing fundraising requires new approaches. Agentic artificial intelligence offers the ability to truly expand 1:1 fundraising capacity, strengthen giving pipelines, and elevate donor engagement, but adopting AI in fundraising is as much about people and trust as it is about technology. 

This panel will host Geoff Hallett of Colby College and Hallie Guiseppe of Alvernia University in a discussion with Scott Parrish about their experiences as Early Adopters of Development Agent. Topics will include:
 

• Evaluating agentic AI overall and AI solutions for your organization
• Gaining internal alignment that enables adoption
• Onboarding and managing an agentic fundraiser
• Learnings, early wins, what's next

Data enters your system from a variety of sources: migration, online patrons, integrations, seasonal interns, and of course, long-term staff. Some people follow your organization's data-entry standards and some people don't even know those standards exist.

But the reality of "garbage in" does not mean that you are doomed to "garbage out." The hodge-podge of information living in Altru can still produce reports that are accurate and support data-driven decision-making. Your mailings can still reach the right people and have personalized salutations instead of "Dear ." You can still confidently answer when asked how many attendees you had last month or how many memberships were upgraded between last year and this year.

Join Knight Analysis & Solutions to learn strategies that will help ensure that your imperfect data can produce results that are as close to perfect as possible.

Great data deserves more than a default chart; it deserves a story your audience actually wants to read. In this webinar, you’ll learn how to move beyond cluttered visuals and transform raw numbers into clear, compelling narratives. We’ll walk through a proven three-step formula: find your “big idea,” choose the right chart for your data, and refine your design to eliminate noise and focus attention. Whether you’re building board reports, grant presentations, or internal dashboards, you’ll leave with practical techniques to create data visualizations that inform, persuade, and inspire action.

This session qualifies for CPE credit.

Successful scholarship reviews begin with an organized process and engaged reviewers. In this session, Southeastern Louisiana University will share how we use Blackbaud Award Management™ to recruit, train, and support reviewers throughout the scholarship review cycle.

Attendees will learn practical strategies for developing an annual review timeline, creating effective training resources, communicating with internal and external reviewers, and leveraging Award Management features to improve engagement and consistency. Through real-world examples and lessons learned, participants will leave with practical ideas they can implement to build a more organized and successful scholarship review process.

Things move quickly, and bbcon is often where many of Blackbaud's latest innovations, announcements, and priorities come together in one place. Join Blackbaud Customer Support leaders for a timely discussion on recent developments across Blackbaud and what they mean for our customers.

As we get closer to bbcon, session content will continue to evolve to reflect the most current and relevant information available. Whether we're discussing new innovations, major announcements, emerging trends, or upcoming changes, this session is designed to help you better understand what's happening across Blackbaud and how Customer Support can help you navigate what's ahead. Bring your questions and hear directly from Support leaders on the topics shaping the customer experience.

It’s October 2026. ChatGPT is almost four years old. Every vendor you talk to says “agentic” and “RAG” and “embeddings” and you nod politely and you’re not entirely sure what any of it means. You are not alone — and you are very, very welcome here.

This session is a warm, honest, jargon-free crash course on the state of AI, built specifically for the people who skipped the hype train and now want to catch up without anyone noticing.

We’ll start with the basics: what a large language model actually is (think: the world’s most impressive autocomplete), what it’s good at, what it’s terrible at, and why it sometimes just makes things up. We’ll give you the vocabulary cheat sheet — tokens, prompts, context windows, hallucination, RAG, fine-tuning — explained with analogies, not jargon. We’ll cover agents, copilots, and automation in plain language, show you what’s real and what’s still hype, and share practical first steps you can take without an engineering degree.

The title is tongue-in-cheek, but the content is designed to genuinely empower you. The best time to understand AI was 2023. The second best time is right now. No judgment, no prerequisites, no stupid questions.

Nonprofit teams don’t struggle because they lack passion. They struggle because constant urgency, limited resources, leadership transitions, and stakeholder pressure quietly raise the temperature. When anxiety climbs, clarity drops. Narratives fill the gaps. Accountability feels personal. Performance suffers even among deeply mission driven teams.

This session delivers a practical roadmap for moving a nonprofit team from reactive or fragmented to healthy and high performing. The guiding principle is simple: psychological safety and clarity create the conditions for accountability, and accountability drives sustainable performance.

We will explore how leaders can stabilize a tense environment by modeling calm, interrupting rumor cycles, acknowledging concerns without letting emotions drive decisions, and setting clear behavioral standards that protect both relationships and results. From there, we focus on tightening systems, clarifying ownership, simplifying repeatable work, and reducing noise so staff can focus on impact instead of confusion. When expectations are clear and information gaps close quickly, energy shifts from self protection to mission execution.

Finally, we’ll examine how to make success visible and build trust through predictable communication, contextual decision making, and consistent follow through.

Because high performance in mission driven organizations isn’t built through pressure. It’s built through clarity, safety, and disciplined consistency in service of impact.

AI in fundraising is often framed for frontline fundraisers—but what about the people who keep the system reliable, usable, and trusted every day? In this session, Christy Turner, Caroline Benton, and Benjamin Lewis share a practical, admin-first approach to weaving RENXT AI into real daily workflows—without compromising data governance, user confidence, or outcomes. We’ll bring three perspectives to the stage: the early adopter, the steady adopter, and the (self-proclaimed) reluctant adopter—then show how each found “safe wins” that actually reduced workload and improved consistency. 

You’ll see concrete examples of how Blackbaud AI chat can help with routine admin work like generating lists and summaries, drafting and refining communications, and producing meeting-prep style outputs—along with the habits that make results more dependable (prompt specificity, iterative prompting, and maintaining a reusable prompt library).  We’ll also cover the critical admin guardrails: why data hygiene and standardization matter to AI results, how to coach non-technical users to validate outputs, and how to use built-in feedback mechanisms to improve future responses.

Attendees will leave with a repeatable “AI-in-the-admin-toolbelt” starter kit: quick-win use cases, risk flags to watch for, and a lightweight adoption plan they can roll out to teams with mixed comfort levels. 

Messy data doesn’t just slow your team down - it limits your ability to segment effectively, report with confidence, and make informed fundraising decisions.  This session introduces a practical, repeatable 90‑day data hygiene sprint designed specifically for organizations using Raiser’s Edge NXT.

For K–12 schools using Raiser’s Edge NXT and Common Record Engine, data quality isn’t just a back‑office concern—it directly impacts family engagement, fundraising outcomes, and confidence in reporting across systems. For organizations integrated with other Blackbaud solutions – such as Financial Edge NXT or Luminate Online, data hygiene directly affects gift processing, financial reconciliation, and online engagement.

Built for fundraising operations, database administrators, and advancement services professionals, this session moves beyond theory and into execution.  The session walks through a realistic sprint cadence, from building a prioritized cleanup backlog to executing focused two‑week work cycles and tracking progress with meaningful KPIs. We’ll highlight high‑impact “quick wins,” including constituent merges, address and email validation, and archiving inactive records, that can deliver immediate improvements while keeping the work realistic and achievable alongside day‑to‑day responsibilities.

We’ll also explore how Blackbaud’s AI‑powered capabilities can help streamline data hygiene efforts by identifying potential duplicates, improving data accuracy, and reducing manual effort so teams can focus on higher‑value work.

Attendees will leave with a clear roadmap, a reusable sprint template, and a take‑home checklist to help turn data cleanup from an ongoing frustration into a manageable, repeatable process that delivers lasting value.

Managing 30+ federal grants across five agencies (NOAA, NSF, EDA, EPA, DOE) meant our finance team lived in spreadsheet hell. Every executive request—"Which proposals are aging past 180 days?" "What's our burn rate on NOAA projects?"—required hours of manual data extraction from Financial Edge NXT, Excel manipulation, and reconciliation. By the time we finished, the data was already outdated.
We eliminated all of that.
At Gulf of Maine Research Institute, I built two executive Power BI dashboards that connect directly to Financial Edge NXT using certified Power BI connectors and Power Automate. The data is live, auto-refreshing, and requires zero manual intervention. No exports. No spreadsheets. No reconciliation.
SPO Funding Pipeline Dashboard gives our COO real-time visibility into 25 pending proposals totaling over $12.23M, broken down by agency, department, strategic initiative, and proposal age. We now proactively manage aging proposals instead of reacting to missed opportunities.
FY26 Budget Performance Dashboard tracks our $19.75M budget across seven departments with live variance analysis and burn rates—critical for federal grant compliance where overspending isn't an option.
You'll see both dashboards live and learn: