Blackbaud, Points of Light Enters New Partnership to Enhance Volunteerism
Without doubt, volunteerism can be a tremendous asset to any nonprofit organization. Volunteers hold the ability to empower and excite the community with passion and drive, getting them to donate more to your nonprofit’s cause. Blackbaud, the powerhouse providing nonprofit management solutions and fundraising software in our sector, knows the power of volunteerism. Blackbaud understands that volunteerism is a key part of the market that it serves, which is why it recently partnered with Points of Light, the world’s largest volunteer service.
“What we really need to do—we call it taxonomy—is come to a consistent framework of what we think about as a volunteer, and then we need to think about being able to share data across the ecosystem, so that we can measure your impact. That means data. And what do we do with the data and how we use it to drive greater outcomes for volunteerism,” Mary Beth Westmoreland, chief technology officer at Blackbaud, told NonProfit PRO in an exclusive interview.
According to a press release from Blackbaud, the taxonomy will allow nonprofits to leverage standard metrics and benchmarking, use common measures to calculate the value of volunteerism toward program outcomes and utilize standard reports that will drive new insight into volunteerism. The combination will allow the nonprofit community to maximize volunteer resources.
“[Points of Light] works with so many amazing corporate council members, and they have [millions] of people that they engage with every year. They have this community of volunteers that really care about activism as volunteerism—and we have the technology. And the connection that we're starting with is how we can use technology to start thinking about, talking about and being able to exchange data in a consistent way across that community,” Westmoreland said.
In addition, Blackbaud and Points of Light will collaborate on new research insights, combining the strength, thought leadership and expertise of the two organizations to better understand how to measure and explain the power of volunteerism.
If you want to learn more about the Blackbaud/Points of Light partnership, click here.
Nhu is a content strategist with over a decade of experience improving the way social good brands engage and build connections through human-first storytelling. She currently leads NTB Content, a content marketing agency with a niche in digital fundraising and nonprofit tech.
