Software/Technology

Blackbaud has furthered its dedication to the local and nonprofit communities with its new focus on corporate citizenship. Blackbaud will continue to deliver on its corporate value "service to others makes the world a better place” with a team dedicated to the growth of its corporate citizenship commitment.

Now Mr. Breslin, the head of Water for People, a global water and sanitation group in Denver, is trying to do something to reverse the track record of failure. His group is seeking to rewire its relationship with donors by sharing information on failures as well as successes, developing technology that provides real-time information on the status of projects, and persuading philanthropists to pay less attention to simple measures like how many people have been reached by a project and more on whether it will still work a decade from now.

Causes, which helps donors link up with charities online, has teamed up with gift card marketer Blackhawk Network to sell $25 and $50 prepaid gift cards in 800 Safeway and Vons supermarkets in California. Givers get a tax write-off. Recipients log on to Causes.com/giftcard to choose from more than 1 million nonprofits.

Convio announced the winners of its fifth annual Innovator Awards as revealed at a ceremony today at the Convio Summit, the company’s annual conference where more than 1000 nonprofit clients, partners and industry thought leaders gather as a community to share common experiences and effective strategies for nonprofits. The Innovator Awards recognize clients who have shown innovation and achievement through the use of Convio’s online software and services to better engage supporters to help fulfill their missions.

Blackbaud announced that its flagship fundraising solution, The Raiser’s Edge®, has been honored with its third User Satisfaction Award in the 2010 Donor and Member Management Solution Software Survey conducted by Campbell Rinker. During June and July, more than 2,800 users of nonprofit software and online solutions for donor and member management, mass communications, and fundraising were surveyed online. The survey gathers information on user satisfaction, pricing preferences, purchasing habits, and organizational scope.

Microsoft is vastly expanding its efforts to prevent governments from using software piracy inquiries as a pretext to suppress dissent. It plans to provide free software licenses to more than 500,000 advocacy groups, independent media outlets and other nonprofit organizations in 12 countries with tightly controlled governments, including Russia and China. With the new program in place, authorities in these countries would have no legal basis for accusing these groups of installing pirated Microsoft software.

Causes, a for-profit company that lets Facebook Inc.'s users give money to charities, raised $9 million in new funding and began selling gift cards in supermarkets as it tries to bring more philanthropy to the Web.

Causes' Facebook application connects 119 million people to a range of charities, making it easy to donate small amounts.

Blackbaud announced its inclusion on Software Magazine’s Software 500 ranking of the world’s largest software and service providers, now in its 28th year.

Blackbaud ranked 121, with 2009 software and services revenue of $302.6 million and corporate revenue of $309.3 million. The ranking positioned Blackbaud as the largest provider of nonprofit software on the Software 500 list.

The Internal Revenue Service has released an online widget that charities, donors, and volunteers can place on their Web or social-networking sites "to help spread the word about the one-time filing relief for small organizations at risk of losing their tax-exempt status."

The IRS announced in July that small groups in danger of losing their exemptions because they have failed to file required informational tax returns (called Forms 990-N or e-Postcards) can preserve their charitable status by filing returns by October 15, 2010.

The Seattle Foundation started a new program on Wednesday to provide access to its data, research and evaluations of almost 700 local nonprofit groups in and around the city and King County. Such information was previously available only to clients who maintained giving accounts, known as donor-advised funds, but is now available through the foundations Web site free to anyone. We know that when we can engage our donors with this information and help them understand the local context of an issue and give them information we have from site visits and other interaction with nonprofits, they give more,