Did you see the recent post about S-Tag magic in this blog ? Our friends at Cathexis Partners thought  a “101” on S-Tags would be a helpful companion to that piece, as one of the frequently asked questions they hear from Luminate and TeamRaiser customers is: What are S-Tags and how can they help my organization?   With that in mind, the Cathexis team shared ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of March we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by viewing their profiles, ... more

Have you received detailed technical emails from Blackbaud talking about making Luminate IP addresses changes? Did you file them in the 'circular file'? Save it for later? It's also possible you did not receive these instructions (they may have gone to a Spam or Clutter folder).  PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE ABOUT REQUIRED IP ADDRESS CHANGES for ... more

A few months ago, my husband and I decided our perfectly functional dining furniture, dishes, and accoutrement were getting stale. So, we bought a new dining set that we both liked. And to make room for our new dishes (and more), we went through our kitchen cabinets, rearranged items, and packed away some things we were no longer using. When all was said ... more

Do you use the Previous Year Total Amount  and Year-to-Date Total Amount  constituent fields in Luminate? Please be aware that we're running a system-wide maintenance process to update these fields to properly reflect Previous Year (2017) and Year-to-Date (2018) data. If you plan to use these fields to segment customers, they may not accurately ... more

A new release to the Raiser's Edge Luminate Online (RELO) integration is now available on the Download section of our website! Please note the version update to the Luminate Online plug-in for The Raiser's Edge to version 1.4.6625.9046 and Blackbaud Web Services to version 1.4.18051.2 . With this release we've included a new feature release and ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of February we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by viewing their profiles, ... more

By Sam Marx You work hard to cultivate your email list. Whether it's acquiring donors, volunteers, activists, or just people interested in a newsletter, a wide range of strategies and tactics help you capture key supporters and grow the number of people you can reach via email. Cultivating your social media following requires a similar level of effort ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of January we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by viewing their profiles, ... more

Many of us find there’s never enough time in a day to get done everything that needs doing . We try to think of ways to be better organized, more creative, or better informed. We sometimes wonder, is there a quicker, easier way? Well, when it comes to your workday—and if you’ve got Luminate Online— there’s an S-Tag for that! You can use S-Tags (session ... more

Is one of your New Year's resolutions to learn how to use HTLM and CSS? Looking for some resources to help you quickly learn or brush up on your web skills? If so, check out my new Best Practices blog, Five Helpful Resources For Learning HTML And CSS . Happy Coding! more

On 15 March 2018 Blackbaud will disable TLS 1.0 across its solutions in alignment with industry best practices set forth by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Standards Council. Since Luminate Online and TeamRaiser are  B lackbaud cloud solutions and receive upgrades automatically, they are always current and always compliant – you will receive any ... more

Creating your next TeamRaiser event doesn't have to be a painful experience. If you hosted an event the previous year, it should be as simple as uploading some new images, updating some text and making a copy of your previous TeamRaiser event. On January 31, 2018 I presented a webinar on doing this process in one of Blackbaud's "30 Minute Tips & ... more

Trying to grow a sustainer program? One of the biggest challenges can be "saving" monthly donors when their credit cards expire. Without good solutions for this, efforts to recruit new sustainers can be like filling a leaky bucket. You keep pouring water in the top, but you're losing some of your volume out the bottom! To help you take a proactive stance ... more

Our partners at DNL Omnimedia have compiled some super Luminate Beta tips in a blog post entitled 3 Ways to Start Using Luminate Beta in 2018 , including new ways to use Dashboards, Lists and the Social Influence Report. Their Dashboards suggestion helps handle a really common challenge for event coordinators: Making sure that everyone who ... more

Last week we added new Luminate Beta Lists capabilities that help you tie your queries up with a bow. "Filter by Group" allows you to add Luminate Group members to your Lists queries. Yes, you can filter by "current gen" Luminate Groups in your Luminate Beta List queries. How does this extend your Luminate Beta List capabilities? Some of the ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of December 2017 we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. more

Now you can filter on specific system-generated groups from Luminate Online within a Luminate Beta list. You can combine the groups filter with other filters to enhance your lists. For example, you could find TeamRaiser participants who are social influencers and encourage them to help increase awareness of your upcoming event. Anyone with access ... more

In an effort to make our systems easier to use and understand, we want to learn what words you use to describe system concepts. Your feedback will help us determine terminology for labels in future products. Please take a few moments to  share your thoughts in this brief survey (two questions!)  to help us better understand the terms your organization ... more

As an extrovert, I love getting together with people. I meet up with friends at the park, host birthday parties for my kids, and go out to lunch with co-workers. Recently, I noticed most of my personal plans are similar to the different event types in Luminate Online's Calendar Events . An event that happens on a specific day with a specific start and end ... more

Blackbaud University offers certified learning opportunities that recognize student achievement and help validate product knowledge. We provide these development opportunities to reflect our students' commitment to excellence. Great New Year's news— Blackbaud University 2018 Certification is available now! Fundamentals Certification ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of November we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. more

Is your organization new to Luminate Online ... or are you a new employee at an organization that's been using it for a while? We want to help you get up to speed fast, that's why we've put together a lot of resources to give you the lay of the land.  We're calling this the Luminate Online New Customer Success Program . Think of it as your first stop in getting an ... more

On November 29 th , in conjunction with Facebook’s Social Good Summit, Blackbaud announced that it will integrate its fundraising and engagement solutions with Facebook. This integration will first be available in TeamRaiser, with plans to expand integration capabilities to other solutions over time.   What is the integration and why is it ... more

Just in time for year-end fundraising, we’ve added new Giving and Address filters to Beta Lists to save you time when creating campaign queries.   Filter by Constituent Address Quickly add address parameters to your list with Constituent Address filters. Narrow down addresses by City, State/Province, Zip/Postal Code, County and Country. Filter by ... more

By Rachel Shields & Kathryn Hall With the holiday giving season kicking off and #GivingTuesday right around the corner, we wanted to provide you with some Luminate email pointers to help ensure your year-end efforts are successful.  1.      Schedule your send as far in advance as possible:  Everyone wants to send on November 28th and December 31st. ... more

To maximize email deliverability, the List Unsubscribe Header makes it easier for people who want to leave your list to opt out. But what if they want to opt back in? Here's how to help make it easy for constituents to re-subscribe. more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of October we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. more

Today we released a new Luminate feature to help you get emails into inboxes. The email "list-unsubscribe" feature for Luminate has been shown to reduce spam complaints, boost sender reputations and improve inbox placement for our customers.  You don't need to do anything, it'll automatically be added to emails by inbox providers like Gmail that ... more

By Samantha McGuin You've worked hard crafting your message, selecting your recipient list, and sending your message. The work is done, and you sit back to watch — what are surely going to be awesome — stats roll in on your email dashboard. Life is good. But wait…what's that number showing SPAM complaints?    SPAM complaints are reports Blackbaud gets ... more

It’s a great time to plan a warm welcome for all the new, first-time donors from your #GivingTuesday, year-end, and holiday campaigns.  To help you get this done, we created a new Welcome Series toolkit that includes mobile-friendly email templates, step-by-step instructions, and even Photoshop design files. With these tools and Luminate Beta, ... more

By Samantha McGuin When’s the last time you drove by a speed trap on your local interstate? Did you get that sinking feeling because you were worried you might get a ticket? Well mailbox providers like Gmail, Microsoft, and Yahoo set similar snares — known as  SPAM traps  — to catch email spammers in the act. SPAM traps are email addresses that don't belong ... more

With the new Luminate Beta Lists filters , you have fresh superpowers, including creating super simple email lists to drive birthday campaigns. Email people on or before their birthday to power relationship-building and fundraising. Here are a few of the new opportunities this offers you:     1. Send birthday ecards to supporters.  Remind ... more

Are you spending too much time trying to understand the comprehensive tools in Luminate Online? Blackbaud University training can teach you the features and flexibility of these tools to help you streamline tasks and become more efficient in your job. We want to make sure you're getting the most out of your solution so you can better understand your ... more

In  Luminate Beta , we've released some exciting updates in  Lists  so that now you can reach out to supporters in new ways. Find and engage these supporters with our newest filters, and say goodbye to Excel pivot tables! Quickly learn who's donated, when and how much, and how they've chosen to donate to your cause with  Giving filters. You can narrow down ... more

We've just posted a well thought out and totally useful  #GivingTuesday & End-of-Year Email Campaign Toolkit   in the Community. It's mobile-responsive and socially aware. And designed to help you boost your #GivingTuesday and end-of-year campaign results.   This toolkit - created by the experts on our strategic consulting team - gives you all the ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of September we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. more

Starting this month, Google Chrome will display a "not secure" message at the top of any nonsecure URL (HTTP) web page that also contains a user-input form , such as an email address field. The message is informational only and will not display on HTTPS pages or on HTTP pages that don't have a user-input field. What does this mean for pages hosted by ... more

Now, in Luminate Beta , you have more choices to help narrow down data on the TeamRaiser dashboard with the Primary Event Type and Event Status filters.  These filters allow you to be more concise in what you choose to display.  The Primary Event Type filter includes values that are used when setting the Primary Event Type in a TeamRaiser event. The  ... more

Are you in the middle of planning and executing your Giving Tuesday and year-end campaigns? We have fresh ideas, inspiration and a free toolkit to offer up. Please join us for the two remaining webinars in our #GivingTuesday series!    Best End-of-Year #GivingTuesday Ever: Tips for Luminate Online™ and Beyond  Thursday, October 05 | 1:00 p.m. ET Are ... more

A new release to the Raiser's Edge Luminate Online (RELO) integration is now available on the Download section of our website! Please note the version update to the Luminate Online plug-in for The Raiser's Edge to version 1.4.6432 and Blackbaud Web Services to version 1.4.17223.1 . With this release we've included defect resolutions. Check out ... more

Dashboard filters in Luminate Beta let you drill into specific information on the dashboard.  There are now even more filters to get to the information you want. Under  Registrations , you can now view the  Total Teams Registered  and  % of Teams Returning from Previous Event , which only displays the percentage when the event selected in the ... more

Writing and Designing Engaging Emails Tuesday, September 12 | 1:00 p.m. ET Digi-know that utilizing buyer personas in email campaigns gets  2x the open rate and 5x the click through rate .  Email campaigns should be the primary strategy for communicating with your visitors, members, and donors. To appropriately engage audience, you need segmented ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of August we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. more

As part of our Intelligence for Good initiative, we’re making analytics and intelligence more accessible and easier to use . Last week we turned on Wealth ratings in Luminate Beta Lists. The new Lists filters allow you to evaluate supporters’ financial resources according to publicly available wealth data . Let's look at some ways you might use ... more

Now you can do even more with Lists in Luminate Beta ! Filter your consituents based on their Wealth rating - a five-star system based on assets. With this sneak peek into your constituents' financial standing and capacity to give, you can help determine where to focus your fundraising energies and which donors to ask for larger gifts. Keep in mind the ... more

Here's How To Find Out. Today's Luminate Online release includes enhancements to help you get more emails into your supporters' inboxes.  Over the past several months we’ve talked a lot about email deliverability and how you can use engagement, list hygiene and other tools within Luminate to ensure more of your emails reach the inboxes of supporters ... more

Report Writer is a report designer in Luminate Online which allows you to create, save, and run custom reports that meet your needs. Powerful tools like Report Writer can sometimes seem mysterious. Here at Blackbaud, we often hear myths about Report Writer. Read on ... more

The new status pages for Luminate products are here !  As part of our continued efforts to centralize resources and improve your customer experience, the new pages are ready.  Read more about the new pages and what they will offer:   What is the Blackbaud Unplanned Events page ( KB 112029 )? What is the Blackbaud Planned Maintenance page ( KB 112030 )?   ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . more

We've just released the new Social Insights Report in Luminate Beta ! Using Attentive.ly 's contact matching technology, this report gives you insight into what your constituents are up to on social media.   First time in Luminate Beta? Need help logging in? Go here!   From the Luminate Beta homepage, simply click the Social Report tab, and you'll see ... more

We have exciting news about upcoming changes to how you will access customer support.   Beginning August 14 , we're retiring the Convio Customer Center portal, replacing it with Blackbaud’s award-winning Support portal. You’ll be able to access all Blackbaud Support resources for all products using one login in one place on the Blackbaud website. ... more

Have you not logged into Luminate Beta yet? If you have not logged into Luminate Beta , we’d love to hear from you! Please complete our 10 question survey for a chance to be entered into a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card .   LINK:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BZHBHD7 We’re using your feedback to better understand how we can serve our clients. ... more

The most successful nonprofit organizations invest substantial resources into their sustaining giving program, aggressively pursuing sustainers at every opportunity. Successful nonprofits also work toward converting their one-time donors into sustaining givers. True success requires effectively managing your program to keep more of your ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of May we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. more

In July 2014, Canada enacted  The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) - strict new regulations for bulk email. The phase-in period for CASL stretched over 3 years to allow organizations to adjust their emailing practices to align with CASL's rigorous opt-in policies and rules for suppression of unwanted email. The grace period for CASL ends July ... more

While your email address and password help secure your Blackbaud ID used to sign in to  Luminate Beta  and this Community, you can now try an extra layer of security. With two-step authentication, your Blackbaud ID requires a unique verification code — received on your personal device, to confirm your identity — in addition to your usual credentials. ... more

 Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of April we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. more

** Posted on behalf of Caroline Benton** We've made it easy for you to prep last year's TeamRaiser event for this year! With our 'Best Practices' Pagewrapper, you can update your slide images & logo without editing the wrapper or even the PageBuilder parts. All you need to do is properly format and name the images and upload them to the image library. The ... more

**Posted on behalf of Lauren Crawford** My son is almost 4 so, naturally, we enjoy a good game of I Spy. Humor me and play along. I spy constituents that like your organization… I spy constituents who want to receive updates from you… Any guesses? No, it’s not the dog. Okay I’ll tell you - I spy an opportunity to increase open rates for Giving Tuesday and End of ... more

A new release to the Raiser's Edge Luminate Online (RELO) integration is now available on the Download section of our website! Please note the version update to the Luminate Online plug-in for The Raiser's Edge to version 1.4.6229.28797 and Blackbaud Web Services to version 1.4.17020. 2 . With this release we've included some new new features and ... more

People want to go big in 2017! This Thursday, we'll show you how on our webinar "The Secrets Behind People Powered Campaigns" with NetChange. Your supporters are inspired to make an impact and bring their social networks, stories and ideas to the table. However, with the growing democratization of social change, the digital tactics we’ve come to know ... more

In the next few days, all backend Luminate Online product users will get a pop up with a survey link that will ask about your experiences using Luminate Online. The survey should take about 5-10 minutes to complete and the results will be used to help inform decisions to improve your experiences using Luminate Online in the future.   We value and ... more

Have you checked out Lists in  Luminate Beta  yet? Not quite sure what you can do with  Lists ? Watch the two minute video below to learn more!   Lists  will roll out in waves, and you'll receive a notification in  Luminate Online  and  Luminate Beta  when the feature is added to your site and ready to use. If you can't see  Lists  yet, be sure to check back ... more

Getting emails into inboxes is part art, part science. As email service providers struggle to ensure their users get only quality emails, spammers keep catching up with them. This leaves nonprofit communicators following the bouncing ball of changing guidelines and best practices.  We want to help you keep up with the latest trends and ensure your ... more

Hey RELO Community!   We’ve compiled a list of some of our top RELO resources users have requested while working in the integration. Whether you’re a seasoned user, newly integrated, or training a new employee take a look at some of our most frequently used resources:   Comprehensive resources The RELO Integration Guide - This should be your go-to for ... more

Communications : Two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange information, news, ideas and feelings but also create and share meaning. 1 Marketing : A form of communication between you and your customers with the goal of selling your product or service to them. Communicating the value of your product or ... more

We're launching a new sign-in to access Luminate Beta ! Get ready for Luminate's big step toward Blackbaud's single sign-on solution!   Now, when you access Luminate Beta , you'll be required to link your Blackbaud.com account to Luminate Online . Do you have a Blackbaud.com account?  It's the same account you've used to access Blackbaud Community and ... more

Verizon recently announced its decision to close down its email business. The holders of the roughly 4.5 million email addresses with an @verizon.net extension will have a very short period of time to migrate their email address as-is to AOL – or abandon the address. People who choose the first option will continue to use the same @verizon.net email ... more

We're excited to introduce  Lists  in  Luminate Beta , a powerful tool for identifying and targeting your supporters.  more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the months of February and March we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on ... more

Missing Queries Is there a query missing in your Luminate Online?   Here’s a quick check list you can use before contacting support. Query type is Constituent Query is saved in a Luminate folder Ensure other users may run this query checkbox is marked Check your system security to make sure you have proper rights Ensure there aren’t any sort fields ... more

With  Visa Checkout , you can offer your donors a safe, simple, and quick way to give a one-time donation using Blackbaud Secure Payments! How does it work?  Your donors can support your mission without the need to fill out forms by choosing Visa Checkout , a digital wallet payment option. Visa Checkout speeds donations from  all  card types (not just ... more

Whether we are reaching out to our constituents with a fundraising request, a call to action, or with a newsletter, we want to be sure that message is read — and it’s only read if it gets to the recipient’s inbox. There is a new world out there when it comes to deliverability. Email service providers are barraged by mountains of email and their main objective ... more

I am often asked what are the best practices for using TeamRaiser Blueprinting. Here are some things I have learned over the years. Please share in the comments any tips or tricks that you have! Also, if you do not see the Blueprints tab in TeamRaiser List view when you login to Luminate, contact support to get it enabled. more

Hi again! We'd like your help to think through how we can better organize our solutions in the future. If you could spare some time for the survey below, my team would greatly appreciate it. It should take no more than 5 minutes of your time (depending on your answers, it might take even less).  The survey will first ask a few questions about you and your ... more

The Luminate Beta: Basics of SKY Reporting eLearning course has been updated to include the new Luminate Beta Home page and Email dashboard. This eLearning course covers how to access and navigate Luminate Beta. You'll be introduced to the different dashboards, and learn how the reports on each dashboard can help you effectively manage your ... more

Save views in a dashboard Do you have favorite filters for some of your dashboards?  Now, you can save those filters as a dashboard view.  For example, you can save one view for 2017 and another for 2016 on the Overview dashboard and easily switch between these two.  You can save views on any dashboard. Schedule dashboard emails If you want a specific ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of January we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their names to ... more

A new release to the Raiser's Edge Luminate Online (RELO) integration is now available on the Download section of our website! Please note the version update to the Luminate Online plug-in for The Raiser's Edge to version 1.4.6229.28797 and Blackbaud Web Services to version 1.4.17020. 2 . With this release we've included new filter options in the ... more

During Team Raiser season, Luminate Online support receives a larger amount of questions revolving around payment processing issues. With appropriate planning and attention, Administrators can ensure that they will have a successful event preventing registration or payment disruptions. This post will go over some preventative steps your ... more

Even though the end of year just happened, spring event season will be here sooner than you think. Before creating a new TeamRaiser event, it’s important to plan out key points. This preliminary thinking and strategizing can help you decide which TeamRaiser options and features to focus on while setting up an event. The following is a list of 10 ... more

Did you make a New Year's resolution to learn more about innovations in non-profit marketing and fundraising, understand best practices, or connect with other like-minded individuals doing this work? One of the best ways to do this is to attend one of these great conferences. As a bonus, we have discount codes for customers to use on non-Blackbaud ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of December we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their names to ... more

Happy New Year! I always take a day soon after the new year to clean up and prepare my household for the year. I spend time sorting, filing, or recycling all of those papers that have accumulated on my desk over the year ( where do they come from? ). I set up the new file folders I'll need for the coming year, for example for tax papers and medical bills. I also go ... more

This week we launched the Email Dashboard in Luminate Beta to help you track the performance of your email campaigns.  You can dig right in and narrow down your results by campaign, message, variant, or time period.  Also, you can filter by Center if you use Multi-Center.   Use the Email Dashboard to gain insight to: Engagement - How active your ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of November we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their names to ... more

Luminate Beta is the first offering of the next generation of Luminate Online. When you access Luminate Beta, you'll see several tabs ( dashboards ). Each dashboard contains multiple reports. These reports are designed to help your organization make strategic decisions about your online fundraising and marketing practices. Did you know you can ... more

What are dashboard filters?  The filters let you drill into specific information on the dashboard.   On the Overview dashboard you can filter based on a year. On the TeamRaiser  dashboard you can filter for a specific event. If you use Multi-Center, you’ll be able to filter on any center you have access to with the Center Name filter.  If you don’t use ... more

Now that you've had some time to explore Luminate Beta, I wanted to share a great resource with you.   What if I told you that there was a site with links to the Luminate Beta Get Started Guide, help documentation, a video library, and links to the Knowledgebase, Community, training, and chat? When you visit the Luminate Beta Assistance and Resources site , ... more

A new release to the Raiser's Edge Luminate Online (RELO) integration is now available to our hosted customers and available on the Download section of our website! Please note the version update to the Luminate Online plug-in for The Raiser's Edge to version 1.4.6144.1028 and Blackbaud Web Services to version 1.4.16301.1 . With this release ... more

How do you think about the concepts you’re asked to deal with as part of your job every day? How do they relate to each other (or not)? What words do you use to describe those relationships?   Strange questions on their own, I suppose. But extremely helpful for folks like myself (I’m a Senior User Experience Researcher on the UX Team at Blackbaud) to improve ... more

Are you prepared for what happens after EOY?  Here are some tips and important questions to consider: What is your organization's gratitude strategy?   Are you getting that timely, personalized thank you message out to your donors?  Some of the most impactful thank you messages I've received after donating, included images of the people, animals, ... more

If you have regular daily, weekly, or monthly communications--whether to your entire file or segments of your file--decide whether or not you want to continue those communications in December, but time your EOY campaign messages to not overlap or conflict with them. If you're sending direct mail, posting on Facebook, tweeting, etc., ensure your ... more

Course Release – Best Practices: Major Giving What an organization defines as a major gift can vary widely. At some organizations a $500 donation would be incredibly impactful, while other organizations define a major gift as a gift of $100,000 or even more! What remains consistent is that a major gift can truly be a game changer at an organization. The ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users   Blackbaud University continues to  celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of October we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online  Fundamentals  certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their names ... more

Test, test again, and schedule your email sends!  If you weren't already aware--there are a handful of testing tools available for your use within LO.  Did you know that you can preview the layout and message content of an email exactly as it would be viewed by the person or group that you're sending it to?  You can do this with Dynamic Email Preview or Email ... more

Our last post focused on EOY strategy and resources.  In today's post, we ask you to take a step back, scrutinize individual elements of your campaign, and ask yourself the following questions: Do we have a cohesive campaign? Other than your emails -- think about your website, Facebook page, direct mail, email signatures, etc...  Are they all ... more

There's so much we have to share with you in today's post!  We've got an End of Year Fundraising Toolkit (aka strategy ebook) that will cover everything from Organizational Alignment, Mapping Out Engagement Strategies, the importance of Going Multichannel, and tons more. Of course, our EOY guidance would not be complete without some thought ... more

If you use Luminate Online and you're going to bbcon next week, a super extensive lineup of fabulous sessions awaits you. To help you navigate the three days and hundreds of sessions, we put together this brief selection of Luminate Online and digital marketing highlights. Some sessions are Luminate how-to's and more technical (fun with S-tags, ... more

We're pleased to announce the General Availability of  Luminate Beta ! We know you're working hard to make an impact in this world, which is why we're excited to give you the first installment of the next generation of Luminate Online for the modern world. Here's how to  GET STARTED ! Get real-time, critical information about your mission with our fast, ... more

One of the biggest giving phenomenons is less than 40 days away! Is your organization getting involved and joining the movement?  With the proper strategy and preparation, you can also harness the energy around #GivingTuesday to spread your mission and raise more funds to support your cause! There's no shortage of resources for you here.  ... more

We're looking forward to seeing many of you at bbcon October 26-28  in National Harbour, MD! Are you a peer-to-peer fundraiser? Good news! We've got a great lineup of sessions... the schedule is deep and rich! To help you make the most of your time, here's a list of the very best peer-to-peer fundraising content, featuring industry experts who work with ... more

Preparing for End of Year?  We can help!  This year we're launching a 7-part blog series that will give you all the information you need in order to plan and build a successful EOY Campaign. This first blog post is a refresher on where to get help when you need it.  Whether you're a fan of self-service resources, or you prefer to seek out assistance from our ... more

Fall is here, and that means one big thing (in our world, anyway!): end-of-year fundraising . November and December are busy for everyone, but especially for those of us in fundraising. During this generous time of year, it is essential to connect with donors. Blackbaud Univsersity is here to help with some tips to make your year-end smoother and more ... more

Have you downloaded Blackbaud’s 2016 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Study ? If not, take a moment to do so, there’s so much to learn! Before you have a chance to read it, I’ll give you a hint of what’s to come: 2015 was another great year for peer-to-peer fundraising . Technology and social media have made it easier than ever for constituents to share their ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users   Blackbaud University continues to  celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of September we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online  Fundamentals  certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their ... more

We're excited to share with you a new white paper from Attentive.ly, How to Mobilize Your Everyday Ambassadors, that will help you radically boost engagement of your organization by showing how to mobilize a hidden, yet power, segment in your email list - everyday social media ambassadors.   You’ll learn:   How connecting social data to email ... more

Roll up your sleeves and get down to business with your end-of-year planning! #GivingTuesday is right around the corner. Are you ready? This year in the U.S., the social media movement #GivingTuesday happens Nov. 29 and is sure to amplify your organization’s missions during the upcoming holiday season. Last year, more than 700,000 people in 70 ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users   Blackbaud University continues to  celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . For the month of August we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online  Fundamentals  certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their names ... more

If you build it, they will come! At least that’s what we would like to happen. We want our own Field of Dreams . However, unless you have mystical powers on your side, not everything goes according to your original plan. Despite strategic planning, your sustaining giving program may become dull. But, with patience, careful planning, and time, your plan ... more

Change is good. No, really, it is. And, in this case, it’s very good. That is, if you’re using Luminate Online™ with Blackbaud Merchant Services™ (BBMS). In addition to helping you streamline payment processing with built-in tools for simple reconciliation, automatic credit card updates , and fraud management, Blackbaud Merchant Services now ... more

We Value Your Voice   As a Luminate  Community member, we know you have valuable feedback, and we’d like to get your thoughts on the Blackbaud University experience. We hope you’ll spend five minutes to tell us how we are doing. As a sign of thanks, upon completion of the survey you’ll be entered in a drawing to win one of four  $25 Amazon gift cards !   At ... more

Does your organization use both Raiser's Edge and Luminate Online? If so, we have a new eLearning course just for you! This eLearning video is available to our Learn More and Learn Everything subscribers and, for a limited time, is also available in the Learn Basics tier of the Learn ® training subscription. In Integration: Managing Raiser's Edge and ... more

Action Alert! Are you ready to take positive action and make the world a better place? Our newest Luminate Online eLearning video , Luminate Online: Basics of Advocacy and Action Alerts will help you do just that! This one-hour self-paced course teaches you how to optimize your organization’s advocacy efforts by learning how to effectively: Create ... more

Celebrating our Luminate Online Certified Users Blackbaud University continues to  celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . This month we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online  Fundamentals  certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their names to view their ... more

Does your organization use both Raiser's Edge and Luminate Online? Did you know that you can create Luminate Online groups from Raiser's Edge constituent queries? more

Blackbaud University continues to  celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . This month we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online  Fundamentals  certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their names to view their profiles, become Blackbaud Community friends, or ... more

Blackbaud University continues to celebrate our Luminate Online Certified users . This month we have a new list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online  Fundamentals  certification. Be sure to review our listing and celebrate your colleagues by clicking on their names to view their profiles, become Blackbaud Community friends, or ... more

New Class! Luminate Online: Generating an Effective Welcome Series First impressions are critical, and sometimes a single welcome email isn’t enough. You need a welcome series. And it doesn’t need to be overwhelming! Develop an effective automated campaign to motivate and retain audience support. And while you’re at it, maybe gain some sustaining ... more

Last week, in  Part 1 , we covered simplifying the layout, the call to action and the size of an email template. If you have not read Part 1, please be sure to check it out after reading this entry! Today, we will be looking at subject lines, image use in email messages, and font size. more

Have you ever opened an email on your mobile device, and the design was much too large for the display screen? Do you have to scroll all over to view the contents of the email? Would you like to send an email that looks great on a desktop computer and mobile devices? more

Blackbaud University’s first quarter of 2016 has been really exciting and full of new offerings. The second quarter is sure to be just as eventful—we’re kicking off Q2 by  celebrating our Luminate Online Certified users . Each month, we’ll publish a list of professionals who have earned their Luminate Online Fundamentals certification. Be sure to ... more

Do your emails grab your donors’ attention and get the open and click-through rates you want? What makes an email campaign top notch? Is your email stationery mobile-friendly? Find out the answers to these questions and more in our new three-hour instructor-led course, Luminate Online: Email Strategy and Optimization . Learn the best methods to ... more

Managing gifts is essential to the business of every nonprofit. Learn the basics of entering gifts, in the new Luminate CRM: Fundamentals—Gifts class. more

We're excited to announce the new Wealth Analytics feature! This powerful tool gathers donation data from your Contacts, analyzes it, and then provides you with results about their potential to give to your organization. Read about Wealth Analytics here , and check out this video to learn more.   more

Are you new to Luminate Constituent Relationship Management (CRM)? Are you unsure of the difference between an account record and a contact record? Do you want to learn how to set up relationships between records? Then the new Luminate CRM: Fundamentals—Overview and Accounts class is perfect for you.   In this three-hour instructor-led course, ... more

Get the conversation started! Did you know that surveys can provide a good deal of insight about your constituents? Learn how in our three-hour instructor-led class, Luminate Online: Surveys and Web Pages — newly launched and open for registration! Use the information you learn to create more engaging content for your supporter networks. Learn how ... more

What does hosting an ice cream social have to do with Luminate Online Surveys, PageBuilder, and StoryBuilder? Find out in our new Luminate Online: Basics of Content eLearning course. This self-paced video quickly teaches how to create and distribute news stories, how to use online forms to learn more about your constituents, and how to effectively ... more

On February 4th, 2016, a new release to the Raiser's Edge/Luminate Online integration will be available on the Download section of our website! Please note that in order to accomodate important bug fixes, users will have to manually update the Luminate Online plug-in for The Raiser's Edge to version 1.4.5854 and Blackbaud Web Services to version 1.4.16011.1. This update for the plug-in will need to be run on each workstation where it is already installed. This release features several key changes to ensure the integration works properly with The Raiser's Edge 7.95. more

It’s 2016! A new year means a new list of goals and resolutions. Resolve to make the world a better place by advocating for causes you care about most! Learn how to create compelling alerts, motivate constituents, and reach powerful decision-makers—all for the sake of creating positive change—in our new course, Luminate:® Luminate Advocacy™ Action ... more

Sending an email successfully can be hit or miss – but understanding some fundamentals can bolster the success of your campaign by maximizing the chance that it gets to your supporters’ inbox.  We at Blackbaud have compiled a brand new email terms of use document which should be a useful reference of best practices as you work your way through the email campaign process. more

Happy post #GivingTuesday everyone! Before you get wrapped back into your year end campaigns, friendly reminder for those of you who use Gigya social sign on service. As part of our new social sign-on features we released earlier this year with a new partner, we’re de-activating the previous features on December 31s t .  If you currently use Gigya for social sign-on/sharing then you'll need to activate the new tools prior to our December 31st shutoff date. more

With the holiday giving season kicking off and  #GivingTuesday right around the corner, we wanted to provide you with a consolidated list of the multitude of resources we have available, and to provide some pointers to help ensure your year-end efforts are successful.    more

Blackbaud’s work to introduce organizations as first class entities in Luminate Online was completed with the solution’s 16.1 release earlier this year. The 15.9 release saw the introduction of the Organizations capability under the Constituent360 tab. As an extension of the Organizations capability, the 16.1 release builds on that by allowing gifts and donations to be associated to an Organization. In order to take advantage of this capability, your organization will need to decide whether or not to enable Organization Gifts.  more

Thanks so much to everyone who attended our August Luminate Community webinar last week.  Another huge thanks to our very own Shiloh Daniel, who gave some amazing tips and best practices for taking your HTML email to the next level.  Since this was such a popular topic, we decided to post a follow-up blog with the Q&A as well as a number of helpful resource links. more

Organizations are now first class entities in Luminate Online. So what exactly does that mean in terms of functionality?   more

New software functionality that can influence the performance of a solution presents users with difficult questions to answer. Should we adopt it right away? Should we wait to see what others do? Can we use it without compromising the integrity of our data?  more

Did you know that Calendar events are now integrated between Luminate Online and Raiser’s Edge? With the August RE Release, we continued to sync more features of The Raiser's Edge and Luminate Online to make your job easier while deepening your engagement with supporters. Check out the details on the new integration with RE: Events module and Luminate Calendar / RSVP Events plus more integration features! more

Mobile experience was already on the radar of most nonprofits. Google's algorithm may have just accelerated their timelines to become more mobile friendly. Jo in Mike Snusz, Principal Consultant on the Success Services Team on June 17 for the Luminate Customer Webinar "SEO For Nonprofits: Where to Focus". In the meantime read more about SEO for Nonprofts in Mike's blog.         more

Hello Community, You may have noticed that a few months ago, the Luminate Online administrative interface got a new and modern look. This project is part of a larger initiative to make the user experience more seamless and integrated across different Blackbaud products – driving consistency with a modern user interface across products is one small piece of this large undertaking. As we receive feedback on this visual refresh, we wanted to provide you with an update.     more

As General Manager of Luminate CRM, I often hear comments from folks in the market along the lines of “we didn’t know Blackbaud had a CRM solution on the Salesforce platform.”  I also get asked questions such as “what is Luminate CRM,” and more importantly, “how does it differ from other solutions on Salesforce?”  That said, I am proud of what we’ve built over the last 5+ years, and if you’re looking for a non-profit CRM solution on the Salesforce platform, Luminate CRM is the clear leader.Here’s why…   more

**A note from our Product team** In the early morning hours of Saturday, April 25th, Blackbaud completed the most recent release for Luminate CMS, which involved a successful migration of all client sites to a new database server. Throughout the past few weeks, we’ve been monitoring traffic highs (and middle-of-the-night lows) – and Luminate CMS is showing us all that it’s better than ever! more

The first part of the migration from the LearnCenter to Training Central , Blackbaud University's learning management system, is now complete. While the LearnCenter will be accessible through the month of May, Training Central is now the place to go to register for classes and watch on-demand eLearning courses. more

Great reflective article from our former TeamRaiser client turned Luminate Customer Success Manager, Jennifer Cressotti.  Seven months ago, I decided to make a big leap.  I joined the Blackbaud staff after working in the non-profit sector for close to two decades.   more

I was digging through some old files and found some Welcome Series examples that I worked on in the past that I always thought were great ones so I thought I'd share them here. Hopefully this will give you guys some design or content ideas.   more

Since your website's homepage is the page that receives the most traffic it is only normal that you want to fit as much as you can on that one page. But doing it cleanly and clearly and getting as much as possible "above the fold" can be a challenge. That's why you should employ the functionality of a slider.   more

Here in Austin, TX we seem to have a 5k every weekend for all sorts of causes and reasons. I honestly didn't think we could add any more races into the year and then a couple years ago these novelty races started popping up and took off like crazy. I had friends covered in mud, color paint, glow sticks and zombie blood flooding my Facebook stream. This made me wonder, are these races competing with non-profit fun runs/walks for time/space/participants? Or has it made our already fit community fitter and more likely to participant in more runs? Let's share our thoughts.   more

Please help us put together some examples   more

Over the weekend I thought soccer has given so much to me I thought I should start giving back and I set out to find a soccer charity to support and I found the  US Soccer Foundation which converted me to a be a new monthly donor.   How did they do it? This inforgraphic below with a donation ask at the bottom.   more

This web browser extension will make it easier for a Luminate Online admin to edit pages in Luminate Online   more

It's often an overlooked element of the donor experience... the receipt. We've made it easy for you to take advantage of this important opportunity to communicate to your donors while also using Luminate Online functionality that builds confidence in your online giving abilities.   more

The BlackbaudKnowHow Luminate blog has been retired.  You can find Luminate related blogs in the Luminate Community . more