The Buzz: January 2024 Edition!

Hi Community! The new year is upon us and we have a lot to look back on and look forward to, so let’s get started.

Reminder: Upcoming changes for Gmail and Yahoo! Mail

Next month (February 2024), both Gmail and Yahoo! Mail will require bulk email senders to follow best practice authentication and verification guidelines, including establishing DKIM authentication and a DMARC policy. If you use a Blackbaud solution to send emails to groups of individuals, you may be considered a bulk email sender, and consequently must comply with these guidelines Read this blog post to learn more.

2023 Year in Review:

Let’s begin the year by taking a look back at our incredible year and these incredible stats:

• 3,903 discussions posted

• 12,440 replies given

• 13,613 likes given

• 26,353 connection requests sent

• 12,958 new members welcomed

YOU did that. We had a very engaged community throughout 2023 and we hope you were on the receiving end of helpful solutions or that you felt a sense of satisfaction from sharing your expertise – maybe both! Thank you for an amazing 2023 and I look forward to seeing what the community will do in 2024.

January Challenge:

Keeping with the spirit of helping others out, this month’s exclusive badge opportunity rewards you for sharing your favorite product tip or trick for others to use. Whether it’s a small shortcut you use to save time, a workflow you’ve implemented to increase productivity, or a unique way you use your Blackbaud product(s) to achieve your goals, we want to hear them all!

You can find a list of all the product tip/trick discussions on our monthly challenge page!

If you leave a tip or trick for your fellow community member you will earn this month’s badge:

Community News Kudos:

This is a new feature in the Buzz – the Community News Kudos!

We want to recognize members who are doing outstanding things in our community.

• Austen Brown became the FIRST community member to reach one million points!

• Christine Robertson finished the year with a whopping 14,783 actions, many of which included welcoming our new members. With 430,230 points, she was the top contributor for 2023.

• Alex Wong, one of our most active community helping hands, replied to the most discussion posts, with 721 replies in 2023.

Q4 2023 Top Contributors:

Congratulations (and thank you) to everyone who landed in the top ten at the end of 2023. These members go above and beyond to make Blackbaud Community a welcoming, helpful resource.

1. Christine Roberston

2. Austen Brown

3. Alex Wong

4. Jennifer Kluh

5. JoAnn Strommen

6. Elizabeth Johnson

7. Andrea Daub

8. Irene Hui

9. Amy Dana

10. Tina Pappas

Our Blackbaud colleagues also enjoy participating and adding value in the Community through discussions and blog posts, so we wanted to highlight a top Blackbaud staff top contributor for Q4 2023. Say “hi” to Glen Hutson if you see him around Community! Glen contributed 20 responses to your questions in Q4 and shared his example of SKY page add-ins for Blackbaud CRM™ and Blackbaud Altru®. Thanks, Glen!

All our top contributors for the quarter receive a unique badge that they can proudly showcase on their profile pages. You can become a top contributor by earning points through actions like starting discussions, replying to questions, keeping your profile updated, and more.

2024 Blackbaud Community All-Stars:

Thank you for all your submissions to the 2024 Blackbaud Community All-Star cohort. We've reviewed the nominations, and really enjoyed reading about how the nominees are helping others in the community. We look forward to introducing you to this year's All-Stars very soon – keep an eye out on the Community News channel!

Featured content:

• Do you set New Years goals? If so, you can let us know what your goals are for 2024 in Just for Fun.

• If your goal is to build a strong financial foundation in 2024 for your nonprofit, be sure to check out this article on Blackbaud’sENGAGE blog to learn seven strategies to help you accomplish that.

• Don’t let evolving technology overwhelm you! You can navigate things like artificial intelligence, automation, and cloud services by starting small and thinking big. Read tips for harnessing nonprofit tech innovation in this article on ENGAGE.

Community Tip of the Month:

Looking to hire or looking for work? The Blackbaud Community jobs board is a great resource for you! Get started by reading this quick guide about posting jobs in the community.

Tip: Posting the location of the job in the subject line is very helpful for those looking at the job listings and may help you attract more qualified candidates.

TELL US: Have you ever hired or found a job via this jobs board? Longtime community member Marie Stark has! She says, “I actually found my current job through here (10 years ago!).” Let us know in this discussion if you’ve found work or hired a great employee using the Blackbaud Community jobs board.

Events:

Check out these upcoming events that will help you maximize your impact:

Grantmaking webinar: Alchemy in Action: The Dance of Knowledge Building, Grant Strategy, and Equity. (Thursday, January 25th at 11am est)

User Group: Microsoft Power BI Users (Wednesday, January 10th at noon est)

User Group: Microsoft Power Automate (Tuesday, January 16th at noon est)

User Group: Blackbaud Users Field of Dreams (customer-led) (Thursday, January 18th at 1pm cst)

User Group: Charlotte, NC Raiser’s Edge User Group (Wednesday, January 24th at 10am est)

Birthdays:

It’s the season of Capricorns and Aquariuses! If you are celebrating a birthday in January (like myself!) let us know in the comments below, so we can wish you a very happy birthday.