Beyond the Basics – Reporting
In this blog series we take a look at features and capabilities that differentiate YourCause solutions from other CSR technology platforms in the market. We’ve talked about numerous ways that our solutions help customers engage employees and give back to communities, and in this installment, we want to highlight how we help you capture your impact and deliver a compelling social good story.
From data feeds and dashboards to cause area and trend analysis, we equip our clients with a wide range of tools to translate numbers into narratives. Let’s dive into all the ways we help supercharge impact reporting!
Supercharge Your Impact Reporting
YourCause solutions enable you to track and manage employee engagement and community investment programs. You can also measure that impact through our robust and integrated reporting capabilities.
Holistic Reporting with Impact Edge:
Impact Edge takes data from across YourCause solutions and generates a powerhouse of holistic reporting tools that showcase impact across programs. Customers have access to robust data visualizations with Impact Edge’s complimentary Impact Dashboards and the ability to add-on Blackbaud Copilot – our private, propriety, and purpose-built generative-AI assistant.
With Impact Edge, you can unify disparate data sources to improve accuracy, uncover new insights, and ultimately save time by drastically reducing the time it takes to answer stakeholder questions and track down data specifics by leveraging Blackbaud Copilot’s generative-AI capabilities.
Moreover, we have just announced a new partnership with True Impact! We are excited to start working on integrating True Impact’s robust, predictive outcomes-driven dataset into our Impact Edge solution. Together, our solutions will empower YourCause clients to better contextualize their impact, make strategic decisions, and tell an even more powerful story. Read the full press release here.
Employee Engagement with CSRconnect:
CSRconnect helps manage employee giving, volunteering, employee resource groups, and more through an intuitive and modern platform. Some of the reporting tools included with CSRconnect are:
- More than 55 standard reports, covering everything from board memberships to giving campaigns
- 13 data feeds, giving you the ability to extract data and pull it into your own business analysis tools
- Ad-hoc report builder, enabling you to build custom dashboards and reports
- Public reports, allowing you to showcase impact to your employees within the platform, such as the progress towards total volunteer hours segmented by region or business unit
Community Investment with GrantsConnect:
GrantsConnect helps you streamline and simplify the grants management process from application to award and beyond with purpose-built technology for corporate grantmaking teams. Some of the reporting tools included with GrantsConnect are:
- 6 Insight Dashboards
- Customizable Dashboards, with 5 system templates to help get you started
- 6 data hub reports
- Ad-hoc and Data feeds that can be scheduled or exported
Employee Spotlight
We got in touch with a couple of our reporting rockstars and asked them a few questions:
Leslie Wickes is a former marine biologist turned business intelligence analyst and has been with Blackbaud for almost five years. The bridge? Data! Whether discovering insights about the ocean, fundraising, or business intelligence, data is the common thread across her career. Whether serving up data to customers through Impact Edge and the YourCause Industry Report or behind the scenes to internal Blackbaud stakeholders, her goal is to connect the dots between data and decision makers.
Gabe Hartog is based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and is a former event coordinator turned data analyst with a passion for corporate social responsibility. Gabe specializes in developing custom reports to help clients track their progress toward key performance indicators (KPIs), hosts client education webinars on best reporting practices and serves as a Power BI developer for our new Impact Edge Dashboard product.
Why are you passionate about data and storytelling?
Leslie: Turning data into stories is a multidisciplinary effort both in the sense that it requires tapping multiple facets of my own brain as well as working cross-functionally with many different people at Blackbaud. There is not only the logical and technical side of processing data into insights, but also subject matter expertise to understand “what matters” and what insights drive action.
Gabe: I am passionate about data and storytelling because they are powerful tools for amplifying the incredible work our clients are doing in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) space. By helping them quantify their achievements, I can help supplement the compelling stories they are already telling. Storytelling in CSR becomes even more impactful when supported by quantitative data, as it provides concrete evidence of our clients’ efforts and successes. This combination of data and narrative not only highlights their contributions but also inspires others to join their cause.
What’s your favorite part of the job?
Leslie: As a business intelligence analyst, each day is different, and I am privileged to work with colleagues across almost every role at Blackbaud. Through these interactions, I gain a holistic view of the business and corporate social responsibility programs that inform our data products. In addition, the quickly changing landscape of CSR keeps me on my toes! I am passionate about corporate impact and love the challenge of using data to maximize this impact.
Gabe: I have thoroughly enjoyed working one-on-one with clients on custom needs to measure and showcase their impact. I appreciate all the clients I have had an opportunity to work with! It has been great to learn about their CSR programs and the impact they are having in your communities!
What’s your favorite reporting feature that we offer today?
Leslie: Blackbaud’s Industry Report is a culmination of millions of data points delivered to our customers as insights to inform their goals each year. Benchmarking has an essential role in understanding the success of our own products, in shaping the goals of our clients, and in tracking towards our ultimate goal of accelerating impact.
Gabe: Obviously, our ad-hoc reporting building tool powered by Tableau! We’ve made improvements to our usage of this business intelligence tool over the past year, and it’s now faster than ever at building complex reports.
What reporting enhancements are you excited about for 2025?
Leslie: In 2025, we plan to build out our benchmarking capabilities into more dynamic tools for both internal stakeholders and our customers. My goal is to not only dynamically deliver the standard benchmarking metrics (e.g. engagement rates, average employee donations), but the “how.” What programs and product functionality are most likely to increase engagement rates and how can we use this data to inform our client’s corporate social responsibility programs?
Gabe: I am thrilled about the Impact Edge data model developed for CSRconnect. This innovative model seamlessly integrates the various features of CSRconnect, enabling much more powerful reporting capabilities. Currently, it only resides within the Impact Edge dashboard, but I am excited to explore how we can leverage this data model in other areas to deliver comprehensive reporting solutions and improvements throughout CSRconnect.