Blackbaud, Inc., (Nasdaq: BLKB) today announced that more than 70 organizations, including Dia Art Foundation, The Kansas Children's Discovery Center, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Taubman Museum of Art, and the Young at Art Children's Museum, are now using Altru^TM, the company's comprehensive solution for managing arts and cultural organizations.

"There is nothing comparable to this product," said Doug Perry, information technology manager at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. "Decades of experience in meeting both the business needs of the organization and their constituents' expectations have been fused into one web- and revenue-aware product that consistently impresses and improves our ability to perform these critical functions."

Altru helps general admissions arts and cultural organizations gain a clear view of their entire operation. It is designed to enable these organizations to cultivate supporters, sell and schedule programs, manage earned and contributed revenue, and keep everyone focused on the mission.

The Kansas Children's Discovery Center, a children's center designed to promote creative thinking and physical activity, was previously using Excel to track its constituent information. The organization replaced multiple systems with Altru, a single solution that works across various functions within the organization.

"As we moved forward with opening a new, state-of-the-art facility, it was important to have one multi-faceted system that would meet our needs and grow with us over time," said Joanne Morrell, Kansas Children's Discovery Center's executive director. "Blackbaud has created an integrated system with an exceptional fundraising component, as well as the many other tools we will need to support admissions, our gift shop, birthday parties, event rentals, and memberships." 

Recent product enhancements focused on improving efficiency
As part of recent Altru releases, supporters can now head online to register for fundraising events, purchase gift memberships, and renew and upgrade memberships. Altru users will benefit from new dashboards for membership and financials, and an interactive accounting list displaying transactions that need review.

"With the new dashboard views, Altru users can easily view actionable membership and financial information at a glance and be alerted to situations that need their attention," said Tui Allen, Blackbaud's Altru product manager. "It's all about empowering the users and surfacing key information that will help them do their jobs better, improving overall efficiency of the organization."

Altru also has a new appeals feature that simplifies how users can communicate with constituents. It provides users with a clear way to deliver the right message to the right subsets of supporters. In addition, the new browser-based user interface allows users to access Altru on their mobile devices and better serve their customers in the field.

To learn more about Altru, visit www.blackbaud.com/Altru or sign up for the free web seminar Introducing Altru for Arts & Cultural Organizations, being held on Tuesday, January 24 at 2 p.m ET.

About Blackbaud
Serving the nonprofit and education sectors for 30 years, Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) combines technology and expertise to help organizations achieve their missions. Blackbaud works with more than 25,000 customers in over 60 countries that support higher education, healthcare, human services, arts and culture, faith, the environment, independent K-12 education, animal welfare, and other charitable causes. The company offers a full spectrum of cloud-based and on-premise software solutions and related services for organizations of all sizes including: fundraising, eMarketing, social media, advocacy, constituent relationship management (CRM), analytics, financial management, and vertical-specific solutions. Using Blackbaud technology, these organizations raise more than $100 billion each year. Recognized as a top company by Forbes, InformationWeek, and Software Magazine and honored by Best Places to Work, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has employees throughout the US, and in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.