Name: Product Update Briefing - JustGiving from Blackbaud
Uploaded: 2026-05-07T17:30:55.505Z
Duration: 32 min 28 s
Description: Product Update Briefing - JustGiving from Blackbaud

Transcript for "Product Update Briefing - JustGiving from Blackbaud": Thank you everyone for joining us today for the JustGiving product update briefing. Let's get started with a few housekeeping items. So the webinar will be broadcasted through your computer speakers. So, hopefully, you all can hear me right now. If you need captions, you can hover over the stage and click the CC button on the bottom of the screen to turn captions on and off. If you encounter any audio or technical issues such as slides freezing, usually a quick refresh of your browser is the best way to get it working again. Worst case scenario, leave and log in again. Please click the q and a on the top right to submit any questions you may have. When submitting your questions, please make sure to be specific. The more details and specifics we have, the better we can address your questions directly. We have a great team in the background who will answer questions throughout today's webinar. Next to the q and a, you should see doc. Please click this to access several links and resources that you may want to access during our presentation and save for future reference. You can adjust any settings by using the cog wheel at the bottom of the space. And, finally, you can also use the tabs on the top of the event space to see today's agenda and meet your speakers. Our agenda for today will begin with a quick overview of JustGiving followed by some customer spotlights, followed by our exciting product updates, and we'll conclude with next steps. So just to quickly introduce myself, my name is Anna. I'm a customer success manager, for JustGiving North America, and I've been with the JustGiving team for about four years now. I'm also joined by my colleagues, Matt and Tom, who are incredible product managers based on the other side of the pond, if you will. So, they'll be able to provide some really exciting updates in just a few moments. A reminder that while our talk today does focus on just giving in Blackbaud's current plans and our general product direction, we will describe functionality that at times is not currently available and is subject to change at any time at our sole discretion. So let's get started. At its core, JustGiving is a global peer to peer fundraising platform. That means we help nonprofits to connect with supporters worldwide, making it simple for your organization to create and manage fundraising campaigns to which your supporters can give directly or create and share their own fundraising page and encourage their personal networks to give. Since the year 2000, JustGiving has raised over $11,000,000,000 for good causes around the world. Just giving is the bridge that brings together the passion of fundraisers, the needs of good causes, and the generosity of donors. We achieve this through empowering fundraisers to simply raise funds for causes closest to their hearts, making it easy for them to make a difference. We then enable good causes to optimize their donations, allowing them to fully fund their essential missions. Every contribution counts. And lastly, we provide donors with the convenience they deserve. We make it simple for them to give support to their friends and the causes they believe in. JustGiving can be used for direct giving, fundraising, large campaigns, and events for your nonprofit, and it's free for any US and Canadian nonprofits to use. It also integrates with Blackbaud products, including Raiser's Edge NXT, etapestry, and Blackbaud CRM. The native integration allows data to flow directly from just giving to your chosen CRM, saving you time and allowing you to view real time data directly in your database. Now let's take a look at a few inspiring just giving campaigns that have already made a huge impact this year. First, we have the Harry Chapin Food Bank is the largest hunger relief organization in Southwest Florida and the only Feeding America member in the region, serving families across five counties. With rising costs in food, rent, insurance, and health care, demand has never been higher. Through a 175 partner agencies, the food bank distributes fresh produce and essential pantry items to communities that depend on it. And their biggest annual campaign, Wink Feeds Families March to a Million Meals, has been a standout success. Just $10 provides 20 nutritious meals, and the campaign has raised over $775,000 well beyond their $500,000 goal. Just giving powers the campaign page and the entire fundraising experience from individual fundraising pages to team fundraising to donation processing. It's a great example of how our platform helps organizations turn community energy into real impact at scale. Now I'd like to highlight a really inspiring example of what's possible when fundraising meets adventure, climb for a cause. Each year, individuals commit to a fundraising climb of Mount Rainier in Mount Rainier National Park. These aren't just personal challenges. Every dollar raised over and above the cost of the climb goes directly to supporting critical park projects across Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks. Through partnerships with world class local guide services, participants get a three day life changing expedition. They see Mount Rainier from a vantage point that very few park visitors ever will. It's truly a once in a lifetime experience made even more meaningful by fundraising for a cause they care deeply enough to climb a mountain for. This is a great example of how fundraising can be so much more than just asking for donations. Climbers realize their dreams of summiting Washington's most iconic mountain while giving back to the parks that make it all possible. It's the kind of campaign that creates lasting connections between supporters and the cause they care about, and the whole campaign is powered by just giving. The campaign page, the the individual fundraising pages, and the donation experience all run through our platform. It's a great example of how just giving makes it easy for organizations to launch compelling, shareable campaigns that rally entire communities around a cause. And now introducing our four four key focus areas. For supporters of your cause, we strive to make fundraising as easy and inspiring and impactful as possible. New and improved tools and integrations help thousands of nonprofits using just giving work smarter and not harder. For donors, we're always thinking about how we can make every donation count for more by making giving as easy and frictionless as possible. And central to our philosophy of ongoing improvements is our focus on optimizations as well as bigger releases. We're always making small incremental changes across just giving, which drive up average donation value, checkout completion, and other metrics that we're always monitoring. Now let's shift gears and talk about what's ahead for just giving. We're going to walk through the road map and three horizons. First, we have available now. So these are features and improvements we've recently released that you can start using today. Second, what's coming next, enhancements that are actively in development and coming soon. And third, looking ahead, the bigger themes and directions we're investing in for the longer term. This structure helps us show you not just what's new, but where we're heading. So you can plan around what's coming and give us feedback on what matters most to your organization. And then this slide just gives you a high level view of where we're headed in 2026. The big takeaway here is that we're building across the entire journey from how organizations manage their presence, to how fundraisers engage, to how donors give, all while making sure we're continuously optimizing what matters most. And with that, I am going to pass it over to Matt. Brill. Thank you, Anna, and hello, everybody. I'm really excited to be here today. So, yeah, let's take a moment to look at what's already landed in the product, over the last six months. These features are available to you right now, and they're designed to make fundraising easier, more engaging, and more effective starting right at the beginning of the journey. So the start of page creation sets expectations for the whole fundraising experience, how easy it feels, how long it takes, and whether someone feels confident continuing. This optimization focuses on the page creation flow itself, particularly on mobile, where most fundraisers are starting their journeys today. Our research and direct feedback from fundraisers consistently tells us that people don't drop off because creating a page is hard. They drop off because they're unsure what's involved, how long it's going to take, and where they are in the process. So this change introduces clearer signals within the flow, helping fundraisers understand their progress, what's coming next, and when they're nearing completion, all while they're creating their page and not after. It's mobile only optimization and we've rolled this out to 100% of traffic in March. Since then, we've seen a 2.8% increase in fundraising pages created simply by making the journey feel clearer and more manageable. And what's even more exciting is we actually have a v two version live of this right now, where we are seeing even better results, which will keep you posted on in due course. Now before I dive into the next few slides, it's important to call out that everything you're about to see here is part of our wider fundraiser stewardship strategy. This strategy is about deliberately moving fundraising away from feeling transactional, a series of tasks to complete and toward a confidence building experience where where fundraisers feel supported, see progress clearly and have a real reason to come back. The Fundraiser Hub is how that strategy comes to life in the product. It brings together updates, donations, progress, and guidance into one connected experience that supports fundraisers throughout their journey. But first up on your screens, updates. So once a page is live, one of the sorry one of one of the biggest challenges fundraisers face is keeping momentum going. Fundraisers need clear reasons to return and meaningful moments they feel confident sharing with supporters. That's what the updates worked on. We brought the updates into the fundraiser hub, introduced milestone based prompts tied to real progress, and added a clear guidance and examples that shows fundraisers what good updates look like. This removes a lot of hesitation, and fundraisers aren't starting from scratch they're supported with context and reinsurance. So you might have seen this at the last pub update that we did, and this was rolled out in August, and the impact has been really clear. Fundraisers who post updates are 40% more likely to share their page, which directly drives reach and donations. Now as donations start coming in, we want that progress to feel motivating and not like admin work. The revamp donations experience gives fundraisers a a clear, empowering view of what's been received, both online and offline, donations with simple, intuitive actions when they need them. This is a feature we're particularly excited about. Feedback has been very positive, especially from US organizations, because it puts fundraisers firmly in control and makes progress feel tangible and encouraging. Instead of donations being something to manage, they become signals of progress that build confidence and momentum and motivation. So this feature, the donation section itself, was rolled out in January, and it's a really good example of how the fundraiser hub supports fundraisers without adding additional complexity. So moving on, this is a slide that we're also really excited to talk about because it represents a real behavioral change. Historically, fundraisers spend most of their time on their page view. With the with the new fundraiser dashboard, we're deliberately changing that, making the dashboard the home where fundraisers land to understand the progress, see what matters, and feel supported. The dashboard brings together progress, guidance, and encouragement in one calm, focused place. Fundraisers don't need to work out what to do. The experience helps them orient orientate themselves and move forward. Now this is a real evolution of what we already know is works, which we're applying more deliberately across the fundraising journey. This was launched initially as an AB test in March, allowing us to understand how it impacts engagement and behavior before scaling further. So what you've seen here is how the Fundraiser Hub starts to move fundraising away from feeling transactional and towards a more confidence building experience, and this is the foundation that we're building on. Alongside supporting fundraisers, we need to make sure the donor experience is clear and friction free at the moment someone decides to give. And with that, I'll hand over to Tom to walk through a recent donor experience update. Hey. Thanks, Matt. So I'll be covering anything to do with the checkout. I'll pop up. Really glad to be here. And, yeah, the to start things off, I'm gonna talk about our French Canadian checkout. And as we expand our operations in Canada, we've now translated our full checkout experience into French Canadian. What this means is that donors who have their browser set to French Canadian will automatically see the checkout in French, and this creates a more local and intuitive experience. This work is part of our global by design approach, which ensures we treat all markets consistently, and we remove friction for our donors wherever they are giving from. So this is the first bilingual change for the Canadian market, and we started with the checkout because it's where the majority of our donor traffic lands here directly. And over time, our intention is to extend bilingual support across more areas of just of just giving. So do stay tuned. Now, we're gonna move on to our second horizon, and that's what's coming next. This is about enhancements that are actively in development and coming soon. I'm gonna pass back over to Matt to take us through some exciting updates to our fundraising coach. Back over to you, Matt. Great. Thanks, Tom. So, yeah, this is the really, really exciting one. I appreciate I've said that a bit today, but this is the one we really wanted to speak to you about. The reason for that is because this is rooted in something we hear again and again from fundraisers. Everything we've just walked through in the fundraiser hub gives fundraisers a really strong foundation, the clarity, momentum, and confidence. But our research shows that confidence isn't built in a single moment. Fundraisers, don't just need help getting started. They need support across the life cycle of their journey. And whilst we know post page creation is a critical moment, but it's not the only moment that matters. And as fundraisers move through their journey, a week in, halfway to their target, or approaching an event, uncertainty can often creep back in. And that uncertainty, has real consequences. Whether confidence drops, momentum can often stall. Engagement falls away and long term page value ultimately suffers. So the opportunity here isn't just better onboarding. It's ongoing, contextual support that helps fundraisers keep making high value decisions over time. And that's exactly the gap hope our fundraising coach is designed to fill. So what's really important to understand about our fundraising coach is that it's deliberately structured and not overwhelming. We've intentionally designed it into two connected parts. First comes structured guidance. This is a short, predictable, question led flow that helps us understand a fundraiser's goal, their audience, and how much effort they're realistically able to give. And there's no AI here, and that's intentional at this moment. This part of the experience is about reducing cognitive load and building confidence, not creativity. And once the intent is clear, we then move into an AI assisted support, where we feel that AI genuinely adds value, helping generate personalized share messages, page improvements, or impact led updates. The key difference is that this isn't a one off interaction. The fundraiser coaches surface through the dashboard and can re engage fundraisers at different moments, understanding how their journey is progressing and offering guidance when it's most relevant. Importantly, actions always remain human led. Nothing is posted automatically and fundraisers stay in control. The coach supports decisions it doesn't make them. And the reason we're confident in this approach is because it's grounded in three principles. First, life cycle impact. Fundraising coach isn't optimizing a single moment. It supports decision making across the journey, reinforcing positive behaviors over time. And that's how we move from short term activation, so receiving a first donation, to sustained page value. Secondly, clarity over complexity. We've been really deliberate about where intelligence is applied. Too much choice, too early increases drop off. So structured guidance builds confidence. Personalisation is led only when it improves those outcomes. Thirdly, responsible and scalable AI. So as I mentioned earlier, AI is only used at the point of real value, and actions remain human led, and the experience is designed to build trust, not automate relationships. From a roadmap perspective, this means we're rolling out the fundraising coach in a learning led way, starting with a beta release, which I'm excited to tell you that we launched a couple of days ago to 20% of all fundraisers. This will let us validate what genuinely helps fundraisers, refine the experience based on that real feedback and insight we get, and scale with confidence. And longer term, this gives us a platform to extend stewardship into more moments, always deliberately and always in service of better fundraiser outcomes. So the fundraising coach is all about supporting fundraisers with timely, personalized guidance throughout their journey. But sometimes, what keeps a fundraiser motivated isn't just guidance. It's those small, visible signals that their efforts are being noticed and appreciated. And that's where page reactions come in. Unlike the dashboard or hub, page reactions live right on the fundraising page itself, giving supporters a quick, low effort way to show encouragement and keep fundraisers coming back. We're rolling out page reactions in the next few months with the goal of driving more return visitors and sustaining momentum for fundraisers. By making it easier for supporters to react and show encouragement, we're hoping to create more positive feedback loops, helping fundraisers feel recognized, stay active and ultimately raise more for their cause. Of course, supporting fundraisers is only half the story. To truly drive impact, we also need to make the donor experience as clear and frictionless as possible. Back over to you, Tom. Excellent. Thanks, Matt. So on the same vein of in of AI, this slide is about how we're starting to do AI in, in the checkout in a very deliberate and measured way. This specific test is in is in the early exploration stage, and the idea is that, suggested donation amounts in the checkout are gonna be generated by AI. And this is based on understanding of what the nonprofit is raising money for and then shown to the donor at the point of giving. From a testing perspective, this is gonna be a very low risk and very tightly controlled test. We'll be validating AI generated donation prompts at low volume of traffic purely to understand whether they have any impact on average donation value. And then from there, we'll iterate based on what works and what doesn't. This is the first iteration where we start to gain insights and learnings from the AB test. And longer term, the goal is to personalize and enrich the donor experience in the checkout in a way that feels helpful and trustworthy while also laying the groundwork for more advanced agentic AI capabilities in the future. This is one that we're really looking forward to testing, and we'll keep you updated as we learn more. This next slide is about expanding the ways donors can pay. So we've now extended our card payment support to include the Discover and DynaClub networks. This adds another major two card networks with a strong footprint in North America. This is on top of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. The outcome here is very simple. More donors can use the cards they already have with less friction in the checkout. And alongside this, we're also looking at moving BBMS organizations who want to go on to our DAF setup onto our DAF setup. And in simple terms for nonprofits, this means JustGiving will handle the payment flow in a more modern, flexible way rather than relying on a more limited card setup. By being on the DAF, organizations can unlock additional payment methods like Apple Pay and over time benefit from faster payouts and easier access to new payment options as they become available. It will also help it also helps us roll out improvements more consistently without nonprofits needing to do the extra technical work themselves. Overall, by doing this work, we're committed to increasing payment choice for donors. We're reducing friction at the point of donation, and we're giving nonprofits a platform that can continue to evolve as new payment methods become available. And next up, back over to the Canadian market, we're exploring a new integration with PayPal Giving Fund Canada. The aim here is to make donating to Canadian nonprofits even easier for donors in Canada. This integration would allow donors to give to more than 11,000 registered Canadian nonprofits directly through just giving, with PayPal managing secure payment processing and the distribution of funds. For nonprofits, this unlocks increased visibility and access to a much broader donor base with no additional setup as usual required on their side. So overall, this is a really strong step forward for the Canadian market, and it simplifies giving for donors, increases reach for nonprofits, and sets us up well for the future of international expansion. And now we're gonna walk through the final horizon, which is looking ahead. This is about the bigger themes and directions we're investing in for the longer term. Back over to Matt, who's gonna kick this section off. Great. Thank you, Tom. So events are one of the most powerful way nonprofits bring supporters together and drive fundraising, and we're really excited about what's possible with GivePanel events in partnership with JustGiving. GivePanel events is a purpose built event registration and peer to peer fundraising solution developed jointly by GivePanel and JustGiving. It unifies registration, team fundraising, supporter data, payments, and stewardship into one seamless experience for both nonprofits and supporters. What makes this difference is that it's designed from the ground up, not bolted on. Registration directly fuels fundraising, and the native integration we're just giving means you get unified data, payments, and stewardship with less admin and more actionable insights. It's fast to launch with setup in about in approximately thirty minutes and no heavy implementation required. The value for non profits is clear: higher conversion, earlier fundraising activation to first donation, stronger team participation and unified reporting that helps you drive performance and steward supporters more effectively. We'll be looking to launch this product over the next couple of months. If you're interested in unlocking more value from your events and fundraising campaigns, please get in touch with the JustGiving team directly. And we'd love to discuss how this could work for you. Now moving on, the impact screen is a new feature currently in discovery within the fundraiser hub. It's designed to help fundraisers see the real outcomes of their efforts in one meaningful view and to provide new types of content they can share with supporters not just the amount raised, but what their fundraising actually achieved. By creating a positive end of journey moment, the Impact Screen strengthens connection to a cause, builds pride, and encourages fundraisers to come back and do it all again. As we continue to develop this future, our focus is on making stewardship more tangible and giving fundraisers more ways to celebrate and share their impact. We'll have a further update to share at the next pub, so stay tuned for more details as this work progresses. Now let's shift back to the donor experience for Tom to provide an exciting update on how we're looking to utilize Agentic Ai. Excellent. Nice one, Matt. Nice back and forth that we've got going on. For this update, I wanna talk about how we're future proofing JustGiving for the next shift in donor behavior, and this is the move towards AI assisted discovery and agent driven commerce. So increasingly, donors are now starting their journey inside of AI products like ChatGPT and other agents. Outside of giving, people are asking things like, where can I buy this? Or where can where can you book me this holiday, for example? And we know within charitable giving, users will soon start to ask questions like where can I donate, or what's the best nonprofit for this cause? Today, those journeys often break before they ever reach a trusted checkout. The discovery work that we are doing is to make sure that JustGiving is present in these moments. We're surfacing JustGiving pages and deep links so that when donors are using AI assistance, they can be routed directly into our checkout rather than dropping out of the ecosystem. In the short term, we're focusing on a discovery with OpenAI where we've already have API documentation and a clear path to integration, but the intent is much broader than that. We're deliberately designing this work for future AI agents as well, including our Blackboard owned agents. The key point is that it's not a one off integration. It's about establishing JustGiving's checkout as an AI ready commerce surface. So we're future proofing the platform so that as as agent driven commerce grows, which it will, just giving will remain the trusted place where donations happens. And with that, I'll hand over to Anna to wrap up today's session. Thanks so much, Tom. Before we wrap up today's session, I'd like to flag a few items. First on our agenda is BB Dev Days. Registration is now open, and this is where builders across the Blackbaud ecosystem come to explore what's possible. From June, this virtual event is designed for developers and technically curious problem solvers at every level. You'll see how your peers and experts are using Blackbaud APIs, the Sky platform, and AI tools to extend your Blackbaud solutions and solve real world challenges. You can level up with skills labs, demos, keynotes tailored to your experience, and just as importantly, connect with a community of peers and partners facing the same problems you are. If you're looking to build smarter, do more with your blackbaud solutions, and bring new ideas back to your organization, BB Dev Days is the place to start. To close us out, BB Dev Days offers flexible ticket options so you can participate in the way that makes the most sense for you. Whether you're just getting started and want free access to sessions, looking for deeper connection through developer networking, or ready to roll up your sleeves in hands on skills lab, there's a pass that fits. No matter which option you choose, you'll be able to learn, connect, and participate in the BBDEV days hackathon. Registration is now open at blackbaud.com/bbdevdays, and we'd love to see you there. Another thing we'd like to flag is you can check out the Blackbaud trust center to learn more about Blackbaud's security posture and access key security and compliance documentation. And finally, the Blackbaud Impact Awards celebrate customers driving real measurable impact with Blackbaud solutions, and nominations close Friday, May 15. It's your chance to recognize your incredible work happening behind the scenes and spotlight your success stories on the BBCON main stage and beyond. If you have a story you're proud of, now is the time to submit a nomination. We cannot wait to hear your story. Now let's talk about next steps for you all. So first next step is you can plan the year ahead. First, this is where you can take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Our guides and resources are designed to help you plan out the rest of your year from key fundraising moments to campaign types, timelines, and goals so you're not starting from scratch each time. Second, learn with trainings and videos. We also have a range of trainings and short video tutorials you can dip into at any time. These are great for building confidence in the platform, learning new features, and picking up best practices on how to get the most out of your JustGiving account. Third, you can go live with your campaign. So when you're ready, you can take the planning and learning and put that into action by launching your campaign. Whether it's a core fundraiser, an event, or a peer to peer campaign, everything is set up to help you go live quickly and easily. And then finally, we encourage you to submit any ideas you have to our ideas bank. If you have any ideas or suggestions based on what you're seeing or what you need, you can submit those directly to our ideas bank. That feedback helps shape future improvements and ensures your voice is part of what we build next. You can access all of these links and resources under the docs tab. And with that, that concludes our pub session for today. So thank you everyone for joining us. If you do wanna stick around for just a minute, I think there'll be a short survey popping up. But thanks again for joining us, and we can't wait to see you next time.