CDP makes game-changing leap
with purpose-built software

Since 2010, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy has been mobilizing philanthropy to strengthen the ability of communities to withstand disasters and recover equitably. Prior to adopting Blackbaud Grantmaking, CDP managed its grantmaking workflow through various manual methods,
such as email, spreadsheets, and even pen and paper. One of the first Blackbaud Grantmaking features CDP took advantage of was the ability to
automate processes, including weekly and monthly reporting.

“We went from having no software to setting up automated processes that freed up a lot of my time—all thanks to Blackbaud Grantmaking,” said
Audrey Kidwell, grants manager. “Our development and marketing teams no longer have to wait for us to create and send reports, because it’s
automatically emailed to them now.”

Meaningful Storytelling, Smart Communications

With Blackbaud Grantmaking, CDP gained a 360-degree view of every touchpoint with their grantees, and staff members use this data to convey impact with grant partners and donors. The software provides the development team an easily digestible summary of the impact CDP has made. “We use the information in Blackbaud Grantmaking in a way that allows us to tell the story to our donors that is very meaningful and
connects them better with our mission,” said Sonja Pagniano, development manager.

The development team and staff previously depended on a blog to know which grants were approved and closed, but the timing of the posts was inconsistent. “Automating these reports has been a huge game-changer for the development team,” said Pagniano. “We get a good high-level overview, and if we have a meeting with a donor that week, we can already share the impact they’re making instead of us waiting two to three months to get that information like we had to in the past.”

The ability to sign in to Blackbaud Grantmaking from any device, anywhere, empowers development officers with important grant management information they can share anytime, including visits with donors.

“We can show the diversity of the impact we’re making by having the data about what other grants were closed,” Pagniano said. “A grant might not directly tie to the gift that a donor made, but it relates to our mission and the equitable impact we’re trying to make, so we can still leverage those stories and steward that donor and their support even further.”

Meeting Regulations Across the Globe

In late 2022, Kidwell and her team set out to reimagine their grantmaking and began the journey of a change management process. They focused on trust-based and equitable grantmaking and “what does that look like at CDP” in the context of communities in crisis after disasters. Blackbaud Grantmaking enabled CDP to more intentionally support local actors by streamlining their internal process for allocating grants to non-U.S. based 501c3 organizations. Of the 117 grants totaling $28.2 million CDP awarded in 2022, 60 were domestic and 57 were international.

“Blackbaud Grantmaking allows us to be flexible when executing due diligence and compliance with regard to organizations submitting applications,” Kidwell said. “We can also reduce the burden on our grantee partners by uploading any required ‘about the organization’ information we find into the system. This saves our partners time and improves the grantee experience.”

Organizations leveraging Blackbaud Grantmaking can verify tax status through native integration with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), GuideStar, and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) easily within the software. CDP is required to check organizations against OFAC, and because
this capability is built into Blackbaud Grantmaking, they no longer manually run these checks. “It’s one click and done—a huge timesaver for our staff,”
Kidwell said. “We really appreciate the recordkeeping because now we can actually show proof that we ran a check and that it came back clear.”

Saving Time, Not Wasting Time

CDP previously had applications and information coming from different places, including mail and CDP’s server, but with Blackbaud Grantmaking they established a more streamlined setup that also allows multiple grant application reviewers to collaborate efficiently in real-time using the reviewer portal.

“All our grantmaking and due diligence paperwork is now in one central place, and you know it’s uniform label,” Kidwell said. “We have two to three people review directly within the system, and they don’t have to waste time trying to find the information they need. Makes reviewing applications much more efficient.”

While implementing Blackbaud Grantmaking, Blackbaud services team imported all of CDP’s grants from the past 10 years. By having this information housed in the software, staff can now look at 10 years’ worth of data—such as locations or types of populations served—and generate
custom reports to inform future grantmaking decisions.

“Our chief executive asked if I could provide a list of all the grants awarded in the past two years, including the locations, and I was able to easily pull a report based on the code I created,” Kidwell said. “This would have been a huge undertaking without Blackbaud Grantmaking.”