Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), a cloud software company powering social good, is supporting key higher education and healthcare institutions around the world with the technology needed to effectively fundraise for COVID-19 research and essential equipment, including potential vaccine breakthroughs, low-cost ventilator production and methods to treat the virus and slow its spread.

“Throughout the world, many of our customers are on the frontlines of COVID-19 relief and having the cloud software in place to support their missions has never been more critical,” said Mike Gianoni, president and CEO, Blackbaud. “We have been continually amazed by our customers globally and their ingenuity during this time and are proud to support their efforts through reliable and highly effective technology.”

Blackbaud recently helped the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Australia and launched a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign for COVID-19 vaccine research.

Blackbaud’s peer-to-peer fundraising solutions enable social good organisations to quickly create fundraising campaigns driving current and new supporters to share their passion for an organisation’s mission.

UQ researchers need to raise $4.5 million in addition to the support they’ve received from the government and philanthropic partners, to help them develop a vaccine to end COVID-19.

“We are incredibly grateful for Blackbaud’s support in our efforts to facilitate philanthropic giving to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development at The University of Queensland,” said Jennifer Karlson, pro-vice-chancellor of advancement, University of Queensland. “The technology has been a critical gateway for the UQ community to give to this important cause.”

Within a month, supporters of The Rockefeller University donated more than $16 million for COVID-19 research, a testament to their confidence in the abilities of Rockefeller’s scientists and the relationships the university has built through its advancement team, which relies daily on Blackbaud fundraising and relationship management solutions, including Blackbaud CRM™ and Blackbaud Internet Solutions™.

Beyond the total, the speed of the donations has been critical in this moment of world crisis, when time is of the essence, and federal grant funding could take months to secure.

The Manhattan-based university – a research-driven institution that has seen 25 of its scientists receive the Nobel Prize – closed campus early on in the crisis, except for critical operations laboratories, which currently include 20 labs doing COVID-19 research.

The labs are not only collaborating with each other but also across the scientific community, and in some cases internationally, to advance ideas to slow the momentum of the pandemic and identify new therapies.

At the same time, Rockefeller’s advancement team members have used Blackbaud cloud-based solutions as they’ve worked remotely to educate their donor network on the university’s COVID-19 research and related needs. This falls in line with the informative way the university seeks to introduce new friends – providing lectures, seminars and community events to build an appreciation of their scientists’ work and the greater institution.

While recent events have been canceled, postponed or shifted to virtual gatherings because of the pandemic, supporters have been encouraged to direct their table and ticket purchases to research, and to consider making an additional gift to support COVID-19 research, as well.

In March, Blackbaud customer, the Montreal General Hospital Foundation and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center announced the Code Life Ventilator Challenge, a two-week sprint among engineering and scientific communities to gather the best ideas from around the world to design low-cost and easy to produce emergency ventilators.

The challenge received hundreds of submissions from 94 different countries. Nine concepts were selected for an intensive round of testing and three finalists have emerged. The three finalists will receive $200,000, $100,000 and $50,000 CAD in compensation for their design and for sharing it with the world in the fight against COVID-19.

Montreal General Hospital Foundation relied on Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® to power the fundraising component that has made this challenge possible. Montreal General Hospital Foundation is currently preparing a second challenge specifically to expedite refinement, cost-reduction and regulatory compliance of the final designs.