The Shipley School Partners with Blackbaud to Improve Communication
September 29, 2010
CHARLESTON, SC – September 28, 2010 – Blackbaud, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLKB), announced that The Shipley School has implemented Blackbaud’s Online Campus Community™ and AlertNow® to improve parent access and increase interaction within the school community. Online Campus Community is an independent K-12 school website solution that now includes custom web design and interactive web strategy services. The addition of AlertNow provides schools with a way to quickly communicate with parents according to their preference; via voice, email, or text messages.
“The Shipley School is a large community of teachers, students, families, alumni, and friends—so communicating with each group and each other was a challenge with disparate databases and processes,” said Rachel Welsh, The Shipley School’s webmaster and director of data operations. “With Online Campus Community, we’ve streamlined communication between offices and developed an engaging website with valuable content. Thanks to AlertNow, we can easily and effectively inform our school community about time-sensitive events or inclement weather.
The Shipley School is a pre-kindergarten through 12th grade coeducational day school with almost 900 students. With a college preparatory curriculum in the humanities and sciences, the school encourages curiosity, creativity, and respect for intellectual effort while promoting moral integrity and a sense of personal achievement. The Shipley School needed a way to share student achievement with parents, share data between departments, and provide a personalized online experience to parents, students, and alumni.
The Shipley School and other Independent Schools use Online Campus Community to:
> Engage and interact with potential and current students, parents and alumni of all ages
> Communicate with faculty and staff
> Give students and parents insight into upcoming assignments
> Provide parents real-time access on student progress and events
> Automate admissions and re-enrollment processes
> Design and launch engaging email campaigns and newsletters
> Measure website performance with valuable metrics and reporting tools
Fully integrated with existing student information stored in The Education Edge™, Online Campus Community also integrates with The Raiser’s Edge® for targeted communications and to provide an engaging online experience.
“Independent schools need ways to communicate with parents in a timely and effective manner,” said John Linton, Blackbaud’s manager of independent school solutions. “With the easy-to-update content management system, the parent/teacher portals of Online Campus Community, and the addition of AlertNow, parents can feel confident that they are in full communication with their children’s school at all times.”
AlertNow, a service of Blackboard Connect®, is a Blackbaud partner that works directly with The Education Edge ensuring contact information is up-to-date. In addition to delivering routine messaging, the AlertNow service is a critical component to a school’s overall communications plan. The AlertNow system delivers voice, e-mail, and text messages at a rate of up to 2.5 million per hour–keeping parents and staff informed on important and time-sensitive information. For more information, visit www.alertnow.com.
Blackbaud has partnered with more than 2,500 independent K-12 schools worldwide by providing solutions that help them meet their unique institutional goals. Blackbaud solutions for independent schools include: The Education Edge for complete student information management; Online Campus Community for website content management; The Raiser’s Edge for donor management; The Financial Edge™ for nonprofit accounting and billing; and Blackbaud for Small Schools for web-based student information management created for schools with under 500 students.
For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com/NewOCC.
About The Shipley School
In the fall of 1894, when the all-girl School opened with six students and nine faculty members, a philosophy of education was established that would guide the School for over one-hundred years. By 1984 the School was fully coeducational, with an equal numbers of boys and girls. Shipley has a long tradition of preparing students for college and for full participation in the world, as well as supporting diversity and encouraging each student’s development as an individual. Committed to becoming the best school possible, The Shipley School faculty and staff make it their business to understand the intellectual, physical, spiritual, and emotional growth and needs of each student.
About Blackbaud
Blackbaud is the leading global provider of software and services designed specifically for nonprofit organizations, enabling them to improve operational efficiency, build strong relationships, and raise more money to support their missions. Approximately 24,000 organizations — including University of Arizona Foundation, American Red Cross, Cancer Research UK, The Taft School, Lincoln Center, In Touch Ministries, Tulsa Community Foundation, Ursinus College, Earthjustice, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the WGBH Educational Foundation — use one or more Blackbaud products and services for fundraising, constituent relationship management, financial management, website management, direct marketing, education administration, ticketing, business intelligence, prospect research, consulting, and analytics. Since 1981, Blackbaud’s sole focus and expertise has been partnering with nonprofits and providing them the solutions they need to make a difference in their local communities and worldwide. Headquartered in the United States, Blackbaud also has operations in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.
