The ELCA’s strategic shift to Blackbaud Cloud Operations enhances mission and engagement

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was an early adopter of Blackbaud CRM, managing its data on-premises since 2009. However, as the world evolved and the COVID-19 pandemic further reshaped the way organizations operate, the ELCA found itself re-evaluating its infrastructure. Its once-active data center in Chicago was now largely empty, and the economics of maintaining it no longer made sense.

“The main decision to move to Blackbaud CRM + Blackbaud Cloud Operations was driven by economic factors and the need to focus on our mission rather than managing infrastructure,” said Jonathan Beyer, executive for information technology & digital solutions. “By making this move, we’ve saved significant costs on infrastructure management and disaster recovery.”

Security was another critical factor in their decision. Included in Blackbaud CRM + Blackbaud Cloud Operations, the ELCA’s donor data is protected with field-level database encryption and transparent data encryption at rest. This feature, along with other security enhancements, provides peace of mind to the church and other stakeholders.

Reducing Errors, Saving Time

This transition also aligned with the organization’s auditors’ focus on third-party risk management, ensuring that sensitive information managed by third parties is adequately protected. The ELCA is able to offload the responsibility of maintaining and upgrading their infrastructure, including operating systems and SQL versions.

“We had about 15 servers in our Blackbaud CRM environment, with four or five being SQL servers,” said Beyer. “Upgrades to servers and databases take weeks to plan and execute, but now that we’re on Blackbaud CRM + Blackbaud Cloud Operations, we don’t have to do any of that work, resulting in a 100% time savings.”

Another significant benefit realized was the reduction in the technical effort required for system upgrades. For example, the first service pack upgrade post-implementation required only two technologists compared to the extensive effort previously needed from IT staff.  By reducing the technical overhead and time to maintain/upgrade on-premise servers, databases and technology, the future CRM service packs, upgrades and improvement releases will reduce IT time by 50%, to allow focus on ensuring the custom CRM integrations are functional.

Additionally, the church no longer needed to replicate its CRM environment for disaster recovery, as redundancy was built into the hosting. “The technical effort required for updates has been reduced by moving to Blackbaud CRM + Blackbaud Cloud Operations, and we’ve been able to allow staff to focus on more strategic work,” said Beyer. “Additionally, the cloud transition allows us to integrate Blackbaud CRM better with other systems, facilitating data exchange and improving engagement activities.”

Integrating a Future in the Cloud

With Blackbaud CRM + Blackbaud Cloud Operations, ELCA plans to integrate it more effectively with other systems, such as its data lake, financial system, experience management/survey solution, digital engagement platform, and granting environment. This integration will enable better data exchange and provide a comprehensive view of their engagement activities.

Now in the cloud, the ELCA can take advantage of new features and capabilities, such as SKY API, to enhance engagement activities and better adapt to new innovations. As the church looks to the future, their strategic plan focuses on engaging new, young, and diverse individuals. Blackbaud CRM + Blackbaud Cloud Operations sits at the center of this strategy and will allow them to integrate better with other systems, facilitating more effective engagement and interaction with their constituents.

“Blackbaud CRM + Blackbaud Cloud Operations was a strategic move that has not only improved our technical and financial efficiency but also positioned us to better fulfill our mission and engage with our community,” said Beyer. “The future is promising as we continue to integrate and adopt new features, ensuring we remain at the forefront of innovation and security.”