Business
Blackbaud Launches New Category of AI Agent with General Availability of its First Agent for Good™
The Development Agent, designed to help personalize donor engagement and grow giving at scale, is the first-ever expert agent to be embedded in a dedicated
About this update from Blackbaud, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"The Development Agent, designed to help personalize donor engagement and grow giving at scale, is the first-ever expert agent to be embedded in a dedicated social impact platformCHARLESTON, S.C., March 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world's leading provider of AI-powered solutions for social impact, today announced the general availability of the Development Agent, Blackbaud's first Agent for Good™, to Raiser's Edge NXT® customers in the U.S., with availability internationally and in other products to follow. Building on its leadership trajectory as the category creator for systems of record in the fundraising market, Blackbaud is now defining a new category of agentic AI for social impact: one where expert digital teammates are native to a sector-specific platform, making them the first agents of this type able to execute fully autonomous social impact workflows under human supervision.With the Development Agent, Blackbaud moves the sector beyond bolt-on agents, which can introduce data gaps and security risks, and AI assistants that offer insights but don't meaningfully add capacity. The Development Agent – operating autonomously, but with human oversight like any team member – can identify, cultivate and engage donors with individualized, timely, and brand-aligned outreach at a scale fundraising teams could never achieve alone.\"I believe the social impact sector has a monumental opportunity to benefit from the advancements in agentic AI,\" said Mike Gianoni, President, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Blackbaud. \"If used responsibly and effectively, agentic AI has the potential to completely redefine what's possible when people unite around shared purpose. Together, the social impact sector could unlock the greatest advancement of purpose-driven missions in human history. We are all in on supporting our customers as the world's most trusted and powerful AI engine for social impact.\"The Development Agent is embedded within the trusted Blackbaud solution, which leverages decades of proprietary philanthropic data and deep sector-specific contextual intelligence. Customers can be confident in the Development Agent's ability to operate within the ethics, behaviors and judgment patterns that shape real-world decisions, which is critical to maintaining and strengthening donor trust. Delivering individualiz...