Episode 168: Looking Inside Blackbaud’s Social Good Startup Program

The social good community has massive opportunity and meaningful challenges before us. Recognizing the power of partnerships to build a better world, Blackbaud launched a unique year-long accelerator  in 2019 designed to support early-stage startups with the potential to impact the Ecosystem of Good®, and formalized it as the Blackbaud Social Good Startup Program in 2020. Listen in to hear Roz Lemieux, Senior Director of Platform Product Manager and head of Blackbaud Labs, talk about the goals for the program, how the first year went, and why Blackbaud felt it was important to focus on startups with diverse founders for the 2021 cohort.   Resources: Roz Lemieux Blackbaud Social Good Startup Program Application The Blackbaud Social Good Startup Challenge—Hear from the 2020 Cohort Participants   Quotes: “These are startups that are really enabling organizations to do things in a different way.” “From the outset, we said part of the lens and philosophy that we wanted to apply to the program was to encourage founders from traditionally underserved backgrounds to be part of the program.” “There’s a very tight coupling between breakthrough innovation and the presence of diverse teams.” “There's every reason for us to put our time and money and effort behind those [diverse] companies because they're the ones that are quite likely to make a big difference.”