Elements of Target Analytics Group (TAG), one of the groundbreaking cooperative databases for nonprofit fundraising, are being retired. Launched in 1989, TAG was purchased by Blackbaud in 2007 with Blackbaud circulating a memo earlier this several services will be discontinued.
“Blackbaud is discontinuing Co-op Lists, TAGs, and Merge Purge services. Additionally, Blackbaud will no longer collect data for or produce the donorCentrics® Index of Direct Marketing Fundraising,” according to the memo obtained by The NonProfit Times.
Blackbaud will no longer be offering the database services as of Dec. 2, nor provide any support or updates for them. “While the end of service date is December 2, please note that the final date to submit your data and detailed specifications is November 28. If you do not submit your data by November 28, we cannot guarantee delivery fulfillment,” according to the document.
The closure leaves the fundraising space with four major cooperative database providers – Abacus from Epsilon, Apogee and DonorBase from Data Axle, Simio from Moore and Wiland.
Executives of at least three fundraising consultancies acknowledged to The NonProfit Times that TAG is no longer the colossus that it had been but knew of firms that either had made a bid to buy TAG or at least had conversations regarding acquiring it.
The initial information circulated was updated to include that Blackbaud’s data products, such as Prospect Insights within Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT have been updated. “Our AI infrastructure investments underpin these newer offerings and positions us well for solving future scenarios with analytics offerings,” according to information circulated.
Blackbaud declined to provide an executive for interview but issued a statement to The NonProfit Times which read, in part, “We regularly evaluate our solutions and services to ensure our teams’ development efforts are aligned to the company’s strategic priorities to power an Ecosystem of Good®. This evaluation includes assessing market demand, which has declined for these services in the past few years. As a result, we made the decision to retire these services. We are directing customers to three other vendors who provide similar services: Data Axle, Wiland and Moore.”
TAG founder and retired Blackbaud executive Chuck Longfield declined to comment on the closure.
Blackbaud, a public company traded on the NASDAQ exchange, separately announced this week during its investor call that generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) total revenue for the third quarter was $261.3 million, up 13% compared to the third quarter of 2021, with $249.4 million in GAAP recurring revenue, up 14.1% from the 2021 third quarter. Non-GAAP organic recurring revenue increased 3.5%, the company reported.
GAAP loss from operations was $7 million, inclusive of security incident-related costs, net of insurance recoveries, of $13.7 million with GAAP operating margin of negative 2.7%. The security-related costs are from the 2020 data breach. Data Blackbaud released showed that the firm has spent $29.2 million on the security-related costs for the nine months of this year.
Executives during the call reiterated the company’s 2022 full-year financial guidance of non-GAAP revenue of $1.05 billion to $1.07 billion, non-GAAP adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margin of 23.7% to 24.2%, non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.43 to $2.63, and non-GAAP adjusted free cash flow of $140 million to $150 million.
Blackbaud stock was trading on Thursday at $57.13, down from its 52-week high of $86.96 hit nearly one year ago on Nov. 8, 2021.
Updated 11/4/22
