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Charleston tech company doubles potential market access with acquisition

Jenny Peterson //January 10, 2022//

Charleston tech company doubles potential market access with acquisition

Jenny Peterson //January 10, 2022//

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Daniel Island tech giant Blackbaud announced that it has bought Washington D.C.-based EverFi, a like-minded social impact tech firm, for $750 million.

The deal was made for approximately $450 million in cash and 3.8 million shares of Blackbaud’s common stock, valued at approximately $300 million. 

Both Blackbaud and EverFi offer their clients, which include Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits and thousands of K-12 and higher learning institutions, cloud-based corporate social responsibility programs to help increase their environmental, social and governance goals.

Blackbaud President and CEO Mike Gianoni said the acquisition is expected to significantly grow revenue growth in 2022.

“As companies continue to invest further in environmental, social, and governance and corporate social responsibility programs to give back to their communities, they need a partner who can help connect their philanthropic goals to meaningful social impact opportunities,” Gianoni said.

The acquisition doubles Blackbaud’s access to a potential market worth more than $20 billion and increases its number of corporate clients, the company said. EverFi clients include Kroger, Patagonia, MassMutual Foundation and Zelle.

“Over half of our addressable opportunity will now be in the corporate sector,” Blackbaud said in a news release. “EverFi has an impressive client list that Blackbaud is excited to work with.”

Effective immediately, EverFi’s more than 500 employees will become Blackbaud employees and will maintain offices in Washington, D.C., and in the U.K. EverFi’s executive team and CEO Tom Davidson will join Blackbaud to focus on accelerating expansion efforts, the company said.

“EverFi will operate their business as usual and no changes are planned to products or services. EverFi will continue to serve both corporate customers and K-12 schools, and the focus will be on expanding the customer base further as we are able to offer more services as one unified company,” Blackbaud states.

One of Blackbaud’s major products that will be offered to EverFi clients is its two YourCause platforms. One helps companies manage grants, including applications and payments and the other helps companies launch and accelerate employee volunteerism.

“EverFi serves some of the world’s largest and most well-known brands. We see substantial synergy and cross-sell opportunity with EverFi and Blackbaud’s YourCause business. Together, Blackbaud and EverFi will be the leading partner to help corporations drive meaningful social impact across a large span of technology-enabled program areas, from community education to volunteering to grantmaking to philanthropy,” Blackbaud said.

Blackbaud’s acquisition of like-minded tech firms is part of the company’s long-term goals.

“We’ve been following EverFi for years,” Blackbaud said. “We have a demonstrated history of acquiring and deleveraging. The near-term focus will be on deleveraging, but we will remain active in the (mergers and acquisitions) space and evaluate targets to see if the right deal comes along.”

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