Recognition highlights Alvernia’s transformation of data-driven advancement through RENXT and cross-campus partnerships
Alvernia University has been named a recipient of the 2025 Blackbaud Impact Awards, earning the Silo Buster Award for its success in breaking down internal barriers and creating a culture of collaboration through Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge NXT (RENXT). The honor recognizes Alvernia’s efforts to unify advancement, alumni engagement, grants, and academic divisions through a single source of truth that improves stewardship and student success.
“This award validates the intentional work we’ve done to transform how Alvernia approaches advancement and engagement,” said Vice President for Advancement and Government Affairs Thomas Minick ’98 MBA ’10. “By leveraging RENXT as our foundation, we’ve aligned teams across the university to focus on a shared mission of student success and community impact.”
Alvernia’s journey with RENXT began as a response to longstanding challenges with fragmented data and departmental silos. While some advancement functions like annual giving and major gifts were aligned, other essential teams, including alumni relations and grants, operated in separate systems. This disconnect led to inconsistent data, fragmented engagement strategies, and difficulty tracking outcomes. The impact was felt across the university, as other departments such as career development, graduate and adult education, academic colleges, and marketing and communications were also engaging with the same external partners without a centralized view of those relationships.
Alvernia’s senior leadership team empowered the Advancement Operations team to lead a transformation in how Alvernia collects, manages, and acts on data. Professional development investments, along with extensibility licensing, allowed the university to maximize the capabilities of RENXT, embedding it into the daily workflows of advancement and expanding access to other divisions across campus. The results included increasing donor profile by 9%, increasing alumni management by 20.9% and increasing events management by 64.9%.
“The power of RENXT is not just in the technology, but in the culture of collaboration it supports,” said Director of Advancement Operations Hallie Giuseppe '24. “Every department has a role to play in contributing timely and accurate data, and this award is a reflection of the dedication our colleagues have shown in embracing that mindset.
The university has also embraced partner technologies to extend RENXT’s value. Together, these tools have created a culture of shared accountability and measurable outcomes, including exceeding the original goal of university’s Partners in Progress campaign.
"Our 2025 award recipients exemplify how innovative use of technology can drive meaningful change for the missions and communities they support," said Todd Lant, chief customer officer, Blackbaud. "Every day our teams at Blackbaud show up to create and deliver exceptional technology and AI tools to power these organizations, and we're honored to play a small role in their success. We're excited to celebrate our customers' accomplishments through the Blackbaud Impact Awards—it's stories like this that motivate us to continue pushing the needle for social impact technology."
Blackbaud will celebrate Alvernia and other winners at bbcon 2025, its annual technology conference in October in Philadelphia, where Alvernia President Glynis A. Fitzgerald, Ph.D. is scheduled to speak on a panel about empowering innovation in organizations. For more details about the finalists, winners, and awards, visit: https://www.blackbaud.com/impact-awards.
