PaperlessZen™ for Blackbaud
Institutions that run on Blackbaud have their constituents, gifts, and finances in one ecosystem, and their documents almost everywhere else. The signed gift agreement, the grant file, the vendor contract behind a payment: these usually live in drives and inboxes rather than with the Blackbaud record they belong to. When someone needs the actual document, the system that holds the data cannot hand it over.
PaperlessZen™ is the document layer that closes that gap across the Blackbaud ecosystem.
What connects
Documents link to Blackbaud records through external references that pair a constituent, gift, or financial record with its documents in PaperlessZen. Built on identifiers, the connection holds as records change and can keep ids aligned. Blackbaud stays your system of engagement; PaperlessZen keeps the documents of record.
Where documents show up
Reachable from the Blackbaud record your team already manages. Agreements, amendments, grant reports, and correspondence are filed and full-text searchable, so the paper history sits alongside the constituent and giving history.
A three-step recipe
Three steps take a document from arrival to a governed record, with intake doing the reading and obligations tracked at the end.
The document arrives
Intake reads the signed agreement or grant document and files it.
The record is matched
PaperlessZen matches it to its Blackbaud constituent, gift, or financial record by identifier.
It reaches the record
The document becomes reachable from that record, with its obligations tracked.
Availability
PaperlessZen is in early beta. The Blackbaud connection uses the same identifier-based approach as our first-class Dynamics embed and is available to early customers on request. See our dedicated Raiser’s Edge NXT page, or tell us about your setup.
Frequently asked questions
Which Blackbaud products does this cover?
The identifier-based approach works across the Blackbaud ecosystem, including Raiser's Edge NXT and Financial Edge NXT. Documents link to the constituent, gift, or financial record they concern.
Does PaperlessZen change our Blackbaud data?
No. Blackbaud stays the system of record for constituents, gifts, and finances. PaperlessZen adds the document layer beneath it and links to those records by identifier.