What’s New and What’s Next: Why Your Finance Team Should Attend bbcon This Year
There are several exciting times of the year for nonprofit finance professionals—budget season, audits, year-end close. But one of our favorites is right around the corner: bbcon!
Whether you want to hear about product updates like AI-enhanced functionality or brush up on Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT® best practices in reporting, security and more, you don’t want to miss these financial management sessions at bbcon 2025. You can even earn CPE credit by attending designated sessions!
AI and Automation in Fund Accounting
Building on Blackbaud’s Intelligence for Good® framework and last year’s launch of Payment Assistant™, Financial Edge NXT will have new tools in the coming months to help you save time and improve your workflows. Here are some of the AI and automation-focused sessions you can expect to see at bbcon 2025.
Members of the Financial Edge NXT product team will provide an exclusive preview of the future of financial operations with the fund accounting system. In the session Smart Spending: Enhancing Efficiency with Payment Assistant, AP Automation, and Spend Management in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, Blackbaud’s Hallie Hurwitz, Reece Hopkins and Stephen Churchill will join Seth Hurd from Berwick Academy to show how these tools can optimize workflows, minimize manual tasks, and boost visibility into organizational spending.
AI-enhanced functionality is transforming how organizations look at processes and data management. Hear directly from the Financial Edge NXT product team on how the software is integrating Agentic AI, Blackbaud AI, and Action Hubs to redefine efficiency. Shaping the Future: How AI and Innovation Are Transforming Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is a can’t-miss session if you want a first-hand look at the future of Blackbaud’s fund accounting software.
The team from Your Part-Time Controller, LLC., will take a broader look at the AI conversation in their session, Using AI for Nonprofit Financial Reporting to Management Boards and Funders. Edwin Harvey and Christine Chacko from YPTC will share best practices and lessons learned about how to leverage AI effectively and responsibly to accelerate context-switching and communications around nonprofit financial information. *CPE eligible
Connected Systems
One way to simplify your workflows is through system connectivity, like between Financial Edge NXT and Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®. If you want to improve your current integration or are just interested in how it works, there will be a few sessions highlighting the benefits of having your fundraising and fund accounting systems work together.
Blackbaud’s Heather LeVan will draw on her years of experience as a nonprofit professional in her session, Trust and Transparency: Integrating Fundraising and Finance. She’ll provide practical tips to reduce manual tasks and strategies to present a transparent financial story. Leave with tools to create lasting donor relationships through effective communication and data-driven insights. *CPE eligible
You know how powerful Financial Edge NXT and Raiser’s Edge NXT are on their own. But Blackbaud’s Katie Turner and Westminster School’s Kyle Abraham will highlight what happens when you bring the two systems together. In their session, Need INternal Controls? INtegrate Now!, they show how integrating Financial Edge NXT and Raiser’s Edge NXT simplifies reconciliation, enhances collaboration, and increases transparency between departments.
Best Practices
You come to bbcon to learn about what’s new with the products that power your organization, sure. But you also come to learn how to get better at using the tools you already have.
With how quickly circumstances are changing, budgeting can sometimes feel like a futile exercise. In the session, Keeping a Clear Budget in Uncertain Times with Financial Edge NXT, members of the Blackbaud University and Blackbaud Advisory+ teams will show you how to stay on your financial front foot when unpredictable changes happen. Andrew Alter, Marie Broek, and Maire Moriarty will highlight some of the often-overlooked tools for effective and flexible budget management.
Want to know the secret of managing your endowment in Financial Edge NXT? Join Blackbaud’s Susan Smith for her session, Unleashing the Power of Transaction Codes in Financial Edge NXT to Elevate Your Reporting and Data Analytics for Endowment Accounting. She’ll dive into a working example of how these user-defined fields allow you to categorize, track, and analyze transactions and dissect your data in new and insightful ways. *CPE eligible
Looking for more ways to get the most out of your fund accounting software? Consultant Wendi Brazell will provide simple but powerful ways to optimize your system in her session Getting the Most out of Financial Edge NXT: Smarter Data, Better Reporting, and Easier Integrations. Whether you are a new or experienced user, you’ll walk away with practical tips to make Financial Edge NXT work smarter for you. *CPE eligible
Change is something nonprofit organizations, foundations, and schools understand all too well. But maintaining your organization’s financial health can be difficult when it feels like the floor is always shifting underneath you. A bbcon favorite, Stephanie Skryzowski of 100 Degrees Consulting is back with a session to help you build long-term sustainability and maximize your impact. In her session, Future-Proofing Your Nonprofit’s Finances, Stephanie will provide actionable strategies to strengthen your organization’s financial future, ensuring you can continue to do good without constantly worrying about money. *CPE eligible
Main Stage Can’t Miss
Don’t forget to look at sessions outside of fund accounting for some other fantastic opportunities for learning and connection.
If you are like most organizations, you—or your staff—have been incorporating AI-powered tools into your daily processes. And if you are like most organizations, you’re wondering if you are taking the right approach to this new technology. In her session, AI Is Hot, Lawsuits Are Not, Blackbaud’s Chief Privacy Officer, Camerson Stoll, will help you untangle the laws and requirements around the use and development of AI-enhanced tools and explore best practices for AI risk management.
And definitely don’t miss the main stage conversation with organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant. His books include Hidden Potential, Think Again, and Give and Take, and his podcasts Re:Thinking and WorkLife provide candid interviews with people who are approaching the world in unusual ways. His viral piece on languishing was the most-read New York Times article of 2021 and the most-saved article across all platforms.
Can’t Make It to Philadelphia? Join Us Virtually!
Even if you can’t make it to Philly in person, you can still register for virtual bbcon. You’ll get access to a number of the great sessions and learning opportunities. You can learn more and register for both in-person and virtual bbcon at https://www.bbconference.com/2025/.
