Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Blackbaud CTO Mary Beth Westmoreland (Part 4)

Mary Beth Westmoreland: We want to be open and we want to help and enable it, but we may not always be the best provider of those programs and services. I can give you 500 different use cases about the missions of these wonderful organizations that we serve whether it be on the ground in Africa where the only connection they have is via cell service, or working with some of the poverty-driven institutions.

How do you leverage an ERP system to deliver food in areas that are underserved? I work with some of these entrepreneurs. I was just attending the Forbes Women Summit where the 30 Under 30 are women who are doing some amazing things around non-profits and driving impact through programs. I talked to them about how we want to help and enable via our platforms and make something like that happen.

I met someone who created gum. She wanted  to serve the communities that don’t have dental services. She leveraged technology to deliver gum that had fluoride in it and used technology to get it out to people who needed it the most. There’s so many different pieces and parts of that. I can see Blackbaud helping her. We help her via our cloud services where she can get in touch with organizations on the ground in those areas or have missions associated with that. We want to help and enable not just by selling software. We have a bigger vision.

Sramana Mitra: I think what you’re saying is where you are really making a difference is in helping these organizations manage their whole workflow through your software. What you’re pointing out is that each of these have a certain community around them that needs to be managed better. There are social pieces that need to be managed where you could see opportunities for other people to play.

Mary Beth Westmoreland: You are absolutely correct. I wish you could shadow me on all of these presentations that I have because you just nailed it on the head. Even though they have these great solutions that we provide to them, Each organization has program pieces and mission pieces that are gaps today. Blackbaud feels an accountability because we serve these organizations and we have that visibility. We can aggregate the data in ways that other people can’t. We don’t want to sit on that. We want to make the best use of it to drive impact.

Sramana Mitra: I think I have your point of view. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Blackbaud CTO Mary Beth Westmoreland
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