Blackbaud’s Acquisition of eTapestry Removes Needed Competition; Harmful to the Nonprofit Community

Horsham, PA, August 16, 2007 — Blackbaud’s $25 million acquisition of eTapestry, announced earlier this month, is a concern for many in the nonprofit community since it removes needed competition and product choice.

Jon Biedermann, Vice President of SofterWare, Inc., maker of DonorPerfect Fundraising Software, notes that this is not the first time Blackbaud and eTapestry’s founders have joined together and profited. “Jay Love (founder of eTapestry) sold Master Software, a previous company he ran, to Blackbaud in 1997. That was really the first of many other product acquisitions in an aggressive strategy of forcing acquired clients to switch to their software and services or else face being dependent on software that was no longer supported or enhanced. In fact, this strategy was so profitable, Blackbaud repeated it several times, most recently when they purchased Campagne Associates and killed its GiftMaker Pro product.”

What about eTapestry’s Clients?
Blackbaud has gone out of their way to say that they don’t plan to integrate the eTapestry business in the near term, but this most likely provides little comfort to eTapestry clients, who, like those who’ve chosen DonorPerfect, were probably looking for a more cost-effective alternative to Blackbaud.

According to Douglas Schoenberg, SofterWare CEO, “I suspect that many of them are concerned about possible price increases. After all, to get a return on that $25 million purchase for a company with only $7 million in annual sales, eTapestry clients are likely to see dramatically increasing subscription and service fees. The fact is that Blackbaud’s a public corporation, and in their most recent conference call to Wall Street, they made it clear they are committed to continuing, and even increasing, their already substantial profit margins.”

DonorPerfect – A Real Alternative to Blackbaud
“The nonprofit community is best served by having a vibrant choice of technology solutions,” Mr. Schoenberg commented. “Blackbaud may want to monopolize the fundraising software business, but we won’t let them. As a private company, with no outside investors or debt, we’ve achieved our stability and growth for 25 years, and maintained our solid position in the market, the old fashioned way: helping new customers one at a time, with hard work and an unshakable commitment to our clients, our employees, and our partners.”

Mr. Biedermann further observes that size often suffocates innovation and notes, “We’ve been able to innovate and enhance our solutions much faster. After all, we’ve been offering our fully web-hosted competitor to eTapestry, DonorPerfect Online, for over 6 years, and we’re even more excited about our new product announcements coming in the next few months. Finally, we’re glad whenever any of our competitors recognize and legitimize the importance of solutions that we have long promoted and pioneered for years, such as web-hosted applications and an open API (Application Programming Interface).”

About SofterWare, Inc.
SofterWare, Inc., based in Horsham, Pennsylvania is a leading provider of software to nonprofit organizations, with over 10,000 clients throughout the world. In addition to the company’s DonorPerfect fundraising software, SofterWare also offers software for managing childcare centers, public and private schools, and camps and conference centers. For more information on SofterWare, please visit www.softerware.com. For more information on DonorPerfect Fundraising Software, please visit www.donorperfect.com.