Case Study: Special Olympics Missouri achieves major gift growth (up to 525%) with Blackbaud Target Analytics

Special Olympics Missouri - Customer Case Study

Special Olympics Missouri supports 15,000 athletes statewide as part of the global Special Olympics movement and needed to modernize its fundraising approach to support a four-year capital campaign for a Training for Life campus. The organization inherited messy donor records and faced a large constituent database (now over 300,000) but limited resources to engage donors effectively, so leadership sought better data management and donor targeting to identify major-gift prospects.

By implementing Raiser’s Edge and Blackbaud’s Target Analytics and running multiple screenings, the team segmented its database and carved out a focused pool of 3,500 cultivation prospects (35% of whom were newly identified). That targeting drove measurable results: a 197% increase in gifts of $1,000–$2,499 and a 525% increase in gifts over $2,500 (2011–2016), supporting $16 million raised so far for the campus with $2.1 million remaining to secure.

Special Olympics Missouri

Laurie Shadoan

Chief Advancement Officer