Migrate from Blackbaud to Salesforce Sales Cloud

Blackbaud organization constituents split into a Salesforce Account (the organization name, address, industry) and a primary Contact (the organization's primary point of contact with their email, phone, and title). The organization's constituent ID is stored as Source_System_ID__c on both records for traceability.

Blackbaud individual constituents map directly to Salesforce Contact. The constituent's primary address becomes MailingAddress fields on Contact; additional addresses require AccountContactRelation or custom address fields on the Contact. Email, phone, title, and birthdate transfer directly. Individual constituents without a household association are linked to a default Account during migration.

Blackbaud households require a choice between Salesforce's Household Account model (one Account per household) or Individual Account model. We map household members as Contacts under a shared Account, preserving the household name and primary address on the Account record. Each household member's name and contact details become separate Contact records linked to the household Account.

Each Blackbaud gift becomes a Salesforce Opportunity with Amount, CloseDate, StageName, Description, and CampaignId (pointing to the migrated Appeal/Campaign). Gift date becomes Opportunity CloseDate; gift acknowledgment status migrates to a custom picklist field on Opportunity. Multiple gifts from one constituent become separate Opportunity records.

Blackbaud's native soft-credit recipient field has no direct Salesforce equivalent, so we create a custom Gift_Soft_Credit__c junction object linking the Opportunity (gift) to the Contact (soft-credit recipient). This junction object includes a role picklist field to capture the soft-credit relationship type, such as Spouse, Employer, or Matching Gift, enabling accurate soft-credit attribution reporting in Salesforce.

Blackbaud appeals map to Salesforce Campaign records. Campaign Name, Description, StartDate, EndDate, and TargetRevenue map directly from the Blackbaud appeal fields. Salesforce's campaign hierarchy (parent campaigns) mirrors Blackbaud's appeal hierarchy, preserving the relationship between parent and child appeals. We preserve the appeal's fund reference as a custom field on the Campaign record.

Blackbaud campaigns (the higher-level fundraising initiative container) map to Salesforce Campaign records with type, status, and budget fields. Multiple Blackbaud campaigns can roll up under a single Salesforce parent Campaign if your organization's campaign structure uses a hierarchy. This preserves the grouping of related fundraising initiatives across both platforms.

Blackbaud's Fund object (the accounting bucket for gift routing) has no Salesforce standard equivalent. We create a Fund__c custom object with Name, Fund_Code__c (text), and a lookup to Campaign, then add a Fund__c lookup field on Opportunity so gifts can be tagged to the correct fund.

Blackbaud constituent actions (phone calls, emails, meetings) map to Salesforce Task records with Subject, Status, Priority, ActivityDate, and WhoId (Contact lookup). Original action date and owner are preserved. Completed status maps to Salesforce 'Completed'; pending actions map to 'Not Started'.

Blackbaud notes on constituents and gifts migrate as Salesforce Notes (modern object, not legacy Note) with Body, ParentId (pointing to the related Account, Contact, or Opportunity), and OwnerId. File attachments are downloaded and re-uploaded as Salesforce Files (ContentDocument/ContentVersion) linked to the parent record.

Blackbaud custom fields on Constituent records (Boolean, CodeTableEntry, Currency, Date, Number, Text) are analyzed by type and created as Salesforce custom fields on Account or Contact. CodeTableEntry pick-list values require value-by-value mapping to Salesforce pick-list values. The original field name and category are stored in the field label for reference.

Blackbaud gift-level custom fields such as gift-batch reference, acknowledgment status, tribute type, and appeal designation migrate as custom fields on Salesforce Opportunity. Batch reference becomes a text field; tribute type and acknowledgment status become pick-lists with values mapped value-by-value from Blackbaud's code table values to ensure consistent data in Salesforce.