Carrie Cobb is in charge of Blackbaud’s data and artificial intelligence strategy. In late September, the Daniel Island software company unveiled Lantern, a language model it built for fundraising.

“The future of AI isn’t about who has the largest model; it’s about who best reflects the world their customers operate in,” Cobb, Blackbaud’s chief data and AI officer, said in the Sept. 29 announcement.

Blackbaud introduced Lantern at bbcon, its customer conference, held Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 in Columbus, Ohio. The company calls it the first domain-specific language model built for fundraising.

“The sector doesn’t need more AI,” Cobb said. “It needs AI designed to support social impact.”

What Lantern is

Blackbaud built Lantern with the data company Databricks, running leading open-weight AI models on Databricks’ platform and adding what Blackbaud describes as more than four decades of experience with fundraising workflows, decisions and results. The model is further trained on synthetic scenarios modeled on what the company calls its Social Impact Signal Graph, according to the announcement.

The goal, Blackbaud said, is a model that understands giving behavior rather than buying behavior: donor retention, upgrades and long-term relationships. The company cited figures showing that 85% of social impact professionals say they use AI in their daily jobs, while only about 10% of organizations see significant returns.

Lantern is not on the market yet. Blackbaud said it will begin powering select features in its Raiser’s Edge NXT fundraising software and its Agents for Good tools in 2027, with wider use planned across its new Platform for Good, which the company describes as a unified operating system for its products. Boston University is among the customers giving input, the company said.

Who she is

Cobb leads Blackbaud’s Data Intelligence Center of Excellence and is responsible for the company’s AI and data strategy, data science, and data governance and ethics, according to her company biography. Her profile with DataIQ, a data and analytics membership organization, says she was the first chief data and AI officer appointed at Blackbaud and also leads the Blackbaud Institute, the company’s research arm.

She has more than 25 years of experience building data-driven analytics, according to Blackbaud. She holds a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Coastal Carolina University, a master’s in strategic management from Indiana Wesleyan University and a chief data officer certificate from Carnegie Mellon University.

In 2023, when her title was chief data officer, CDO Magazine named her to its Global Data Power Women list. In a question-and-answer piece Blackbaud published at the time, she urged organizations to build governance and ethics practices around the technology.

“It’s our collective responsibility to employ data, analytics and artificial intelligence in a socially beneficial manner,” she said.

Asked for advice to people starting in the field, she said, “Data professionals are problem solvers and storytellers at heart.”

Outside the company, Blackbaud said in 2023, she chaired the Advisory Council on Methodology for the Giving USA Foundation, served on the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Nonprofit Alliance and sat on the board of the Palmetto Military Support Group, a North Charleston-based volunteer nonprofit that supports service members in the Charleston area, according to the group’s website.

The bigger bet

At bbcon, Cobb joined a panel on AI adoption with technology leaders from UNCF and Boston University, the company said.

The stakes go beyond one product. Blackbaud, which says more than $100 billion is raised, granted or managed through its platforms each year, now describes itself as “the world’s leading provider of AI-powered solutions for social impact.”

“The opportunity isn’t simply to add AI to existing processes,” CEO Mike Gianoni said in Blackbaud’s conference recap. “It’s to help organizations unlock more capacity, make better decisions and ultimately drive greater impact.”

Investors will get the next look at the business Oct. 28, when Blackbaud reports third-quarter results.