Precursive Perspective | For Professional Services

How Blackbaud Built a Recurring Services Engine Worth $12.5M ARR

Episode Summary

In this episode, Jacqui Wishart - Head of Advisory Services at Blackbaud, she discusses building recurring services model inside a SaaS business. Jacqui shares how Blackbaud evolved from one-time services toward ongoing customer value, how Advisory Plus is structured, and how the team scaled the model to $12.5M SRR.

Episode Notes

Jacqui Wishart, Head of Advisory Services at Blackbaud, joins Jonathan Corrie to unpack how recurring services can become a measurable growth engine for SaaS businesses.

Blackbaud supports nonprofit and social impact organizations, many of which face high staff turnover, lean teams and varying levels of technical confidence. Jacqui explains how these customer dynamics shaped the development of Advisory Plus: a recurring advisory service designed to help customers adopt software more effectively, improve operational processes and realize more value over time.

The conversation explores how Blackbaud created a catalog of repeatable service options across seven product lines, while still tailoring delivery to each customer’s goals, data and maturity. Jacqui also discusses the importance of positioning recurring services with sales, aligning incentives through ARR contribution, and making the offering easy to sell without custom scoping every deal.

Highlights include:

• Moving from one-time implementation to ongoing advisory services
• Building a repeatable services catalog around customer outcomes
• Using assessments, sessions and tracks to guide adoption
• Measuring services ARR, utilization, margin, consumption and CSAT
• Partnering with sales and renewals to prove long-term value
• Scaling Advisory Plus from the first sale in 2022 to $12.5M ARR

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