Social Impact Heroes: How Catherine LaCour Of The Blackbaud Giving Fund Is Helping To Change Our World
The nonprofits doing the work on the front lines are the heroes. Our job is to help them succeed by removing barriers, creating trust, and making the connections that allow generosity to become action.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure to interview Catherine LaCour.
Catherine LaCour is a purpose-driven executive with more than 25 years of experience transforming organizations and advancing social impact. She serves as the chief executive officer and executive director of The Blackbaud Giving Fund, leading its mission to connect people to the causes they care about worldwide. Prior to this role, Catherine served as chief marketing officer at Blackbaud, leading global brand and marketing, corporate communications, and lifecycle marketing, including strategic go‑to‑market and retention initiatives.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
My path to social impact wasn’t necessarily a straight line. I studied international business and marketing as an undergraduate because I was drawn to the combination of understanding people, analyzing data, and telling stories. A professor later encouraged me to attend Thunderbird for my MBA, and through that experience, I was able to land an internship with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), an arm of the United Nations.
I was sent to Kenya to work with teams on the ground in Nairobi. That experience was incredibly formative. I was surrounded by people who didn’t necessarily have a lot of material resources but demonstrated extraordinary generosity. They welcomed me into their homes, shared meals with me, and showed me what community really looks like. I also had a manager who approached leadership by asking, “How can I help you succeed?” rather than simply asking what I had accomplished. Those experiences shaped two beliefs that have stayed with me: Leadership is about service, not power, and I wanted my career to contribute to something larger than myself.
Eventually, my work in technology led me to Blackbaud, where I spent more than 16 years helping nonprofits use technology to engage supporters and advance their missions. That gave me a front-row seat to the incredible work nonprofits do every day, but also to the barriers that can stand between a donor’s desire to give and a nonprofit’s ability to put those resources to work.
Today, as CEO and executive director of The Blackbaud Giving Fund, I help remove those barriers. We sit at the intersection of donors, companies, technology, and nonprofits, helping accelerate the flow and impact of generosity around the world. We may not be the organization on the ground delivering the meal or providing the education, but we can build the connections and infrastructure that help make that impact possible. That has really been the through line of my career: Where can I contribute in a way that enables others to have the greatest possible impact?
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
One of the most interesting parts of stepping into this role has actually been realizing how much I still have to learn. I spent over 16 years working closely with nonprofits from the business and technology side. I understood many of the challenges they face and how technology can help them engage supporters and increase their impact. But leading a charitable grant-making organization has exposed me to a different level of complexity and rigor behind charitable giving.
I’m now immersed in the regulatory, compliance, governance, and operational requirements that make giving possible. Add international grant-making to that, and you’re navigating different local regulations and requirements around the world, while the domestic regulatory environment continues to evolve as well.
So, in many ways, I’ve become a student again. It has reminded me how important it is to be comfortable being a beginner, to stay humble and curious, to challenge your own assumptions, and to ask a lot of questions. Leaders don’t need to know everything. In fact, I think some of the best leaders are the ones who never stop learning, listen more, and ask thoughtful questions. That has been one of the greatest gifts of this role.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Early in my career, when I was working in Kenya, I was young, fresh out of my MBA program, and working in a country that wasn’t my own. I wanted to show up looking confident, knowledgeable, and prepared, especially because I was there to conduct training.
Before one particular meeting, I spent a tremendous amount of time preparing. I had my opening remarks down and was so focused on what I was going to say that I didn’t pay enough attention to where I was going. I walked into what I thought was my meeting, confidently introduced myself, and started talking. Everyone was very polite until someone finally stopped me and explained that I was in the wrong meeting. It turns out, I wasn’t just in the wrong room. I was in the wrong building. Thankfully, everyone laughed, including me. I eventually found the right group, walked into that room a little more slowly and a lot more aware of my surroundings, and everything went well.
It taught me that preparation is important, but presence is even more important. If you’re so focused on what you’re going to say next that you aren’t paying attention to what’s happening around you, you can miss quite a lot, including, apparently, an entire building.
It also reinforced something I still believe: You cannot take yourself too seriously. Learn from mistakes, be able to laugh at yourself, and move on. I still prepare extensively. I just make sure I know where I’m going, too.
Can you describe how you or your organization is making a significant social impact?
At The Blackbaud Giving Fund, we talk about accelerating the flow and impact of generosity. That can sound technical until you take a step back and think about what it actually makes possible.
We operate at the intersection of donors, companies, technology, and nonprofits, helping connect charitable resources with organizations working on some of the world’s most pressing challenges. In many ways, we are part of the infrastructure behind modern philanthropy. Most people may never think about that infrastructure, but it matters tremendously. Giving needs to be trusted, efficient, and accessible so nonprofits can put those resources to work in their communities.
Trust is a particularly important part of that. Donors want confidence in where they are giving, while nonprofits need efficient ways to receive and understand those donations. Through the Blackbaud Verified Network, nonprofits are vetted for eligibility and encouraged to create an account to enable faster donation delivery, helping create a trusted ecosystem where generosity can move with greater confidence.
The Blackbaud Giving Fund isn’t the hero of this story, and I think that’s important. The nonprofits doing the work on the front lines are the heroes. Our job is to help them succeed by removing barriers, creating trust, and making the connections that allow generosity to become action.
There’s a parallel to servant leadership there. Good leaders create the conditions for other people to succeed. That’s also how I think about The Blackbaud Giving Fund. Our impact is ultimately measured not only by what we accomplish ourselves, but by what we enable others to accomplish.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
Our impact is a little different because we work at such a large scale. Rather than being able to point to one individual and say, “This is the person we helped,” what I find most humbling is thinking about the ripple effect created through the nonprofits we support.
Every donation we deliver ultimately connects to a nonprofit doing something tangible in a community. That might mean feeding a family, supporting education, expanding access to health care, protecting the environment, or responding to another urgent need. Then you multiply that by the nonprofits receiving funding and again by the people and communities those organizations serve. That ripple effect is extraordinary.
Every time we can make that system work a little better by removing a barrier, delivering resources more efficiently, or making the process more transparent, we help those nonprofits put generosity into action sooner.
That is how I think about our impact. We’re building systems, partnerships, and capabilities that allow others to create far greater impact than we could ever create alone. Success isn’t just what we achieve directly. It’s what we enable others to achieve.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
I don’t believe the fundamental problem is that people don’t want to be generous. People care, and they want to help. The challenge is making sure there is a trusted, efficient, and accessible ecosystem that makes it easy for people to act on that generosity.
First, continue investing in trust. Trust is the foundation of giving. Nonprofits need public confidence, and donors need confidence that their contributions are reaching legitimate organizations. Transparency, strong governance, and accountability strengthen the entire social impact ecosystem.
Second, focus on removing friction. We live in a world where people can do almost anything instantly, yet charitable giving can still be unnecessarily complex. We should continue using technology, improving processes, and modernizing the infrastructure behind philanthropy so it becomes easier and faster for more people to give and for more resources to reach communities in need.
Third, prioritize collaboration. Many of the challenges communities face are systemic, and no one sector will solve them alone. Nonprofits, businesses, governments, individuals, and communities all bring something unique to the table. We need less time operating in silos and more time building partnerships around shared goals.
We don’t have to convince people to care. They already do. Our opportunity is to make it easier for them to act on that care and to help make those actions as impactful as possible.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
I define leadership as creating the conditions for others to succeed.
Early in our careers, I think it’s easy to equate leadership with expertise, authority, or having the right answer. Over time, I’ve come to believe leadership is much more about influence than position. It’s about bringing people together around a shared purpose, helping them see what’s possible and empowering them to achieve more collectively than they could individually.
I learned that early from that manager at the ITU who consistently approached me with the question, “How can I help you succeed?” That has stayed with me throughout my career. As a leader, my role is to create clarity, remove obstacles, build trust, and help individuals and teams do their best work.
Leadership also requires vulnerability. There can be pressure to project certainty at all times, but trust is often built when leaders are willing to say, “I don’t know,” listen to different perspectives, and learn alongside their teams. Some of the strongest leaders I know are also the most curious. They listen more, ask better questions, and create space for honest dialogue.
Ultimately, I think leaders thrive because the people they’ve empowered along the way are thriving.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1. Success and significance aren’t the same thing. Early in my career, I was focused on achievement: promotions, recognition, hitting goals, and checking those traditional boxes of success. There is nothing wrong with any of those things. But over time, I realized those accomplishments become much more meaningful when they are connected to a larger purpose.
My experience in Kenya helped shape that perspective. People who had relatively few resources demonstrated extraordinary generosity, resilience, and community. It changed how I thought about meaningful work and, frankly, a meaningful life. I’m still very driven by results, but I’m equally, if not more, motivated by impact. Success asks, “What did I achieve?” Significance asks, “Who benefited because I was here?” I wish I had understood that distinction earlier.
2. You don’t have to have all the answers. There can be tremendous pressure as a leader to be the smartest person in the room, solve every problem, and immediately provide the answer. Some of my best decisions have come when I stopped talking and started listening.
I’ve learned to surround myself with incredibly smart people who bring different experiences and perspectives to the table. If you rush toward the first answer, you can miss a better solution. Leadership is often less about having the answer and more about asking the right questions. Curiosity is more valuable than certainty.
3. Relationships are your greatest assets. Opportunities come from trusted relationships, collaboration becomes easier because of them, and when challenges inevitably arrive, the strength of those relationships can make all the difference.
A coach once encouraged me to think intentionally about my “sphere of influence.” She told me to consider the people within that sphere, assess the strength of those relationships, and invest in the ones that needed attention. That advice stayed with me. The important thing is that you build those relationships long before you need anything from them. I’ve tried to be very intentional throughout my career about creating positive, mutually respectful relationships, professionally and personally. Relationships really do make the difference.
4. Create space to think. I call it “white space.” We often equate productivity with constant activity and feel like we need to fill every minute of every day. But growth and good thinking often happen in the spaces between all that activity.
I once had an assistant who put 30-minute blocks on my calendar simply labeled “Breathe.” It was the first time someone essentially told me, “You cannot have every minute of your calendar filled.” That small intervention changed the way I work. Now I’m intentional about creating white space, whether that means horseback riding, going for a walk, or giving myself 30 minutes to think. Strategy requires thinking, not just doing.
5. Leadership is service. Leadership isn’t about being in the spotlight. It’s about removing obstacles, developing people, creating trust, and helping other people achieve their potential.
I love the concept of “climb and lift.” As you climb, you turn around and help lift the people coming behind you. The people who have had the greatest impact on my life haven’t necessarily been the people with the most power. They’ve been the people who invested in others. That’s ultimately how I hope my own leadership is measured: less by what I accomplished personally and more by the people I influenced, the opportunities I helped create, and the positive impact I left behind.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One I’ve carried with me for a very long time is the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
For me, that captures a fundamental truth about both leadership and social impact: Lasting change is rarely achieved by individuals acting alone.
It also connects to the philosophy of Ubumuntu, often expressed as “I am because we are.” At its core, Ubumuntu recognizes that our humanity and well-being are deeply connected to the well-being of others. It emphasizes community, mutual responsibility, and the belief that we can accomplish more together than we ever could alone.
That idea has followed me throughout much of my adult and professional life, from my early experiences in Kenya to a deeply meaningful visit to Rwanda, where I saw community and collective responsibility in an entirely different way. It has also shaped the way I lead. Most of the accomplishments I’m proudest of have been collective, with talented people working together around a shared purpose.
It’s also incredibly relevant to our work at The Blackbaud Giving Fund. Our impact comes from connecting an entire ecosystem of generosity. Donors, companies, and nonprofits can each make a difference individually, but when you connect them, the potential for impact becomes so much greater.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
There are a lot of people I’d love to sit down with, but given the role I’m in today, I would choose Melinda French Gates.
Her work sits at the intersection of philanthropy, systems change, and human impact. What I find particularly interesting is that she doesn’t focus only on addressing an immediate need. She also looks at the systems influencing outcomes at scale and how those systems can be improved. That perspective resonates deeply with me and with the work we do at The Blackbaud Giving Fund. Lasting social impact requires more than good intentions. It requires trusted infrastructure, fewer barriers, strong partnerships, and conditions that allow people and organizations to thrive. I admire how she champions that kind of long-term, systemic thinking while keeping people at the center of the work. I imagine we’d have a lot to talk about.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would come back to Ubumuntu and create a movement around everyday generosity: helping people see themselves not simply as donors, volunteers, or employees, but as active participants in strengthening their communities.
I think there’s a misconception that meaningful change is someone else’s responsibility. We look to governments, nonprofits, corporations, or philanthropists to solve incredibly complex societal challenges. Those institutions absolutely have important roles to play, but lasting change also happens when individuals recognize their own capacity to contribute.
Generosity isn’t reserved for people with tremendous wealth, influence, or resources. We often talk about giving through time, talent, and treasure, and I think that idea is incredibly powerful. Generosity can mean donating money, but it can also mean volunteering your time, sharing your expertise, mentoring someone, advocating for a cause, making a connection, or simply choosing kindness.
Imagine the ripple effect if millions of people intentionally did something every day that improved someone else’s life or strengthened their community. Those individual actions may feel small, but collectively they can become incredibly powerful.
That’s what Ubumuntu means to me: “I am because we are.” We are all connected to the communities around us, and we all have something we can contribute. If we could turn that belief into collective action and generosity at scale, I think the possibilities for meaningful change would be extraordinary.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Visit BlackbaudgGivingFund.org to learn more about the Fund’s impact and fundraising tactics and strategies. We’re also on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
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