California Assembly Bill 488

Beginning January 1, 2024, Blackbaud is prohibited from assisting organizations not in “good standing” in California with making charitable solicitations to and receiving funds from California residents. If your organization is not in “good standing”:

  • Consult your legal advisor for guidance.

  • You should suppress California residents from your charitable email solicitations.

  • Some transactions, like donations, made through Blackbaud solutions from California residents will no longer be accepted.

All U.S. charitable organizations that operate or solicit donations in California must maintain "good standing" in California, even if they’re organized elsewhere. For more information or to check your status, see California Assembly Bill 488: Impact to Charitable Organizations.

While you work to reinstate your “good standing,” you’re prohibited from soliciting donations from California residents. To suppress California residents from solicitation emails, Create a query that excludes constituents with a California or blank address.

  1. In the database view, from Query, create a constituent query and filter for records to include as email recipients.

  2. Create a query of constituents with a California or blank address using the following filters:

    • Addresses > Preferred Address > Preferred State equals California

    • OR Addresses > Preferred Address > Preferred State is blank

  3. From Query, select New Query List, and open the query of email recipients.

  4. Select Remove from List, A Group of Constituents, and then select the query of constituents with a California or blank address.

  5. Remove the constituents and save the query.

After you create the query, you can use the query to send email from Online Express.

  1. In Online Express, from the Email Marketing dashboard, create an email. For more information, see Create Emails.

  2. On the Get ready to send tab, under Recipient list, select the query that excludes constituents with California or blank addresses.

    Note: If the queries in your list haven’t been run in the past 10 minutes or more, we’ll refresh your list for you when you click Send message so your list will be up-to-date.

  3. Select Send message.