A non-profit social services agency in Florida has been hit by a data breach after a security incident affected one of its outside vendors.
Pace Center for Girls has issued a warning to its supporters after the organization discovered some of its data had been affected by a May security breach at Blackbaud.
South Carolina–based cloud computing provider Blackbaud had been engaged by the Pace Center as a fundraising and donor software provider.
Mary Marx, president and CEO of Pace, said that while the Center's internal record-keeping had not been affected by the breach, some information belonging to its donors and fundraisers had been impacted.
Data affected included donors’ names, physical addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, and donor profile information, such as giving history.
“We don't keep credit card information or Social Security information on our database," said Marx.
Pace is one of the more than 200 organizations that have been impacted by the Blackbaud security incident. Other victims include the Boy Scouts of America, the National Trust, and more than ten universities in the UK, US, and Australia.
“We wanted to make you aware of a security breach experienced by our fundraising and donor software provider, Blackbaud, that was reported to us in mid-July,” Pace told its donors and fundraisers in an email dated August 5.
“Our team worked on the system with them to find out what happened.”
The Center said it was maintaining communications with Blackbaud “to ensure we can be immediately informed of any further developments."
Following the breach, Pace said it "will be rolling out additional intensive authentication processes to further protect our data.” The non-profit already uses encryption to protect all sensitive information.
The Pace Center for Girls was set up in 1985 to provide education, counseling, training, and advocacy to girls and young women as an alternative to institutionalization or incarceration.
Today, Pace serves over 3,000 girls a year through 21 centers dotted throughout Florida.
Marx said that the funding Pace relies on to deliver its services comes from a collection of approximately 30,000 donors that includes corporations, foundations, and individuals.