Designed for large, complex organizations as well as federated and international nonprofits.
N/A
Blackbaud eTapestry
Score 3.4 out of 10
N/A
Blackbaud eTapestry is a donor management solution that helps growing nonprofits build a stable foundation for success, beat fundraising goals, and catalyze growth. eTapestry boasts more than 6,000 nonprofits and institutions as users, who manage and track fundraising performance, engage new supporters, and maximize existing donor relationships with the software.
$115
per month Usage based per constituent record
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Raiser's Edge NXT is cloud fundraising and constituent relationship management software from Blackbaud.
Blackbaud CRM is more robust and has better functionality. It is necessary for a bigger fundraising shop. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge and NXT worked well in smaller organizations with fewer users and fewer donors/prospects. RE was more affordable than CRM was for the smaller …
Blackbaud is a big name brand, that has a lot of options for your organization. Since it has different layers, you have the ability to seek support from all of those layers whenever. There are organizations all around the world, so you have the ability to join support groups …
While Salesforce for Nonprofits is great, Blackbaud CRM is built from the bones up for nonprofits. It doesn't borrow from sales-model CRMs yet incorporates many/most of the great features in a standard CRM.
eTapestry was the database in use when my boss and I came on board. We did evaluations in terms of price and capabilites and it wasn't worth it to switch. Many other databases were much more expensive, did not offer similar services, and were not as user-friendly. The Blackbaud …
Assistant Director of Annual Giving and Stewardship Manager
Chose Blackbaud eTapestry
We use this suite of products in our entire division. It helps us with reports and donor management, and it is very helpful on a day-to-day basis. I enjoy the ease of use as well as the product offerings available. I would recommend using this in your development office.
Blackbaud eTapestry is more user friendly for all members of the department. You don't have to be as data-minded to understand the information you put in. The cost is also a huge factor in being the perfect option for smaller organizations. You can increase the number of …
I very much prefer eTapestry to Raiser's Edge. I found the separation between the database and web view of Raiser's Edge very disorienting and didn't like having to switch back and forth between the two views to be able to complete certain tasks. I REALLY didn't like that a few …
we were trying to consolidate eTapestry, our donation and event ticketing platform and our email marketing service. RE NXT would certainly have been an upgrade to eTapestry but did not offer the full functionality we were looking for.
I have used Raisers Edge at a former workplace. I absolutely loved Raisers Edge, however, that organization was much larger and needed a platform with the ability to maintain a very large donor count. While more complicated to use than eTap, and far more powerful, I feel …
I was not involved in the selection of Blackbaud eTapestry. However, in comparing it to my experience with Raiser's Edge, this program is more user-friendly despite the learning curve battle of the query and reports section of eTapestry.
Blackbaud eTapestry is not as robust as Blackbaud Raiser's Edge. However, eTapestry provides strong value for the cost. It is much less expensive than using Raiser's Edge.
Raiser's Edge NXT is like eTapestry on steroids. That being said, eTapestry is useful and serves its purpose as long as you're not trying to create complicated compound queries and need the ability to filter lists in real time. We selected eTapestry for its lower purchase price …
Blackbaud eTapestry is easier to use than the old Raiser's Edge - it is more intuitive and modern in its front end and back end. Aside from Bloomerang's extensive donor analytics features and a wide array of integrations, I would say the donor management capabilities are fairly …
Raiser's Edge is a Blackbaud product. It is one of the reasons we went with Blackbaud eTapestry. Raiser's Edge was too much for what the school needed. Raiser's Edge is great but would be way too expensive for us to use as a collaborative of schools.
We have less than 10,000 records in our donor database. eTapestry continues to be the best solution because of its ease of use, and Blackbaud's customer service. Any time we have a question or issue it is resolved quickly and efficiently. In addition, we are happy with …
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT is a much more thorough system than Blackbaud eTapestry and offers more possibilities for your donor database. The variety of modules available allows you to tailor your package to your organization's needs. OneCause is great for auctions and other …
I have been in only two other non-profit organizations since my current place of employment. The first system we bought under my decision was Blackbaud eTapestry before it was part of Blackbaud. That purchase was made in 2007 and was still in use when I moved to a larger …
I think Raiser's Edge NXT, in comparison to Blackbaud eTapestry, is more robust. We selected NXT because while eTapestry is great for donor management, NXT takes it to the next level by allowing more engagement with donors. NXT has more available, so you do not have to …
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT has much more functionality, which can be good when you have the capacity to utilize it.
Verified User
Manager
Chose Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT
I used CRM when I was at a much larger organization. It was great and more customizable but not necessary for an organization the size that I'm currently at. CRM and NXT have many similarities, but CRM is much more robust.
We selected NXT because of the features we had been told about. We have been a Blackbaud customer for years. Our consultant told us we would see an increase in donations and the system would be like adding another employee. It definitely was not. We have since changed back to …
NXT has a similar, accessible interface and intuitive process to eTapestry, but offers more advanced and robust options. (As an eTap user, though, I held RE in a bit of awe as the more advanced, expensive option. Now using NXT, I do see the advantages but they're not as extreme …
Upgraded level of accessibility and features. We are able to do so much more and be up to date on our system as well as current to trends that are happening right now.
We have a mix of both direct mail and online donor base and Blackbaud Raiser's Edge/Raiser's Edge NXT provides the right-size product to manage all of the different channels and the processes involved in managing them. The canned reporting is also very helpful when creating …
The database view component is the best in class, but with an old and outdated interface. The web view is modern looking and slick, but without the powerful capabilities needed for a modern fundraising office. Despite these limitations, the ability to customize is a huge …
NXT has a more user-friendly interface than RE and CRM. I have found that the gift officers are much more comfortable with NXT than the others. When recording and displaying donor data and giving, I think NXT is far more potent than either Salsa or Salesforce's Nonprofit …
We use both NXT and the original Raiser's Edge. They both have their pros and cons. Original (database view) has more robust querying available, but the display is awful and it takes a lot of hunting to find the information you need. NXT is more streamlined and efficient, but …
As I stated before, RE is the most comprehensive and robust CRM and non-profit software solution on the market, yet perhaps out of the reach of smaller non-profits and schools, thus allowing smaller and more generic programs to occupy the ever-changing fundraising world.
eTapestry and Little Green Light are both very flexible and customizable, but neither is as robust as RE in terms of reporting, setting performance metrics, integrating with a Finance department, or creating a moves management system. CRM is quite extensive, good for the very …
I have used the product Daxko in the past and now am using Raiser's Edge, I have also used eTapestry. All of these products work with the non-profit organizations and I feel provide excellent service and are competitive in pricing.
It works well enough for fundraising purposes and donor tracking. I think it would be less appropriate for instances or industries where you don't need so many data points on someone. You are able to attach a lot of information to a record so if you don't need that info (simply need contact info for example) you might want a simpler system
As we are a small Foundation with only one Administrative Assistant, eTapestry is perfect for me to keep all of our CRM. Once I got used to how it worked, I found it to be user friendly. If I have any problems, I can either try to find the answer for myself in the extensive library, chat to support or email our Customer Service Representative with questions. I cannot fault either the Support team or Customer Service Representatives I have dealt with over the years as all of them have been knowledgeable and extremely helpful. I would prefer to have better options within the Email section as the templates are very basic. There is another option to use an eTapestry partner, but there are additional costs involved in that. The email templates are OK to use if you wish to send quick information to your database.
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT is great for a small organization that just needs to track their giving. It will house data and give you some output that can help inform strategy. However, if you really want the system to work for you, you desperately need someone who is tech savvy, detail oriented, and strategy minded. Almost nothing is set up for you at the beginning. You will need to build a lot of the reports, dashboards, and queries yourself. If you've used the system for a while, anything you build will eventually fail because of how often Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT changes things in the system. This system is great for organizations that are small and simple.
Accessing in-depth data for a single constituent is easily done and customizable by user working with "tiles" on the home screen
Generating lists of possible prospects with specific similarities can be done with a few clicks and then stored for more research later
well designed relationship options allow for a a look at specific constituents and how they might relate to other constituents in the system leading to more effective prospecting
Screens can be easily customized by user or user group eliminating irrelevant data and presenting only truly relevant information
Certain aspects of Blackbaud are oddly non-customizable.
Blackbaud updates/support is slow and often ineffective - our organization switched to Microsoft 365, which is apparently incompatible with Blackbaud. Help/support recommended clunky workarounds that don't actually work, rather than proactively enhancing compatibility
There should be a flag in constituent search to show which people in the results list are deceased.
Query isn't very user friendly. It should be simple to locate the information that you want to pull, and add parameters to that information. Instead you have to write multiple queries to set parameters, then write a query that looks at those other queries. It's time-consuming and easy to make mistakes, and the knowledge/proficiency is difficult to explain or transfer to new staff.
Blackbaud generally just feels like its technology is outdated. It wasn't built for the needs of a modern organization, and its developers have failed to make the necessary improvements over time to stay competitive.
When I started using eTapestry, you had to pay for courses to learn how to do more complicated things in the database. These courses were fairly expensive and our small organization couldn't afford that. I had to figure a lot out on my own or using the tech folks in chat or the odd free thing. Not sure if the courses are still costly or not.
It is not particularly user friendly--for example, you would think the drag and drop email template would be pretty straightforward but it is not! And there aren't built in instructions to help as you try to use things.
Figuring out how to organize queries and reports and communications in folders in order to find things again has been challenging. It is possible to search on keywords, which is very helpful. But finding something in a list of queries that is not alphabetical isn't particularly easy.
There is so much missing functionality in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT (webview) compared to database view - whilst they repeatedly tell us to switch to webview we simply can't due to crucial functionality that is missing.
In our experience, there are a lot of false promises made, particularly when renewing contracts etc, about what functionality is coming soon to webview - particularly regarding the optional modules such as Volunteering.
An increased focus from Blackbaud and all their marketing about pushing third party vendors for certain activities (email marketing being a big one!) all of which come at an additional cost. Although these integrate into Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, I would prefer Blackbaud to focus on making its own functionality up to standard rather than integrating costly 3rd party platforms.
In my experience, Support for the platform has got worse over the years - I have been waiting over six months to resolve a technical issue which is hampering our use of the functionality.
Inability to create letters within the system (which used to be a feature in RE7 database view) is a huge issue for our supporter base who still appreciate paper-based acknowledgement letters.
We've covered a lot, but mostly because we are happy with the system overall. There are a few kinks, and sometimes it takes a minute to figure out the right wording to pull a report or the best way to code a new category that we want to track. But Blackbaud is always there to help us, and once things are figured out - they are super simple to replicate. It wouldn't be worth it to switch to a new system and lose of all our information and time put in to mastering the system
We do not always get positive solutions from Etapestry. There are a lot of resources and solutions that you can read about and reach out to. I participate in Community Forums and trainings to see what we can be doing differently.
We have a lot invested in NXT and it suits our needs perfectly. There would be no reason for us to consider a needless conversion to a new solution. I do not believe there is any other product on the market that would be worth considering.
It is an excellent database! There isn't a database on the market which is perfect for everyone but this one is very very close and does most of what we need.
eTapestry was the first donor database I had ever used and always found it to be much easier to use and administer than the databases I was used to (patient care and payroll databases). The rare times I can't figure out how to do something, I just hope on the chat and someone from the team pleasantly walks me through the process. If it's something that database is incapable of doing, they encourage me to log my suggestion in the idea bank so it can be considered for enhancements. On top of that, the regular training provided allows you to continue building your skills within the database
NXT seems easy to learn on a relatively deep level. There are glitches, like with everything, but it is usually easy to see where they are, most of time. I like that Development staff can choose what they want to see and where they want to see it, and it doesn’t affect my screen.
I have never had an issue accessing eTapestry. It does occasionally go down for maintenance. When that happens, they give you a lot of notice and generally schedule maintenance for hours between midnight and 6am so that business won't be disrupted.
The only reason I cannot give a 10 is because like all web based products, internet connection is required and that is not something that can be counted on 100% of the time. When the internet connection is stable, I have had little to no issues using Raiser's Edge.
The product does what it is supposed to, although there are downsides. There are positive and negatives for every product. This is less expensive alternative for a small organization tracking minimum information.
NXT itself is a pretty simple interface, and is great for front-line fundraisers to be able to look up info and run some simple "reports"/analysis. It's very quick and intuitive, but the back-end attached to it (RE 7.96) may have connectivity issues from time to time. NXT itself, though, is simple enough that issues are rare.
I have not personally had to reach out to Blackbaud CRM Support, because we have a central office that manages the Blackbaud CRM relationship. However, any time I've reached out to our support team, there is nothing they can't figure out by utilizing the support they receive from Blackbaud CRM. I've not had any issues that have gone unresolved, and they can always get things done in a timely fashion.
My favorite feature is the Live Chat. If we get stuck, we can get immediate help, download the chat and save it for later so if we need help again we have it on file. The Knowledge Database is also extremely helpful.
Overall I feel like I receive sufficient assistance when reaching out to Blackbaud's Support area. When my questions cannot be answered completely during an online chat I appreciate the ability to easily access the ongoing notes so everything is together. It can be frustrating at times, though, as emailing back and forth seems to make solutions take longer.
When you get a good, knowledgeable person for in-person training, you can't beat it! Hands on, real time, questions answered on the spot. And they want to make sure you get what you needed before leaving. To also have dedicated time without other distractions is very important to the learning process in my opinion.
They explained everything well to us throughout the process. It was easy to find resources needed to answer any questions that we had. Support was also available should we need further assistance from the resources found online. They were also quick to respond to our teams inquiries, which was much appreciated.
The instructors were knowledgeable and provided the insight needed for both new users and more seasoned veterans to grow in their knowledge of the product and the features that Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT provides. The learning curve for this product is steep and training is essential. The training available definitely provides the necessary tools to build a foundation upon as well as further ones knowledge of the product.
Most of our issues were self-inflicted and related to BB's work. We did not "staff up" correctly, our data to be converted was not in great shape and we set some unreasonable goals. With BBs help we were able to clean our data and prep it for conversion and we adjusted the goals to be more achievable with the timeline we were given. We found the BB staff to be responsive and focused, especially when working on-site with us.
I was not there for the implementation of this platform. Unfortunately I am unable to just skip this question as it requires a response, which needs to be fifty characters, so here we are. At thirty four, I need to add a few more words to satisfy this requirement. Done.
Training is key. Blackbaud offered the training package prior to implementation and it helped us understand how to build it so that the future use would be appropriate to the operation of the organization. Data conversion stage was also very important. A lot of work must be done before making the final decisions about the data conversion - what data to convert and what to leave out, where certain information was supposed to be placed within RE.
Blackbaud CRM is more robust and has better functionality. It is necessary for a bigger fundraising shop. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge and NXT worked well in smaller organizations with fewer users and fewer donors/prospects. RE was more affordable than CRM was for the smaller organization.
We have researched 2-3 other donor platforms and we just aren't at a place to change, although we are very tempted. eTapestry is getting us by for now and we don't look forward to the day when we have to change platforms and have to change things for our monthly donors. We worry about attrition if our donors have to change platforms.
I have not used other products like this before. I have used and created some SQL databases and ERPs, but have not used fundraising-specific software such as Raiser's Edge. Based on what I know from other products vaguely similar to this - databases and ERPs - this is very user friendly and easy to pick up for anyone, especially with their NXT webview offering.
Pricing really seems to be all over the place, and everything else you need is an extra add-on cost. The biggest issue is training. Options are limited unless you subscribe and pay for it across your contract.
New features are constantly being added to Raiser's Edge NXT that expand its capabilities. Features such as constituent mapping and easily accessible actions allow for more in-depth analysis of existing constituents. The future ability to manipulate soft-credits and customize reporting dashboards will make NXT even more attractive to our fundraisers and executives. It's great to see that the software is evolving.
Change is always expensive and painful, but CRM is worth the time and effort. One immediate benefit is improved transparency internally, especially for internal accounting, controls, and compliance departments.
Cloud hosting helps cut cost and demand on organization staff. Improves access and meets compliance on every level.
Ability to make global changes to recording donor phone communication makes it a one-stop resource for a well-run development team.
Having everything in one system means that information is much more likely to be up to date. We hardly get any returned mail from the post office when we pull lists.
Our gift officers can easily pull up donor information on their phones while out on a visit, giving them the edge they need to close a gift.
Information tiles on a person's record that are easy to reorganize and collapse per the needs of each user makes finding pertinent information quick.
