Likelihood to Recommend As I mentioned, cost is prohibitive for us. Because it is highly customizable, it is very powerful, but if you are looking for an intuitive, easy to use solution right "out of the box" solution because you have few staff and no IT dept. this may not be the best fit (unless they develop some lower cost / less customizable options?). That being said, we have managed to implement successfully with no IT. I completed the implementation, code the application and online reporting forms (using HTML) and use Blueprint to customize what we need, but it has been a big learning curve and an investment of time to manage the back end of the program. I will say that training new general users is pretty straight forward so their ability to search for information they need and quickly is greatly enhanced. The automatic customized reports and reminders are pretty great, and the overall integrity of our processes and data are greatly improved. Sometimes we wonder if it is overly complex and if there is a way e could "hide" more of the aspects that are not relevant to us, or that we are not using, so we can have a cleaner interface.
Read full review I think this product is well-suited for educational institutions, both at the private high school level and the higher education level. It covers a lot of ground in terms of recording information, and you have a lot of ability to tailor the software to your needs. I think there's some room for growth in terms of recording DEI information. Organizations who have very small staff may not want to consider this product because they might not have the time to take advantage of all the capabilities NXT has.
Read full review Pros We like to create our own numbering system and Blackbaud Grantmaking allows us that flexibility. When we were having issues with items being in numerical order the tech support was amazing. Creating your own forms is very important for us. We have several different donors and we have a grant application form and a report form for each one. They are easy to create as well as update and access. Alternative ways to hunt for information. I can access a grant by the organization name, project name, grant number or even the name of the person who submitted the grant application. This is critical in a case where the program officer has a nickname for the grant (you can include that as well in the profile) and can't remember anything else. Read full review Tracks history of gifts and makes it easy to see giving over time, also good at organizing and accessing complete constituent information around contact information, displaying gifts with date and designations, restrictions etc.. NXT provides easy access to analytics and reports to share for specific dates etc. to support decision making and planning Display format and organization of analytical information is very intuitive and easy to navigate and helpful in developing reports for presentations. Read full review Cons Application linking process is time consuming System enhancement ideas must be submitted to a community portal and other users must take the initiative to vote on their favorite ideas instead of vendor programmers collecting received ideas and doing the work themselves. Lack of conditional logic in online application Communication with other Blackbaud products notably Employee Volunteering and Engagement (fka AngelPoints) Read full review Reporting tools are not flexible enough to cover our needs The import/update tools do not cover all data points (e.g. fund relationships) If there isn't a way to do something in RE, you're forced to come up with your own solution - support does not help in this regard Read full review Likelihood to Renew As long as there is continued development in the product allowing us to create efficiencies, streamline operations, deliver on our reporting requirements and the usability for internal and external partners remains strong we would have no reason to look elsewhere from a systems perspective. If costs changed substantially we'd have to look at different options to meet our cost savings objectives.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Usability There is room for improvement and the development of the software seem slow. As customers, we hear a lot about what's in development and promises of new features rolling out. However, it feels like those developments take a really long time to show up in they system for my day-to-day use.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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.
Read full review Performance 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.
Read full review Support Rating When it was microwaves they were a lot more Hands-On assistance, but since merging they have better tracking of the issues.
Read full review The support hat Blackbaud can be iffy at times. When they are busy they must hire on a large temporary worker pool to help support and often times they are not capable of answering the right questions and delaying the process for your solution to be complete. When it is not the busy time, most things get answered in a normal rate.
Read full review In-Person Training 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.
Read full review Online Training For the most part, the instructors who teach the online courses are very knowledgeable and personable. I will say that the instructor-led classes, which are the only actually helpful form of online training offered by Blackbaud, are likely prohibitively expensive for many, especially if you have multiple team members who need to be trained. One-off classes do not necessarily provide the best return on investment as you may not have selected the best class for the training that you're looking for, or you may sign up for a class that is taught by a poor instructor (which is rare) and you'll find yourself needing or wanting to take it again. The only other option is to sign a multi-year contract which is, again, expensive, and may be more than you need. There are definite gaps in some of the course offerings as Blackbaud
Raiser's Edge NXT is relatively new. Most of the classes also require a time commitment of one and a half to three hours, which could be more than your staff can spare.
Read full review Implementation Rating Preparing and cleaning up your data prior to implementation, will make the process much smoother and easier. Garbage in, garbage out.
Read full review Blackbaud was with us every step of the way during the migration of our data to the newer version of the software. They made it as easy as possible, and the huge task that it was was made much easier with their help.
Read full review Alternatives Considered At the time that I used GrantedGE, the product was in the development stages and there were a lot of bugs and issues with functionality. The customer service didn't have the bandwidth to quickly respond to issues. BlackBaud's customer service and history in the field are advantages
Read full review There just is no system as robust and capable as Raiser's Edge NXT. It's ability to track anything you'd like, give you space to create custom fields (attributes) and utilize fields in different ways than intended give it the extra advatage that we hadn't seen in other products. It's got a vast network of plug ins that help automation features as well.
Read full review Contract Terms and Pricing Model 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.
Read full review Scalability 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.
Read full review Return on Investment It has increased our return on reaching our business objectives. It has moved us (or started to move us) to a better place in reporting and transparency. It has helped us transition from an act of corporate giving to a goal of social change. Read full review Time management, saved time with data, resulting in a cost savings of 20% Made reporting easy with processing donor gifts and recording them approximately Improved fundraising as the preferred platform and increased donations by 15% Attained a holistic approach to identifying prospective donors Read full review ScreenShots Blackbaud Grantmaking Screenshots Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT Screenshots