Raiser's Edge NXT is cloud fundraising and constituent relationship management software from Blackbaud.
N/A
Bloomerang CRM
Score 9.1 out of 10
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Bloomerang CRM helps nonprofits to raise more by turning donor data into deeper relationships. With a complete 360º view of every supporter, the solution helps identify top prospects, personalize outreach, and retain more donors. Engagement and Generosity Scores, real-time dashboards, and mobile access help users to see who’s ready to give and when to reach out—supporting fundraising with confidence. From first-time donors to lifelong champions, every interaction is an opportunity…
$1,500
per year
Pricing
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT
Bloomerang CRM
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Bloomerang Fundraising
$40
per month (billed annually)
Bloomerang Volunteer
$119
per month (billed annually)
Bloomerang CRM
$125
per month (billed annually)
The Giving Platform
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT
Bloomerang CRM
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
Required
Optional
Additional Details
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All Plans include: Unlimited users, free email & chat support, free access to Bloomerang Academy, unlimited standard online giving pages & forms, donor engagement scoring, wealth screening, sustainability scorecard, email marketing, nightly address verification & deceased suppression updates, and 1 scholarship to Fundraising Standard (40 pts toward CFRE certification, $599 value)
We used Bloomerang, which is similarly easy to access and view, but has much more limited capability with reporting options and segmenting lists for email marketing
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT is superior to both Sage Fundraising 50 and Bloomerang, which are both very different products but combine what I like about both databases. It offers both the online cloud-based database options and ease of use and the database view which offers the …
I was not a decision-maker in selecting either product. Boomerang was an excellent cost-effective option for a smaller nonprofit with less sophisticated needs. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT would not have been a fit in that environment, and Boomerang is not robust enough for my …
We originally selected Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT as it was promised to be a great solution for us. In addition, Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT was supposed to ultimately incorporate many of the features of the database view. Several years later, we have seen very few upgrades …
Companies that built their products with a user-end web-view experience in mind, as opposed to re-imagining the database in the cloud, seem to have a slight advantage with more intuitive interaction for the user. Raiser's Edge, though, has been the gold standard in fundraising …
In 2018, the organization that I work for will be changing donor database platforms. Over the past 6 months I have evaluated several softwares and will be moving on from all Blackbaud products - including NXT.
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.
I love being able to see when I log in what my donor retention is and what percentage I have achieved in my fundraising goal. It is extremely beneficial to know how engaged each donor and volunteer is with my organization and to have all interactions and notes with those …
Bloomerang was a better choice for this particular nonprofit because their conversion team was thorough and helpful, customer support was good, and the system was easy for staff to learn and implement, especially in comparison with the experience of nonprofits who have used …
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.
If you are a small organization just getting started, Bloomerang can be a good fit. It is simple and straightforward for development staff who maybe aren’t super savvy with data management or analysis in spreadsheets. In the sales demo they will try to upsell a lot of extras that are ultimately not necessary unless your stuff is very unfamiliar with database software. The base price of the software is something like $300 per year, as long as you mix all of the training and phone support add-ons they initially present you with.
Reporting: Once I understood the logic behind Bloomerang's reporting tools, I could not believe I'd ever worked a different way. Some of our funders request very complicated reports and getting the relevant data out of Bloomerang is SO much easier than it was with our previous CRM tools.
Website integration: I love the tracking functionality that Bloomerang offers, as well as how easy it is to integrate event ticket, volunteer, and other forms into our existing website.
Intuitive design: I've introduced total novices to Bloomerang and been very impressed with how quickly they've been able to figure out all the top level navigation as well as deeper functionality.
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.
I don't know for sure what we'll do, and I wouldn't publicly share that anyways. Speaking only for myself, I wouldn't jump for joy if I was given the task of transferring CRM providers when this org has a Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT database that's 28 years old, but being aware of what's on the market is always responsible. With the planned functionality updates to Web View over 2025-2026, the phasing out of features in database view, and the changes to contract structure laid out in investor updates, there's a lot of factors that could change in the next few years. And Blackbaud has not made it clear how much work the transfer to Web View only will be for us over the next couple years: It means updating all of our policies and procedures and all of our documentation and retraining all of our employees at minimum, and that's assuming that all existing fields and features remain accessible without modification.
#1 - I am very happy with the product and support so far. #2 - With significant data migration costs, I wouldn't even consider another option for at least 3 years no matter how much better it might be.
Learning the overall useability of Blackbaud Raiser's Edge is a fairly steep learning curve, however, the support team that Blackbaud Raiser's Edge employs are top notch, helpful and very knowledgeable. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge also maintains an extensive library of articles that are very helpful, as well a useful tutorials, including step-by-step articles as well as instructional videos. With these tools at your disposal you will be competent in no time
Data and settings are very customizable to fit the needs of our organization. We are able to not only keep track of donations, but also other interactions we may have with a constituent. Support is extremely helpful when issues arise.
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.
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.
You are better off using the user community or Facebook group to get answers than the support provided by Blackbaud. Oftentimes, support reps are not even aware that new features are being rolled out, nor do they have fundraising experience so you end up explaining more to the rep about what you are trying to accomplish and why than getting to the issue.
Any time i had a problem or question it has been easy to find an answer or tutorial. When I cannot find an answer, it is easy to email or live chat with support and they resolve my problems very quickly.
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.
The content is solid, but for those who benefit from in-person interactions, it can be a bit challenging. While the online format is great for flexibility and accessibility, there’s something about face-to-face training that makes it easier to absorb and ask questions in real-time. Overall, though, it’s a solid resource for self-paced learning.
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.
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.
We left DonorPerfect for Bloomerang. I had come from an organization that used Raisers Edge and there was no way I was going to stay with DP. RE is great for larger organizations with staff dedicated to the database, but we were a much smaller organization and needed to have something we could all use easily. We demoed Salsa and Neon and liked them both, but Bloomerang had better integration features and seemed to be the most user-friendly.
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.
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.
Because my organization has been using Bloomerang for only one year, we haven't yet studied what impact it has had on our ROI. We have, however, noted that we are able to more efficiently and more rapidly communicate with constituents now than we were able to before we had Bloomerang. We can quickly and efficiently generate acknowledgements and tax receipts - and do so - better than we ever did before.
