Raiser's Edge NXT is cloud fundraising and constituent relationship management software from Blackbaud.
N/A
Bonterra EveryAction
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Bonterra EveryAction enables nonprofits to increase efficiency, optimize supporter and prospect interactions, and raise more money by providing expansive fundraising, digital, and organizing tools on a unified CRM.
Raiser's Edge NXT is geared to nonprofits so there isn't anything to build unlike salesforce or some others. They have been in the space a long time and have evolved along with the sector. Their longevity, the integration with Financial Edge NXT are the major drivers of …
The only other fundraising software I have used besides Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT was called Team Approach. It is no longer around, but the look and feel of it compared to database view was so similar, I had no trouble learning this software. Raiser's Edge feels intuitive, …
We have now begun using Bloomerang since they are cheaper. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT is a very expensive product. However, they are better than Bloomerang in a number of ways. Their soft credit functionality is immensely superior. Their global replace works on all data …
I switched organizations and went from using Salesforce to using Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT. Salesforce was incredibly complicated, but their education system is absolutely unmatched. Anything you need to learn, there is an opportunity to truly master it. Blackbaud Raiser's …
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT Integrates with SKY API to get these Microsoft Products. Microsoft SharePoint is a place to store my merged acknowledgement letters and acknowledgement envelopes from using my Microsoft Power Automate flow. Microsoft Power Automate works hand in hand …
Most elements are better in NXT, but one thing I enjoyed in the Talisma Donor 2 CRM was the display on each constituent record showing whether an emailer (sent through the platform) had been opened or not. I don’t believe I’ve seen the equivalent of this in NXT.
To be honest, we selected NXT years ago after having used etapestry for a long time. The sales pitch was great and promised lots of benefits and functions that weren’t necessarily true or cost extra. We are currently evaluating other (less expensive and more feature-rich …
Our organization has been using Raiser's edge for a very long time. The continuity of forty years of data provides a lot of inertia to move to a new product. I am concerned about the switch to purely NXT. I am hopeful that they will keep as much functionality as they say they …
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 …
Raiser's Edge NXT integrates well with the existing products we use like Outlook Email and Double the Donation. They are both integratable and streamline the process. Double the Donation integrates right on the donation form and Outlook as a Raiser's Edge button in the email to …
I used Millennium in a previous job and I found it simpler to use their relationship mapping, however, I appreciate the ability Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT provides to be able to customize.
Obviously, Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT does much more than what Eventbrite does, but when we were having trouble with our emails reaching people, we had to opt into Eventbrite as a supplemental form of communication that ensured that our messages did not end up in spam or …
As a dedicated CRM/Fundraising platform, Blackbaud Raiser's Edge (RE) drastically outcompetes the options available in FIMS and CommunitySuite. However, since RE lack's robust financials, we have to manually integrate/synchronize RE data with our core financial system. RE's …
I believe there isn't another product that provides you with everything RENXT does. I know that is built into the cost, but I still feel that it is a far superior product to DonorPerfect and other donor databases.
CiviCRM is an opensource product with very little cost, but it does not offer the level of detail at the constituent or gift levels that we need. Little Green Light is better than CiviCRM (in my opinion), but still doesn't offer the level of complexity that we get from …
RE-NXT is much more user friendly than Salesforce. Navigating the software took so many more mouse clicks and the pages were visually confusing. I will say that discontinuing or updating pledges/payment information on pledges was much easier, but that was the only good aspect …
We switched from Jenzabar which was a huge pain point for us. Our IT department had to write our reports but they did not have the capacity to manage everything by themselves. Jenzabar was able to store our data but retrieving it was a huge challenge even for someone with a …
We liked that we had used Bonterra products before and the interface was very similar with expanded capacity. ETO continues to be used by the agency as the main database for participant outcomes and data. We are able to easily share data between these systems. Our staff is also …
I have experience with both Mailchimp and Salesforce. Bonterra EveryAction provides a much simpler and more cost effective alternative to both of these platforms. The integration with NGP and Mobilize is a key feature for our organization. Without these integrations, we would …
I liked Action Network in that it was very user friendly. However, it didn't have the magnitude of features that EveryAction provides. But I appreciated the level of basic knowledge needed to use this to its extent of services. I kind of miss how easy it was to navigate and …
We replaced action network with Bonterra Development + Digital EveryAction because of the native integration into the voter activation network on NGP Van. It reduced the number of logins required, as well as the number of platforms we needed to maintain and have access to. The …
Nation Builder—I would say this is a very pared-down version of VAN that requires extensions and outside software to do about 80% of what VAN can do natively. NB does have a better geocoding system that can geocode a location with just the address and does not require …
In addition to the products listed above, I have also used many proprietary tools developed by the organization. I find Bonterra Development + Digital to be easy to setup and use, especially for smaller organizations with limited staff and resources. Many nonprofits are unable …
There's a bit more functionality that does not require coding with EveryAction compared to Tessitura. Blackbaud wasn't particularly user friendly and I probably would not use it again. I will say that I would want a mashup of Tessitura and EveryAction if I had my druthers, …
Our organization uses both SalesForce and EveryAction and the two programs work well together. SalesForce is our main database for maintaining donor and constituent information but does not allow us the ability to send mass emails, messages, and appeals. EveryAction is also …
I used Blackbaud at a University setting, which I believe was very appropriate. The database needed many people that were just in charge of keeping the database clean - so for a large organization, it worked well. However, for a small organization it would be far too complicated.
Blackbaud is a Cadillac, and not needed by most small nonprofits of 3 million or less in income. We looked at several prior to choosing EveryAction. We are very pleased with EveryAction but wish that the training was more involved from a corporate perspective and that customer …
Jotform is very user-friendly and easy to use, but the reporting features don't even come close to what EveryAction can do. The fact that you can schedule reports from EveryAction puts it on a whole other level than Jotform. I have also used databases like Sure Impact, mPact …
Both are fairly good databases to use for data. I believe EveryAction has a better interface when it comes to tracking engagements and conversations. Aristotle price is a tad better.
It's completely different in my opinion, it doesn't serve the same purposes as those and is unique in what it does for our organization. The only thing it's comparable is to Airtable in terms of collecting & organizing data.
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT is great for tracking and keeping donation and donor data up to date. I think, as a CRM, Blackbaud is great. However, I think pulling that data out of Blackbaud is more difficult than in some other CRMs. It may just be my lack of expertise, but I find that Blackbaud never pulls the information exactly the way I want to, and I have to spend a lot of time after pulling a report or export cleaning up the data to meet my requirements.
Bonterra EveryAction is a good CRM to use if your company has institutional fundraisers, grants, and individual fundraising, as it is suited to manage the processes that go along with all of those. I've heard that SalesForce has more functionality than Bonterra EveryAction, but I think that Bonterra EveryAction has plenty to learn and is extremely useful.
Some people find the Create A List tool more intuitive than other record-querying equivalents, which can make it easier for digital organizers to target and segment bulk emails, broadcast texts, door-knocking sheets, etc.
The ability to add custom fields on both Contact and Contribution records allows for some flexibility in making the system adapt to your organizing model
There aren't a lot of other tools out there that make phone banking quite as accessible
EveryAction's Email Series/Automations allow for some pretty sophisticated things to run mostly on their own, from welcome and reactivation series, to drip campaigns
For the most technical EveryAction users, the ability to customize online form appearance and functionality using callback functions allows for pretty intricate customization of submitter experiences (e.g. redirecting form submitters to different destinations based on how they filled out the form)
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.
Tech support resolutions and turnaround time (when going through basic channels).
Continuity of the software—We recently lost a feature we had enjoyed for the first several months and were told that it is "not currently possible" with our version of VAN—even though we had it.
I wish you could see ALL bulk uploads at ALL times, not just the last 100 batches or lines.
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.
We will never us EA, nor recommend them to another org, simply based on their failed promises to deliver training, on-boarding and then charging our account during our free 3 month period, then after cancelling the contract their legal department tried to force us to sign a cancellation agreement that barred us from writing reviews, making comments, etc!
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
It's just so easy--there isn't a lot of techy lingo or graphics, so a regular person can log in and have a sense of what does what. There might be a few terms you need to learn, but everything is in common English so you can almost always find what you're looking for.
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 only issue I have had with availability is when I don't have my work phone with me, which prevents me from providing a multi-factor authentication code to access the portal. Other than that, I have not had an issue with availability or outages.
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.
I feel like product support and training should go hand in hand. Having to pay $5k to learn how to use a database is absolutely ridiculous and should be offered with the cost of your database, as it is with every other database I've ever used in the last 10 years of my career. With that being said, once I took the training, I found that the support was much more available. Having training and support behind a paywall is bad business in my opinion
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.
Courses are offered both synchronously and asynchronously for various subjects for your employees. I have taken a handful of them and have found them very insightful and helpful. They have helped in getting more out of their product and it helps that you can learn from others in the classes that you take learning what their practices are and how other organizations are doing things with BlackBaud's products.
They went through all the features and explained in easy-to-digest details what features the system had. They were also responsive to questions we had. We were able to check in with the support team after training and received prompt followups that helped supplement the training after we had real-world experience using the system.
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.
It natively integrated with NGP Van extremely well. it also integrated very well with our zoom platform and our use of the Mobilize platform. The bulk upload feature allowed us to move large amounts of initial data into the platform easily. The removal of duplicates was also a fairly easy task.
The only other fundraising software I have used besides Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT was called Team Approach. It is no longer around, but the look and feel of it compared to database view was so similar, I had no trouble learning this software. Raiser's Edge feels intuitive, like I've used it for forever.
I liked Action Network in that it was very user friendly. However, it didn't have the magnitude of features that EveryAction provides. But I appreciated the level of basic knowledge needed to use this to its extent of services. I kind of miss how easy it was to navigate and create when writing a newsletter. EveryAction has the special features that I need to update such as the domain.
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.
We are able to make informed fundraising decisions. We can easily see what campaigns were successful so that we know where to invest our time. We expect to see improved fundraising performance.
Saving time on data collection: Having automated reports on donations and grant funds raised is a huge time saver. Rather than spending hours once a quarter pulling information out of a bulky Excel sheet, we can simply refresh the reports we've set up and visualize the data anytime.
Saved money on other softwares since Bonterra EveryAction is a one stop shop: We've been able to cancel the subscription to our email marketing company since we send all our campaigns through the software. We are also able to send surveys and to host our donation page.
