Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT vs. Sparkrock

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.

Incentivized

For all companies that want to improve the performance of their employees and increase productivity, this software helps all daily business tasks to be executed on time efficiently and smoothly. A very useful program that's why we don't stop using it.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Data collection - the system is robust and we can tailor it to collect the information we need.
• Easily configurable - the system is easy to configure to meet our specific business needs.
• Reporting and data extraction - the system allows for easy access to information that helps inform business decisions.

• 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

Incentivized

• Many of the improvements are being met with each upgrade. Altus Dynamics has an idea portal that customers can add ideas to and vote on other customer ideas. This means that most issues that come up are resolved with each new upgrade.

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.

Incentivized

We are already scheduled for our upgrade to NAV 2016 beginning in May 2016.

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.

Incentivized

Complete workflow management to keep up to date and orderly the daily activities of employees. Allows for seamless cash flow, invoicing, general ledger, payroll, and inventory.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Complete tracking of employee performance, hours worked, attendance and absences, vacations, and overtime.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Real-time data that is available at our fingertips
• Flexibility of the system to address changing needs over time
• Elimination of the huge administrative burdens that we were experiencing as a result of the previous system due to lack of integration

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• As a technician it's hard for me to say what effect the ROI has had on our organization, however our finance team seems satisfied on it. We look forward to deploying the staff dashboards for better financial tracking throughout our whole organization.