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Raiser's Edge

Raiser's Edge

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Raisers Edge thoughts

9 out of 10
July 29, 2020
We use The Raisers Edge for our team. It is our primary database for maintaining all of our donors and their information. We use it to not …
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Reviews and Ratings

(213)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 82)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Amy Hanson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Raiser's Edge to track donors, alumni, parents, and all constituents with a relationship to our school. It's used to record gifts, communications, actions, and events and to track prospective donors. It is also used to send email and mail communication. Other departments in our organization frequently ask for information from Raiser's Edge.
  • Enough detail and flexibility to record varied and complete information.
  • The ability to extract data via query and export.
  • Admin abilities to quickly change, add, or delete information.
  • Online Express has a dated feel when used for email and gift forms, however, it has more flexibility than Raiser's Edge NXT so although that looks better, it is not an alternative.
  • Differences in how information is stored in Raiser's Edge database view vs. Raiser's Edge NXT lead to inconsistencies.
  • This is not the easiest database for new users to learn with.
It is a good choice for fundraisers and development, and I believe the most frequently used database for this area. There are better programs for peer-to-peer programs and crowdfunding events, though Raiser's Edge is starting to develop these areas.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raiser's Edge is used by our Development department to record and track donations. All donations are included in Raiser's Edge, including event registrations and merchandise sales, as well as non-cash donations (stock, in-kind, etc.). It is also used to query constituents and create mailing and email lists, and to track prospects for our Philanthropy advisors and Grant Manager.
  • Raiser's Edge is good in allowing detailed categorizations for donations - Funds/Campaigns/Appeals/Packages
  • Raiser's Edge has good query functioning and is helpful in pulling lists and segments of constituents and donations
  • The variety of detail across sections (Gifts/Bios/Actions) is helpful for recording and archiving constituent information
  • Online Express is continuously problematic, despite repeated consultations with RE staff. It overwrites constituent information.
  • The house-holding element of RE produces issues when both spouses are active within our organization. It is confusing and messy and allows for duplication of information and efforts.
  • The lack of a History or Archived information tab also leads to issues, as records can be altered without specific documentation of when/who/why.
Raiser's Edge is great at recording donations and donor information and allows for variety in queries and reporting. It is also great for large databases where new information is constantly updated and queried.
MyAn Pacholkow, bCRE | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it only for our fundraising efforts, in our fundraising department. We use it to record donations, generate solicitation or invite lists, and track event participation. We used to track volunteers in Raiser's Edge, but moved away from it. Since Raiser's Edge can store a lot of information, we record and track everything possible, including gift agreements or letters. It helps with record reviewing. We also track meetings or communications with donors and prospects in Raiser's Edge. It provides complete view of donors behaviour and our solicitation efforts.
  • Record gifts
  • Tracking meetings and actions
  • Tracking event participation
  • Analysis
  • Output fields in query
  • Duplication in querying
  • Integration with other software
It's a sophisticated and well-built software, with lots of tracking and recording capabilities. All and all, excellent ability to segment. However, the look is outdated, integration is cumbersome depending on what program you want to bring data in. Reporting is not the best, almost any big organization have to pull raw data and manipulate it in a different environment to achieve good Data visualization.
Linda Behrman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raisers Edge is being used by the whole organization. Employees access the program to enter communications with donors and potential donors. All of the organization’s constituents data and donor history is stored in the program and accessed by employees at their remote locations. Having a centralized location for the data that our national and international staff can review has made communications much easier to track.
  • Storage of data for all constituents with access for remote employees.
  • Communications with constituents via letters, emails, etc.
  • Reporting on data in the database to provide necessary reports for administration.
  • Graphics (images) within online express emails
  • Character limits on gift attributes
  • Integration with gmail for emails sent to automatically appear as actions in Raisers Edge.
Raisers Edge is outstanding for storing and reporting on constituent data and communications. There are many options for creating methods of tracking by different information included and also for creating personalized tracking methods.
Raisers Edge is not very well suited for an organization that also has a gift shop and visitors center. Allowing membership admission and item sales is not practical.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Raiser's Edge is used by the majority of our fundraising country offices. In our office, we use Raiser's Edge as our main database to track all of our donors and all gifts/donations. It is also used by our finance department to reconcile our bank records with our donation records. It is mainly a tool for fundraising to track constituents and their donations.
  • You can use Raiser's Edge to track all donations and constituents in an organized way so that you can get reports and queries on fundraising revenues and get constituent data to use for segmenting with your fundraising channels (ie. direct mail or email).
  • Raiser's Edge uses funds, campaigns and appeals, and other tabs/categories that help to organize all information required for a constituent.
  • Importing is made easier with tools such as import-o-matic.
  • Blackbaud customer support is terrible and if anything fails, it takes forever to get anything resolved.
  • Blackbaud [consistently] increases their fees without warning and charges several times for the same thing. They just added a new charge of $600/year to every client they claim to maintain the cost of keeping gifts in PCI compliance. They already charge $.25 per transaction for the same reason. If you have any issues with charges, you will most likely not get anywhere.
  • Reporting is not the greatest. You have to be very careful with your queries or you won't get the right information. Canned reports are not easy to use.
  • Sales tactics are crazy with having a Customer Service representative that is really only there for sales increases and not for customer support.
  • Blackbaud spends a lot of time making shiny things but doesn't spend a lot of time on improving their actual products and they very often just abandon their solutions and no longer help service them whether you like it or not.
Raiser's Edge works if you are a medium or large size charity and you are well versed in database management. You will need a full-time dedicated Database Manager that really knows Raiser's Edge to maintain your records.
NOTE: Database managers well versed in Raiser's Edge are hard to come by.

Blackbaud's suite of products including Raiser's Edge used to be the best out there and that is no longer the case. They are making it more and more difficult to reconcile using them in any capacity. There are solutions out there that more user-friendly, cheaper, and have better customer support.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use The Raisers Edge for our team. It is our primary database for maintaining all of our donors and their information. We use it to not only house the info, but run reports and mailing lists to see how our fundraising goals are doing (this is a super simplified description of how we use it). It is primarily used in our department which is around 130 people, but our entire organization relies on us and our reports and lists from Raisers Edge as their source of information.
  • Queries: This is an amazing tool that helps group the donors/gifts that you need to generate reports. I am able to be as general or specific as I want when grouping my info.
  • Export: This feature allows me to take my group (or query) and output any and all information I want to see on the particular group.
  • Canned Reports: I love that there are pre-built templates for general reporting areas that I can use and customize without having to re-create the wheel on my own.
  • Consecutive years giving is one of the biggest challenges in using Raisers Edge. There is no easy way to do this...
The Raisers Edge is well suited for anyone doing fundraising. It keeps things stored neatly and is easy to pull out information when it is needed (provided the information is correct and clean when it goes in). It may not be suited for small or short term fundraising but it does definitely have advantages.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Raisers Edge is used primarily by our fundraising department to track gifts, memberships, event participation, (paid and free), pipelined cultivation. It addresses the needs of major gift cultivation, patron groups, membership programs, institutional giving (from foundations, corporations, government agencies). However, there are other departments outside of fundraising that also use RE, under our guidance for their relationship management needs which typically involve tracking lists and other populations.
  • The latest version is cloud-based and has unlimited users
  • Very extensive functionality, almost anything that one could ever want to track, could be traced in The Raisers Edge.
  • There is a lot of documentation and a robust user community
  • In the new version, there are two ways to access your data, The Raisers Edge 7 database view and The Raisers Edge nxt, which is browser-based. This means DBAs have to manage two systems whose interfaces are distinctly different
  • The Raisers Edge 7 handicaps are that it is very old looking and its reporting capabilities are some very old looking and minimally insightful dashboards, exporting into Excel or publishing Crystal Reports thru a very old embedded version
  • The Raisers Edge nxt handicaps are that the system is not fully built and there is a lot of functionality missing
Suited for tracking donors, attributes, interactions, contact information, memberships
  • Suited for organizations that can hire a database admin
  • Suited for front line fundraising and management of small to medium donor portfolios
  • Not very well suited for dynamic reporting, most reports need to be massaged by a database administrator
  • Not very user-friendly, not at all plug and play
  • Not suitable for quickly reporting performance or AB testing
February 10, 2020

We love Raisers Edge!

Kourtney Kirkpatrick | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I used Raisers Edge when I worked for Drake University. We used the platform within our University Advancement team for fundraising purposes. I was 1 of 25 users who worked on the platform daily. We did, however, have a team of 50 with some individuals using it on once in a while. I was a huge fan of the NXT version as I started right when it was released. It was much more user-friendly and easier to navigate. I did use the database version to run reports.
  • Easy to navigate.
  • Intuitive.
  • Expensive.
  • Had to bounce between two versions.
Raisers Edge was perfect to house a university database. Since there were many different schools, programs, and organizations within the University, our donors wanted to be able to give to specific areas on campus and Raisers Edge made it easy to track donors and their giving across campus. We loved Raisers Edge!
Jesse Thill | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Division of Advancement is currently using the Raisers Edge at UCA, which the Office of Alumni Relations falls under. Our department is one of five under the division's umbrella. The Raisers Edge serves as our CRM and houses the alumni database for the university. It allows for a collaborative effort between our department and the others as engage with alumni and friends of the university while doing our best to maintain an up-to-date record of our constituents.
  • Customize the profile view to ensure the most pertinent information is featured first.
  • The map feature allows us to see where the densest concentrations of our alumni are easy.
  • We're still waiting on queries to be built that allow us to view membership reports through the web version. As of today, you still have to access the database version for these reports.
  • The web version can lag occasionally leaving you to wait for data to appear onscreen.
I've been using The Raisers Edge for five years now. The NXT version is vastly improved over RE7. Other than the lack of membership reports through the web version and the load time for some of the data, I have no real complaints with The Raisers Edge. It's been an outstanding CRM tool for our division. Before The Raisers Edge, I used Advance at another institution, and I would rate The Raisers Edge much higher. It's an excellent tool for a collaborative team like ours, where multiple notes and contact reports for individual constituents can be added and reviewed quickly. Perhaps the most significant improvement fro RE7 to NXT is the map feature. When you host a lot of events like we do, location can make or break attendance in a large metropolitan area. The map feature allows up to narrow in on a location most convenient to our alumni. That feature is used daily. I highly recommend The Raisers Edge as a CRM tool for alumni relations and advancement teams.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our Development Department uses Raiser's Edge on a daily basis to manage relationships with donors including entering gift data, tracking action items, and pulling queries. This CRM allows our team to work together and have access to the same information. Having everything in one place is essential for managing donor relationships across changing teams.
  • Manage donor records.
  • Track actions and upcoming actions.
  • NXT is always getting new features, but there are still some that require you to go to the database view.
  • Many improvements are happening on the NXT side, but not so many on the database side.
If your organization can afford Raiser's Edge and other software that communicates with Raiser's Edge, such as Financial Edge and Volunteer Hub, then it is a great investment. Investment in a CRM is essential for any development team as you need a central location to store donor information from gift history to actions to opportunities. Excel just won't cut it!
Jenny Physioc, bCRE | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The Raiser's Edge Enterprise is used by the following offices: Development, Marketing and Communications, Accounting, Alumni Relations, Career & Professional Dept. and Scholarships. We store all students, parents of students, graduates, donors, professional companies, and so much more. Raisers Edge is a fantastic software that I have been using for 24 years or more, so long I don't remember.
  • The Prospect information storage is very helpful. We can store proposal and wealth information and keep a history of our steps with each constituent record.
  • RE is very versatile for all users and the way they think and process information. There are many ways to get the information needed.
  • I like all the integration services available from Target Analytics a Blackbaud company. We don't have to go outside to get NCOA processed and figure how to get it back in the database.
  • We have a website which integrates with RE called NetCommunity. This is a Blackbaud product.
  • I cannot express enough how great I think the customer service is. You can choose to chat with support or find your answers through the knowledge base or go to forums or communities and get the answers or information you are seeking.
  • Consecutive giving is an area where it is hard to get the information in a timely manner. There are work arounds but this is an area that needs to be addressed because it is a very common and frequent need.
  • Export the Ratings is a challenge if you only want a specific source. You have to export all of them and then delete the ones you don't want and sometimes they are jumbled up in the export meaning the different sources are not in the same columns.
I love it! There is always a way to get what you want.
Alicia Barevich, bCRE, bCEE | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raiser's Edge is obviously primarily used by our Fundraising department, but we use it to pull lists and reports for the whole organization. It holds employee information that is more detailed than HR's database. The gifts are integrated with Financial Edge to facilitate reconciliation. It is the master database for constituent data for most of the school.
  • There are so many fields, almost all of which are options in query, export, and report.
  • The integration with Crystal Reports is critical. It is very convenient being able to run Crystal Reports directly from Raiser's Edge.
  • Th batch and mail functions also make gift entry and acknowledgement a breeze!
  • Query is missing a couple useful options. Most recently, I wished that it included being able to query on whether an address was shared or not.
  • Export is missing a couple useful options. We rely heavily on relationships, but you can't query or export at a very detailed degree on a relationship's record.
  • It would be really cool if Crystal Reports could be integrated into the dashboards.
If you want to have excellent segmentation in solicitations, or other communications, Raiser's Edge is probably more than capable of providing you with what you need. More often than not, any handicaps are probably from data integrity, rather than the software itself. It doesn't integrate well with solutions for other independent school needs, so that's where I'd hesitate giving a glowing endorsement.
Salvador Orochena | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raiser's Edge was used to collect interactions with constituents, perform fundraising, record event participation, and extract email lists for marketing material. It allowed us to centralize information into one system.
  • It organizes information about constituents and organizations well.
  • It allows for complex exporting of information.
  • Allow for customization or UI and functionality.
  • More integrations with other SAAS tools.
The application focuses on fundraising, move management, events, and interactions. If this is your core business then it will suit you well. Customization is limited though, and you end up using Attributes to fill in gaps.
Danielle Siemons | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raisers Edge is used by alumni relations/advancement (one department). It is not used university-wide. This database holds all our alumni contact information.
  • Database management.
  • Integration with BBNC.
  • Not user-friendly.
  • Query/export are difficult to create.
I would not recommend The Raisers Edge. Please note this review is for Raisers Edge and not RE NXT. I've worked in other non-profits that have used more functional and diverse database management systems. This seems like what most universities always stick with, but it does get the job done at the end of the day. It just takes a while and a lot of training to figure out all the intricacies.
Lena Trubnikova | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
RE is being used by the Fundraising department to keep records of all constituents, gifts and events, track relationships, volunteers. The fundraisers use the proposals to track major gift prospects. We record all donations in it, import donations from Luminate Online and other online platforms into Raisers Edge using either RE import tool, RELO plugin or other plugins. The programming department uses it to record constituents. Marketing uses it to pull queries to communicate with constituents.
  • Records various aspects of constituent involvement with the organization.
  • Keeps record of all gifts.
  • Data posting to Financial Edge (FE) is limited and complicated to understand (took us time to adjust). The posting report does not have enough info: Appeal, campaign and who posted to FE. In genereral, RE/FE integration is not explained by Blackbaud properly, we had to figure out everything on the go.
  • Volunteer module is a bit cumbersome; some fields have duplicate fields in the event module; the identical information ends up being recorded in two different places.
I would recommend that people use The Raisers Edge (RE) as the main depository of information about the organization's constituent base, gifts, pulling queries. I find that the interface is becoming really dated and some features are not user-friendly for fundraisers, but I guess NXT is solving this issue.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our organization uses Raiser’s Edge as our primary fundraising CRM and financial fundraising production reporting tool. It is used by over 40 staff members with responsibilities that include all levels of giving solicitation, major gifts, direct mail, online contributions, and corporate and foundation grants. Stewardship, research, prospect development, gift entry, reporting, events all use the tool in everyday work.
  • Query/export of data.
  • Integration with Luminate Online.
  • Providing easy access to constituent information.
  • Contains all the necessary tools for an organization to manage fundraising efficiently.
  • Latency in online NXT product.
  • The user interfaces could be more intuitive.
  • The costs for additional module and customization are high.
For identifying potential high-level donors Raiser’s Edge offers a built-in rating system. There's no need to buy additional tools if you have a small department. These tools can help in the development of major//medium gift portfolios for staff. It can often be hard to learn best practices across different companies, as it is very customizable and unique to each organization.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raiser's Edge is used only in the fundraising department of the organization. It helps to track donor records, donations, and event registrations.
  • Financial reporting.
  • Donor records.
  • Gift batching.
  • Dated interface.
  • Reporting is hard to personalize.
  • Lots of clicking.
Compared to other donor relations software, Raiser's Edge is the best I have used. I am happy with the support they provide when having issues, and there is a lot of resources available online, and all necessary data fields are included.
KaLeigh Hurley | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Raisers Edge daily for reporting, data analysis, and gift entry.
  • Easy to learn: The system is somewhat self-explanatory, but there are so many courses offered online to learn. I learned how to use the system optimally within a few weeks.
  • Easy to manipulate: The grouping and reporting tools can customize how you present your data. It is very simple.
  • Great resources: The system has helpful tips and explanations on the screen. You don't have to go far to find a quick answer.
  • We are hosted, and there are limits to how much data we can put into the database. It can be frustrating at times to figure out what to keep and what to get rid of.
Raisers Edge is great for any data storage. It is not necessarily the best to analyze prospects.
December 16, 2018

Good, bad, and ugly

Rachel Slager | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raisers Edge is used by our fundraising department and accessed by departments throughout the university. We use it primarily to track alumni and donors.
  • This integrates very well with Microsoft Office products, which for reporting, letter writing and syncing to Outlook calendars sets it apart from many fundraising software options.
  • The complex architecture means that there are standards built-in for many different types of data one might need to track. Many software options are customizable to each organization, but having many different standard fields means that many organizations are tracking data by the same standard. This also makes it easier to onboard new staff who have prior experience with the software.
  • The Blackbaud Knowledge base is great, but the user community puts it above the rest. If Raisers Edge is number 1 in anything, the forums are tops. They have a community of active users who share their software policies and processes, but also best business practices for others to adopt. What Blackbaud did is incentivize users to respond, and then organized responses by needs, indexed it for easy searching, and even when I'm not an org. using their software, I still go to their users to seek creative solutions.
  • Additional modules are not tied to additional Query types. This means if I pay extra so we can have unique records to track each major gift proposal, we can still only group by the people we are soliciting and then report on all of their proposals, rather than being able to target by type or date and so forth.
  • In places where they are lacking, people have created plug-ins. It would be nice if the function of these plug-ins was then incorporated into future upgrades, but they never are. It often seems as though once someone else solves a Raiser's Edge problem, the company deems the problem solved and pays no more attention to it.
  • The technical support staff are beginner to intermediate users and it shows. They lack experience using the software at an actual non-profit, they quote from the user guides and often, they are wrong about what the software cannot do. They often say the software can't do it, or they don't have a solution yet, but frequently they are underestimating the software, or don't know how to trick it.
  • The user guides and support are often experts in Raiser's Edge, but not in the other Blackbaud integrated software, so if you have issues with how one of their solutions (like NetCommunity) speaks/integrates to Raiser's Edge, you can speak to people who are experts in one or the other but not both. So neither are able to solve the problem because neither knows how the other piece works, yet they all work for the same company!
  • There are huge issues with gift reporting, and if you check out user forums you'll find that regardless of years of complaints, nothing has changed in the software architecture. Issue one is that there is no way to report on soft credits that come from a spouse gift as opposed to an corportate/foundation gift. Two is that there is no way good way to report on split gifts. You can get the data, sort of, and you can somersault in external reporting software like Crystal Reports, but at the end of the day it has never worked well. Three is that the built-in gift reports are extremely limited in the type of data they can display. Fourth is that the built-in analytical reports are limited in how they allow you to target data; for instance, there is a strong desire to be able to report on consistent giving rather than consecutive years giving - and here you encounter issues with the way soft credits are attributed, how the analysis makes no acceptions for one missed year out of 25 giving years, and so forth. Though these things can be built in custom reports, it'd be nice if more of the built-in reports met the needs of the average fundraising office.
  • Perhaps the biggest problem with Raiser's Edge stems from the customer expectation. It is the top of the line software in non-profits, it is very expensive yet widely used. It is very complex software, and every customer should have staff who are dedicated to managing the software, maintaining and cleaning the data. Three years after converting to RE, many clients find themselves scrambling to hire database managers or outside consultants to clean up the disasterous mess of data scattered, hidden, throughout the database. This seems like a very common occurrence, especially in mid-size to small organizations.
Large non-profits are great clients for this software. Anyone investing in a custom database should consider Raisers Edge (RE) first, as custom databases are only as good as the staff who built it and the likelihood that they won't get a different job. Mid-size organizations who are donor funded more than grant funded should take a good look at this, especially if they can invest in training for a staff person solely dedicated to managing the software. Small organizations, particularly those with a fundraising department of fewer than 10, should look elsewhere at software like Salesforce. Any organization who relies heavily on grant funding or needs to do extensive endowment management/reporting should look for an alternative as Raiser's Edge has never successfully created grant management tools, nor do they have integrated software for this.
December 14, 2018

Top-Line Product

Amy Dana, bCRE | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raiser's Edge is the fundraising and alumni tracking database for the advancement department. It is also used by staff in the president's office and the business office for constituent and gift management. RE houses all current information on students, alumni, parents, and donors, including contact information, giving history, work and education information, and other data from across the university.
  • Ease of use: While there is a steep learning curve for database admins, the system is relatively easy for a user who simply wants to look up information on a constituent. The interface is clean and intuitive and the system allows a number of ways to search (partial names, street address, phone, etc).
  • Reporting: If you put it in to RE, there is a way to get it out. And 95% of the time there is already a canned report created that will give you what you need. If not, you can create your own report in Crystal Reports or use a query and Excel to further manipulate that data.
  • Support: Don't know how to do something? You've got user manuals, an online knowledge base , an entire Blackbaud Community site, and BB Support to help you out. The annual bbcon is also invaluable for picking up tips and pointers from experts and peers.
  • Learning Curve: This isn't a database you can become an expert on overnight. If your organization is interested in adopting RE, I definitely recommend training (formal or informal). It will be helpful for your organization to have someone dedicated to RE. I know there are organizations that purchase it and expect to either have everyone be an expert or for one person with an already full plate to take on the DBA functions.
  • Cost: It's not cheap by any means. I know the price can throw a lot of people but I truly believe that in this case you get what you pay for.
  • The upsell: I understand Blackbaud is a company but I feel like there is a lot of pressure put on people to upgrade/purchase additional BB products.
I honestly believe that The Raisers Edge (RE) can be used for any organization. It is extremely adaptable as long as you have the staffing to support it.
Lily Barger | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Raiser's Edge is primarily used by one org within the university, but we do have some outside users. In all, we have about 160 users of Raiser's Edge.
  • Raiser's Edge houses a large variety of data points regarding constituents.
  • The query and export tools are fairly easy to use.
  • Great for keeping a long and detailed history of constituents and gifts.
  • We recently moved to Blackbaud hosting for Raiser's Edge. That has been challenging because we no longer have control over when updates are made. While Blackbaud does communicate these updates, it can be frustrating if the updates break a process.
  • There are inconsistencies in exports in that some of the fields available in query are not available in export and that can be challenging.
  • As Raiser's Edge is migrated to NXT, some functionality exists in Raiser's Edge (database view) that does not exist in NXT (webview) and that frustrates our users.
Raiser's Edge is very well suited for a fundraising organization, especially one in higher ed, like ours. Especially a larger shop with many users where various permission levels are needed.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Raisers Edge in our Development and Membership departments to track all donations and memberships. It allows us to track these transactions as well as our interactions with our donors and members that help us determine how to move people to higher levels of engagement and deeper levels of investment in our mission.
  • Gift recording: gift tab gives you detailed information about where gift is coming from, why, and if the donor was thanked or not.
  • Relationship Management: Action/Prospect tabs allow you to record phone conversations, emails, and mailings and integrates with Outlook to set future meetings, solicitations, and grant application and report deadlines.
  • Query/export: We are able to segment our 100,000+ constituents to send targeted communications.
  • Interface: the system isn't very 'pretty.' Other databases are more user friendly, but may not be as powerful.
  • Online support: the online interface is embarrassingly old.
With large organizations, Raisers Edge may be the only option for one to consider unless you have the ability to have a custom database made for you in the case of higher education institutions and hospitals. Many people have used the product so it's really easy to find answers to questions you have online without having to get in touch with Blackbaud, which can be time-consuming.
Sydney Graczyk | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our entire organization uses The Raisers Edge. It is a great way to store, access, and organize information. It addresses the business problem of being able to sort donors, volunteers, and program users within the organization. The Raisers Edge is also used to store financial data both for expenses and revenue.
  • Storing in-depth information and being able to organize it
  • Exporting data in a way that makes sense for your organization
  • Easily accessible by all staff members at any time
  • While the in-depth functions are nice, it can be difficult to maintain that amount of information
  • The Raisers Edge could improve the issues of duplicates
  • The Raisers Edge requires in-depth training to be able to be user-friendly
The Raisers Edge is well suited for an organization that deals with multiple streams of intake and outtake. It is well suited for organizations that have a large base of people to track. The Raisers Edge is not appropriate for businesses that do not need to organize information in different forms or to manipulate data.
Elora Tocci | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Raisers Edge is used by the Development department to keep track of important donor and constituent information, such as contact information and relationships with other constituents. It is also used to track gifts made by donors and as a quick point of reference to answer questions about dates contributions were made, addresses to send thank you notes to, and other important information.
  • The Raisers Edge makes it easy to quickly look up a name and find out information about that person all in one place.
  • The Raisers Edge is fairly intuitive for basic functions and does not require much training to get started.
  • The Raisers Edge allows information tracking for multiple pieces of data about a single constituent or gift, which is helpful for understanding trends and big-picture analyses.
  • The Raisers Edge feels very outdated and could benefit from a refreshed look and feel.
  • Running reports is not intuitive and could be made more user-friendly.
  • Raisers Edge is often slow to run, which can be very frustrating.
The Raisers Edge is great for basic functionalities such as tracking and looking up information about donors and gifts. It is also great for people who will not need the database for more than basic tracking or do not have time or capacity for an extended training. For a situation that requires more in-depth analysis or for someone who will spend a lot of time with the system on a daily basis, I might recommend looking elsewhere.
Michelle Hidalgo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I work for the Development department and we have a team of four that uses Raisers Edge for our donor database. I am a site admin. We also have Raisers NXT as an additional resource which takes the database view and turns it into an attractive and user friendly view. We are able to easily and efficiently track donor records and run reports. We are able to run consecutive year reports and other detailed reports.
  • Running reports and queries is user friendly and intuitive. It could get complicated to run detailed donor reports however they offer some already created reports you may customize.
  • Blackbaud support is available daily to assist in screen sharing , reports, queries.
  • Raisers' dashboard makes it easy to track new donors, lapsed donors and you could customize what you are looking for in the results.
  • The consecutive year report is pre-made however it’s not always the most accurate with years of giving.
  • The NXT version consecutive years of giving is sometimes different then the database years.
  • The dashboard is usually off by a small number as far as donor number accuracy compared to query donor count.
The Raisers Edge is a great donor record management database and NXT is an intuitive and attractive edition. NXT is necessary for reminders on major giving prospects and the mobile view is great for donor visits. Raisers is quite costly so for companies looking to spend less there are other alternatives.
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