Raiser's Edge

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

Easy to navigate.

Intuitive.

Expensive.

Had to bounce between two versions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Everything about a particular constituent is on the constituent record and easily edited directly from the record. The tab-based record structure is particularly nice, having dealt with form- and page-based databases.

It is easy to track communication with a particular constituent. Actions are robust, and notes offer a variety of static options to record important information about a particular person/household/organization.

Information is easy to export and analyze. Queries and exports are logic-based and can easily be learned even by new users. Custom reports are easy to build and there are enough options that it never feels like it's not possible to easily export any sort of information out of the database.

Dashboards are customizable to different individuals and roles and very useful.

Automation of reports would bring the database to a new level - the only way to get them now is manually.

Managing proposals can be tricky, especially when it comes to linking multiple gifts to a single open proposal.

Streamlining the interface to minimize the number of clicks that it takes, for instance, to enter an action - would bring greater efficiency.

Detailed relationship management modules.

Easy to pull giving histories for individual donors.

Flexible Query and Export capabilities.

Not able to easily "suppress" information from a query/export pull.

Not able to easily put together reports that pull based on different criteria (i.e. event attendees and contributors).

Confusion for event revenue based on tax deductibility.

Lack of integration with a ticketing database.

Raiser’s Edge has over 100 canned reports to assist with all aspects of reporting in the system. These reports are fairly customizable to your organizations individual needs and if there’s not a report that matches your needs you can write custom reports.

The export tool is very developed and robust for extracting information from the system. You can extract almost every field in the system, which is hundreds. One of the most useful tools in export is extracting giving history summaries, which are completely customizable.

The batch tool for entering constituents and/or gifts makes entering mass amounts of information quick and easy.

Database administrators have some really powerful tools such as Global Change and Imports to perform mass changes and cleanup in the system.

You can set security within the system by groups or by individual users. This is really helpful for organizations that have many users of all different abilities and roles.

The tables and fields within Raiser's Edge are extremely customizable to your organization's individual needs. This means that business decisions should be well thought out, written policies need to be in place, and you need to have a dedicated database administrator to keep your data clean and streamlined.

There is no batch functionality for memberships, which makes memberships quite labor intensive to enter in large quantities. Additionally, the membership tool is so advanced/customized that it doesn’t easily integrate with services like Import Omatic out of the box.

Raiser’s Edge as a whole is not very user friendly and requires training for users. The system will seem very intuitive to a data minded individual but not super functional for a front line fundraiser for example. The query, export, and reporting tools are difficult to use without training and interest in learning. Blackbaud is addressing this issue with the release of Raiser’s Edge NXT.

I'd like to see more user friendly guides and best practices guidelines within the system. It's often hard to locate the exact help topic you're looking for when in the online knowledge base. Although, support is very responsive if you can't help yourself!

Raiser's Edge provides opportunity to not only track a lot of information about an individual donors, but also allows us to "connect the dots" by helping us to track the relationships between our donors - donors who have connections to foundations that may increase our chances of getting a grant funded, donors who have connections to significant major donors who can help us to increase their friend's relationship with our organization, donors who have significant political connections who can help us to make sure that our issues are heard by our representatives.

Raiser's Edge provides many modules - events, volunteers, planned giving, that help to manage, track, and report on those activities.

Raiser's Edge is constantly making improvements in the software. Much of it based on customer feedback.

Raiser's Edge can be a little overwhelming for some users who are not as comfortable with computers and software. Building queries and exports can be particularly intimidating to some. A skilled and knowledgeable database support infrastructure is really a must have - even if this is one person who really knows the software inside and out in small shops.

It would be great if Raiser's Edge could increase the pace at which new improvements are made to Raiser's Edge 7 in much the same way that new functionality is rolled out frequently for Raiser's Edge NXT.

Raiser's Edge could use some streamlining of screens/tabs for data entry to make routine tasks more efficient.

We love the versatility of the information we can pull using queries and reports.

The system is very easy to use.

Besides the detailed instruction manual, there is a whole online community where you can ask questions to other Blackbaud users as well as a "knowledge base" you can ask questions on. If you still cannot find the answer, you can chat with the support team at Blackbaud.

Blackbaud will eventually change over to a cloud platform called Raiser's Edge NXT (currently being offered but has some kinks to work out) which requires you to be hosted by Blackbaud and the pricing plan will depend on the number of records you have instead of a flat fee.

Pricing is expensive and not realistic for smaller non-profit organizations.

There is some difficulties working with soft credits in reports and queries.

RE has built-in fields and tools for most everything you need, and then the capacity for additional modules or integrated products, extra fields (attributes), and custom processes and reports for anything you need that might be a little outside the norm. Exporting and Importing data is pretty straightforward once you've done it a few times. It is a very versatile product and can be set up in numerous ways to handle many different pieces of data.

RE:NXT is the newest product...a cloud-based user interface to your database. It's still being developed, but to me, that's a great thing because we (the end-users) are able to have a lot of input over how that design and development happens. Blackbaud has been making an intentional push to actively solicit feedback from customers and to use that feedback to improve and further develop its products. It'll be a long wait, but well worth it. This UI is particularly user-friendly to the fundraiser and is accessible from any mobile device...while still maintaining the RE:7 "regular" interface where your database administrator and data entry staff will primarily work at this point.

The Blackbaud Community, with a section for each product, is a great online resource! Post questions or dilemmas and get fast responses (usually within 3 hours) from other users and from BB staff who are also active in the space. The Community also connects you with resources like the idea banks, webinars and events, and trainings. Along with training, the recently revamped certification program enables organizations to hire staff who know not only the basics of the product but also enough to make the product flex to accommodate the specific needs of your organization. Or to offer professional development to current staff as they learn in preparation for taking the exams.

The focus, understandably, is on the development of NXT, as the next big move for the product. But that means that while RE:7 features might see tweaks and improvements, it is less likely that we will see brand new features.

There are some things that RE just can't/won't do, and that can be frustrating. A former supervisor used to lament that canned reports will "do everything you want until the very last thing" and I often must agree. There are always workarounds, but they aren't always efficient or feasible.

Training subscriptions are offered only at the organization level. So if you want training and professional development as an individual (because your organization doesn't have the resources to purchase a training package), there isn't an option for you. I have talked with BB about this, so hopefully it will be an available option in the future, but for now, it's a definite place for improvement.

RE is a wonderful donation/fundraising software. You can handle many different types of fund raising with ease. Cash gifts, Deferred Gifts, Recurring gifts, pledges, proposals and legacy gifts are all easily managed within RE.

RE is flexible with customization fields with attributes for almost every kind of record, constituent, gift, action, event, participant etc. These attributes allow you to add fields and information specific to your department or organization. We currently have attributes for schools, events and volunteers just to name a FEW.

RE is a relational database, so everything is based on relationships - which is the heart and soul of friend raising. I just love that "it's all connected"

The membership module works ok, but there is some missed functionality - especially in regards to shared memberships and organizational memberships. Currently if someone is on a shared membership they are there for the ENTIRE membership term. There are no "to and from" dates for secondary members on a membership. While this is not a deal breaker for us, it would be helpful if this additional piece of information was available. Also the database structure forces you to code upgrade or downgrade anytime the program changes. Our upgrades and downgrades are within the category level, not necessarily the program level so some of the upgrade/downgrade codes can be mis leading

You can search relationships for non-constituents, but event attendees are NOT included in the search, just other relationship records.

We need increased functionality between RE and NEtcommunity - some of the fields in RE are not available as merge fields in NetCommunity. This limits us on some of the functionality and targeted marketing/outreach that we would like to do

Raiser's Edge captures and analyzes a wide range of supporter data to report on current activities and predict trends for future opportunities.

Online Express has allowed us to unlock a whole new way of getting our message out to the community, giving us a chance to compete for scarce resources.

The Raiser's Edge software is intuitive and reasonably easy to use by even the least technologically-savvy fundraiser.

The Alumni module could use some enhancement to better enable the recording/reporting of multiple credentials from the same institution.

For a smaller organization, the price point of this solution may present a challenge.

This user is patiently awaiting the roll out of additional the functionality in Raiser's Edge: NXT that was promised at bbcon2015 that will see the Executive Director and Gift Processor roles brought to the user base.

Gift management and reporting to finance.

Prospect tracking.

Event participation.

Glitches in the Event module. It is a robust module, but sometimes working with it is problematic.

Prospect tracking for Major Gift Officers

Gift and membership recording

Reporting on giving for all sub-departments in Advancement Services and Development.

The Prospect tab could use some updates and easier export abilities

I would love to see the ability to merge memberships

I would LOVE to see the "Editable" checkbox for addressees/salutations go away

Better reporting/exporting of split gifts would be huge

Customer support

Product development

Comprehensive product

Option module querying and exporting

Multiple ways to provide detailed accounts of donor's giving history and membership, as well as special attributes and interactions they have with the museum.

Robust events record keeping.

Powerful export results - input and output criteria are not limited by "foundational" categories (such as donor, donation, event) as in some less agile databases.

Clean exports - we get massive lists and reports that require substantial cleaning before the data is reliable. This is issue stems in part from previous mismanagement of The Raisers Edge, but the database itself doesn't have any straightforward solutions at this time.

Substantial data cleanup typically requires outside consultation for a constituency of our size (500,000+ records).

Flexibility in creating campaigns, funds, appeals and the ease of tracking progress. Canned reports are good, but very basic. For more detailed reports you can create one in Crystal Reports and include it in RE as a custom report that anyone can access.

Well designed and user friendly. It is scalable in design and customizable/versatile.

Security options that help to define groups and users with rights to view, add, edit and delete information.

Ability to query and export almost anything in the database.

Media tab - you can add information, but once the data is there you have limited ability on what and how it is exported.

Canned reports are very basic. You need to have Crystal Reports expertise to be able to do more extensive reporting.

Dashboards are nice, but you can only pull data for a year, a month, last month, etc. but not for specific dates.

Hold time for support can sometimes be long. Nevertheless, support is always available.