Item: Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT
Rating: 5
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As an Advancement Assistant, I use RE daily for database management and fundraising and for supporting the activities of the Advancement Department. We have been using RENXT for about 1.5 years. We have used Blackbaud's Raisers Edge since 2010. I currently use RENXT primarily for managing online donations, receipting, and tracking actions. I currently continue to use RE database view for most of my research, reporting and exporting as well as database management tasks.

Pros and Cons

Integration with BBMS for online gifts
Gift receipting via email
Creating and tracking actions

Creating duplicate constituents when approving online gift batches - for every gift record you merge into an active constituent record, RE NXT creates an inactive record for the merged record. It would be more efficient to be able to delete the inactive record at that time, rather than having to do so later on the DBV admin side.
Search options - on some search options, you have to press the enter key to start the search and others it starts the search without pressing the enter key so if you press the enter key, it retrieves the last record you searched for rather than the one you currently want to see.
When setting up online donation forms, there is no option for our donor to set up an end date for a recurring gift. As such, this requires additional follow-up and monitoring to make sure the gift is stopped when they want it stopped.
I have not looked at this yet for the current year, but this past year when I created year-end giving statements, it included commitments(pledges) as well as actual donations received and there was no way to change that making these unusable for giving statements for tax purposes, I hope that has been resolved so I can use this functionality this year, but it caused extra work last year.

Most Important Features

Online forms and ability to pass on processing fees to donors
Link to the Education side
Electronic receipting that is user-friendly

Return on Investment

Time saved using online forms and electronic receipting. Prior to RE NXT, we used a platform that did not integrate so every online gift had to be hand entered. Now batch approval takes a fraction of the time previously spent entering gifts.
Cost saving on the processing fees now that we can pass those on to the donor through our online forms

Data Intelligence

We still rely heavily on query, reporting, and exporting form Raisers Edge Database view, so have not experienced the benefits of this from RE NXT.

Training Types Used

Online Training

Online Training

The online training options are vast and covered RE NXT well. The only limitation was occasionally not having a class that was a prerequisite for another class available at a convenient time, sometimes making it difficult to move through the required classes in a timely manner. RE NXT continues to have training available and I take advantage of when time permits.

Key Insights

Do you think Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT's feature set?

Yes

Did Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT again?

Other Software Used

Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT

Likelihood to Recommend

We are a small private school with a limited budget. RE NXT is an expensive module and considering I still use Raisers Edge Database view for 75-80% of my daily tasks, for us, it is not a great value for the money. That being said, it does allow more flexibility than we previously had as far as online forms and events. The Chat support has been good and very responsive when I needed assistance.

RE NXT Review

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT