Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT offers a great cloud-based fundraising tool, but not without its challenges
December 08, 2022

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT offers a great cloud-based fundraising tool, but not without its challenges

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT

We use Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT as a relationship and data management tool. With this, users can quickly access donor information for insights into their giving history, event participation, and touchpoints. It's a great tool to have on the go when needing to look up a specific donor's most recent gift or notes from a prior meeting. Data updates are made accordingly by staff or volunteers.

Pros

  • The user interface is incredibly easy to navigate
  • The Work Center is a great tool for tracking fundraiser connections and activity in one place
  • Reporting provides interesting insights and benchmarks against other organizations and internal year-over-year performance

Cons

  • Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT has not quite scaled up to match the functionality of Raiser's Edge desktop - you cannot record volunteer hours, for example, in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT.
  • List management/Reporting that involves complex data analysis or queries is not as easily extractable
  • Adjustments to gifts have not been easy to make in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT; if something is entered incorrectly in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, for example, it is very hard to change in the desktop version if it's not something minor like an appeal; we still find ourselves doing all our gift processing in the desktop version
  • Work Center for portfolio management and fundraiser list building
  • Search tool for quick look up of donors
  • Event module for guest management
  • Marketing tool has been great to track clicks and opens directly on donor records
  • The Work Center has been able to simplify list management for our board members and track activation
  • The Lists module has been helpful for insight into how appeals are performing when just a quick report is needed
The analytics that we've been looking at has helped tell a better story about transactional versus transformational fundraising. In years where we've had fewer opportunities for transactional fundraising, we've noticed how strong retention is because this is where the donors who are really connected to our mission come through strongly; on the other hand, when there are multiple opportunities for transactional fundraising (give to get), the retention of donors and possibly dollars is not as strong. This has given us much to think about in what type of organization we want to be now and in the future. We know there is always some aspect of transactional fundraising - whether it's an event or product, but there are donors who know and are with us, and that's where we need to concentrate our efforts. I think that's been the most important takeaway through this tool.
  • Online Training
I think Blackbaud University has both excellent online and instructor-led training that really allows you to learn at your own pace and also in a test environment where you can break things and not worry about making a critical mistake. People learn at different paces and with different tools, so I appreciate the many opportunities here.

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

Not sure

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

No

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

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

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

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT again?

No

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT is a great tool on the go, quickly accessing donor information or when you need to make simple updates. The fact that it's in the cloud and not a clunky app is great! I use it very often when I need to look up the last gift someone has made, an email, et cetera, when I don't want to load the desktop version. The speed at which it operates is unmatched. Again, it's not without its challenges. Terminology is slightly different between the cloud and desktop versions. You cannot do much in the way of mass changes or additions. We still do all of our gift processing in the desktop app and have had challenges correcting gifts that were entered in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT without the correct parameters.

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