Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT Review from Backend User
December 14, 2022

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT Review from Backend User

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Insight Designer

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT

We implemented Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT in 2021, after using Blackbaud Raiser's Edge for many years. We didn't implement it in order to address any business problems-- it is something Blackbaud is pushing all organizations to, and it was inevitable that we had to transition at some point. It did transition us to a cloud-based database, which increases gift officer's ability to access it remotely, but has also led to constant issues when Blackbaud's servers are down for hours/whole days.

Pros

  • More aesthetically pleasing for some people
  • Customizable layout
  • NXT Ratings are helpful
  • Past due actions are easier to flag/see

Cons

  • Gift entry is missing key functionality (pledges, tributes)
  • Searching for records has limited functionality compared to database view
  • In my opinion, lists have limited functionality- 99% of the time I need to log back into database view and make a query
  • Report builder/Insights is not intuitive at all
  • Most reporting/data processes can't be done effectively in NXT
  • You have to deactivate and restart some workflows regularly since you can't put the same workflow on a constituent more than once.
  • Creates the ability to access information remotely
  • Personally in my expeience, it's had a negative impact because there are frequent outages in service, which cause me to lose work time. It hasn't improved our processes in any way that would result in more raised funds or donors.
It's helpful that donors are automatically screened on a rolling basis. As with any wealth screening, this information needs to be qualified. We hope to use this more with newly hired fundraiser.
We used NEON briefly a number of years ago for our Charter School database. We chose to stay with Blackbaud for our main database because (at the time) there wasn't a reason to move- we were happy with the quality of the product and had decent experiences with customer service. In my experience, that has declined over time.

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

No

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?

No

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

No

Would you buy Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT again?

No

As someone who works on the backend of Raiser's Edge, in my experience, NXT is not useful to me at all. The only people I would recommend it to are frontline fundraisers, who only need to see summarized information and don't need as much functionality. It is also frustrating that Blackbaud has been promising for years that the functionality was being built out, but it seems quite slow to actually happen.

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT Support

Most support reps just send you links to Knowledgebase articles, and it's difficult to a direct answer.

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