Raiser's Edge is a Great CRM Resource
July 08, 2014

Raiser's Edge is a Great CRM Resource

Bobby Argabrite | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Raiser's Edge 7

Modules Used

  • Events, campaigns, reports, planned giving, prospects

Overall Satisfaction with The Raiser's Edge

My organization used Raiser's Edge as our main donor database and CRM. We tracked everything from direct mail to event income in the database. It worked extremely well in all areas we needed to use it in. Reports were easy to run. The Dashboards were clear. And Blackbaud, who owns Raiser's Edge offers wonderful courses to catch your staff up on how to use the software accurately. The most helpful class was for the senior executives and how they can use the database. Them knowing what they can and can't ask for is very helpful.
  • Raiser's Edge does a great job at segmentation. If you just want to run a list of lapsed donors you can be confident in the report that is pulled.
  • Raiser's Edge does a great job at tracking relationships, both internal and external. This helps with donor cultivation.
  • The database also is great at tracking direct marketing programs and monitoring all levels from campaigns, to appeals, to segmentation codes. If you've ever worked in direct mail you know just how complicated the data can be.
  • The database imports and exports data incredibly well.
  • Limited number of users licenses can cause a headache for nonprofits with small budgets but a large number of staff who need access to the database.
  • Better donor follow-up after a donation is received
  • Streamlined donor acknowledgement process
I currently use Salesforce. It's a similar but different beast when it comes to a CRM. I think, overall, Raiser's Edge seemed to be a better donor database. Salesforce is really focused on the relationships management over the donation tracking and data like that. At least that's how it seems here.

I like both databases, but Salesforce definitely isn't as easy or user friendly at times.
I give this a 5 because I may consider having my current organization switch at some point, but at this time we are staying put.
I think one of the key things to ask is how many donors does the specific nonprofit have. I worked for one nonprofit that had a list of 50 individual donors when I was hired. It didn't make sense at the time to purchase Raiser's Edge. There were other free tools and resources out there for nonprofits just starting up.