The Raiser's Edge - The Key to Moving Your Mission Forward
June 13, 2016
The Raiser's Edge - The Key to Moving Your Mission Forward
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with The Raisers Edge
The Raiser's Edge is used by the organization for tracking the lifespan of our constituents. Both current and prospective donors are tracked in the software so that they may be stewarded from first contribution through a planned gift. The software is utilized by several departments to ensure information about current activities with constituents is shared across the organization.
- The Raiser's Edge has a place for just about any piece of information, and if there isn't a field pre-designed for the purpose, many fields can be repurposed. The software isn't about data though - as much as it's about tracking the lifespan of a donor and how your organization interacts with the constituent - it allows you to track information about your constituents to ensure you're correctly segmenting, soliciting, and stewarding.
- It has an amazing ability to track portfolios of donors for your Major Gift Officers through the Prospect module. There are built-in ways to project a pipeline of donations, a timeline of activities, and even management reports for tracking purposes.
- The software has pretty amazing built-in reporting. 9 out of 10 times you'll be able to find a report available for your needs. Everything from simple donor lists to more robust financial reconciliation sheets.
- If you put good information in...good information will come out - but that can be an issue with The Raiser's Edge - the learning curve can be steep for users. Although the software is pretty user friendly, for the occasional users, it can be difficult to remember where fields are located and how to build exports. A good database administrator can ease these potential problems for most organizations.
- The cost. There are certainly other software solutions out there that can do a small amount of donor tracking (and for far less money.) You get what you pay for with Blackbaud products. You're investing a potentially large amount of money for an annual contract so that your organization is better equipped to raise the funds needed to accomplish your mission.
- An increased ability to segment for direct mail pieces.
- An increased ability to steward mid-level donors into major and planned gifts.