Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT

Powerful CRM that will meet your needs!

Vantagens:

This is a powerful CRM service/software. We've expanded our utilization over the years, but I still know there are areas we don't even scratch the surface of when it comes to compiling information on donors and potential donors. A few years ago we made the leap to RE:NXT, placing our data in the cloud -- it's wonderful to be able to access data from wherever I am, whether I need a phone number or address, or some data on donation history. I've been a Raiser's Edge user for 20+ years, and I have to say I can't imagine keeping track of our donors without it. From historical data to personal notations, you can keep so much info here (even uploading photos, documents, etc.). With RE:NXT we have integration between the CRM and our web site donation forms. They're easy to build and drop in to the coding for the site.

Desvantagens:

We've felt that there are a couple of things in the EVENTS module that we wish worked better for us/our organization, but that's a small hiccup when it comes to the functionality and quality of BB fundraising.

NXT for anyone

Vantagens:

Although I do not use NXT often due to my job requirements, I find much easier to use rather than the original Raiser's Edge platform. It is more modern looking and has easy to use WYSIWYG is simple and comprehensive. After not using the site for a while, I am able to pick up without much issue.

Desvantagens:

you cannot do all functionalities on NXT that you can do on Raiser's Edge. it can be somewhat limiting.

Very Disappointed!

Comentários: Very disappointed as it is difficult to use and way too expensive.

Vantagens:

Has a lot of features and bells and whistles.

Desvantagens:

Customer service with Blackbaud is extremely frustrating.

RE NXT is the Best for Educational Nonprofits!

Vantagens:

I use both database view and NXT. I like the powerful queries and reports.

Desvantagens:

Sometimes a query can be difficult to run based on what has been entered in the database.

Blackbaud

Comentários: Overall, we like and dislike this product. We are learning to live with some of the quirks of it because the organizational tools for fundraising seem to be quite good for us.

Vantagens:

What I like most about this product is that as a fundraiser, I have many tools that keep me organized and remind me to thank our donors.

Desvantagens:

My co-worker who uses this software for only adding donations has a very difficult time with it. She says it takes way too many steps to add donations. It is also frustrating that you have to create a new record for someone who has been memorialized by a gift. It seems odd to add someone into your record base that is deceased and there is a cap on the number of constituents you can have in the database without having to pay more. The reporting pages are confusing and difficult to understand how to set up a goal and see our progress toward it. There are many things like this that we come across that are frustrating to us.

Database Searching Made Easy

Vantagens:

I love web-based software that gives more freedom in filtering and report setup. I get to decide what columns I do and don't want to see. RE NXT makes searching so much easier than the desktop software, as there are fewer steps to take for searching. It's intuitive in the search box, and you don't have to enter in all information to get a list of possible answers.

Desvantagens:

The pages are aesthetically bland. I wish the categories inside a search result were differently colored to quickly navigate where one category ends and another begins.

Getting there, but not quite

Comentários: Not a whole lot more than RE Legacy.

Vantagens:

The web interface is easier to use than the legacy Raiser's Edge product. There are some cool features and basic level reporting available.

Desvantagens:

It is read-only, pretty shell of the Legacy RE database, but users still have to login to the old RE database to enter data and advanced level reporting.

One Stop Shop for Donor Tracking

Vantagens:

Makes donor tracking simple and cohesive between fundraising department and accounting department.

Desvantagens:

Not very intuitive but they do offer numerous tutorials which are great.

In a Limited Pack, Raiser's Edge Pulls Ahead

Vantagens:

A powerful database management software, Raiser's Edge makes it easy to search and organize donor information. Importing data into spreadsheets and documents is not difficult, once you master the software, but does require some practice.

Desvantagens:

The user interface is not necessarily intuitive and isn't the most modern looking design, but after a while the user can get the hang of it.

Excellent for Large Organizations

Comentários: I am a new employee of a large national NPO that is outgrowing the old way of collecting, tracking, and processing data. This is a perfect solution to help us continue to grow as a team!

Vantagens:

Dynamic data collection, tracking, and reporting make it easy to share and collaborate with co-workers, simplifying processes and ensuring that everyone can do their respective jobs more efficiently.

Desvantagens:

It does require training time for employees to learn but fortunately, Blackbaud provides excellent learning tools, both self-study and instructor-guided.

The Standard for CRM

Comentários: I have been a pleased user of Raiser's Edge for many years.

Vantagens:

I have been using Raiser's Edge with a variety of non-profits since 2007. It has consistently been a vital tool in tracking donor and constituent relationships.

Desvantagens:

Building and pulling reports from RE can be challenging. There should be more advancement in making it more intuitive to do so.

It's a good fund raising product but it needs improvement

Comentários: RE NXT meet the basic needs for fundraisers and administrators. But any complex queries, reports, import, integration with other system requires lots of 3rd parties tools to achieve.

Vantagens:

Visuals is based on permission and search button on the top of the browser is useful. Tiles are collapsible and dashboard is easy to view. Comparing to the database view, opening a new browser tab is useful when doing some comparisons between screens. Data Health (Deceased/Email/Duplicate Finder) is a great feature in web view. We use it all the time. The availability of ResearchPoint on dashboard is great feature for prospect management team.

Desvantagens:

RE NXT is a web view that is not as fully integrated as the database view. List, import and reporting are not adequate as the database view. Although SKI API is available, not all of the data point in database is available.

Satisfied Raiser's Edge 7 user Ready to Make the Jump to RE NXT

Comentários: I previously worked with many other database interface software in the for-profit world, where I worked for the first 15+ years of my career. So when I started using Raiser's Edge, it came relatively easily to me as it reminded me of other previously used interfaces. We have a large database of over 350K donors, and Raiser's Edge has no problem handling our volume. The Raiser's Edge 7 is now showing some age in how it's structured and functions, but mostly in look and feel. We have been using Raiser's Edge with our database on premise. With the seismic shift into cloud computing, we are planning to move to a Blackbaud hosted environment, which will, in and of itself, bring us closer to feeling like it's not the 90's anymore. But the good news is that Blackbaud knows that the look and feel, usability, functionality and ability to play well with others need to catch up with the rest of technology, and so they introduced Raiser's Edge NXT a couple of years ago. RE NXT looks modern and fills many checkboxes of what fundraisers need to do their jobs in today's environment. (See Pros to find out more of what I like about RE NXT.)

Vantagens:

Raiser's Edge 7 gives you the tools (and/or gives you optional add-on tools) to manage your donor relationships and data in just about any way you can think of. It's a great all-purpose fundraising tool for non-profit organizations. Raiser's Edge NXT (RE NXT) is the next generation, and we are most likely moving to that within the next year. The awesome things about RE NXT are 1. User access to your donor data from anywhere on any device, 2. Unintimidating ease of use for non-techie and techie alike, 3. Open API which means lots of more fantastic compatible tools are being built by Blackbaud partners, 4. Unlimited users - which means now our Board members and many other stakeholders will be able to login and get their reports on the dashboard instead of waiting for emailed or, even worse, hard-copy reports to be run and delivered to them by our staff.

Desvantagens:

My experience with the Customer Support has been less than stellar. Sometimes it seems like the Customer Support's go-to answer is, "No" or "No, you can't do that." Unless the answer is, "Well, if you buy this other tool we have, then you can do that." But since we have no plans to move off of Blackbaud products, thank heavens they have an amazing Blackbaud Community network where you can ask any question and get tons of advice from folks just like you working in this software daily. Blackbaud Community is now the first place I go when I need support. Many times the question I have has already been asked and answered in the past, and so just searching through the discussions will get me my answer or point me in the right direction, instead of wasting time trying to re-invent the wheel. My fairly high rating in this review on Customer Support is mostly because of Blackbaud Community and our fairly newly assigned account manager.

Blackbaud

Comentários: NXT is used daily and it is functional but not always precisely what is needed. It has evolved over the years and it seems to be heading in a better direction.

Vantagens:

Our the years we have used Raiser's Edge it has continued to grow and evolve with broader and impactful criteria that aid in fundraising. NXT is user- friendly much more so than the original Raiser's Edge.

Desvantagens:

It would be helpful if there were video tutorials. The knowledgebase is not user-friendly. It is unable to assist in finding quick and clear answers in creating a list specific to our constituency. Again, available video tutorials would be a great addition to the product.

A Game Changer for Prospect Managers

Comentários: I think the RE NXT interface is incredibly intuitive. It helps new team members get on the ground faster with learning how to search records and find the information that they need. That said, a strong background in the database view is helpful to any member of your team, whether they are on the road or not. I would strongly suggest having teams trained formally on both systems.

Vantagens:

What I love about RE NXT is that it helps to visualize graphs, such as donor patterns and key financial data, automatically. You no longer have to have endless queries and exports and dashboards to access the data you want the most. This helps facilitate staff meeting discussions, and also keeps all team members informed on the fly. Secondly, the prospect profiles for managers. Gone are the days of exporting travel profiles in plain text. Now a PM can login from the road to see all the details they need in a useful manner -- and what's even better? They can change how the data is displayed so that it is personalized to them. It is clean, well constructed, and yet also flexible enough to be able to dig deeper with a couple of clicks. And if they need to find a new person to visit in their area, the map tools are perfect. Highly recommended for offices with lots of traveling teammates.

Desvantagens:

As with both versions of RE, you only get out what you put into it. You need to make sure you have the right policies and procedures in place, for example, to make sure that certain fields in actions are required. You'll also need to work with your team to make sure they understand the updated language from the database view to the NXT view. For example, proposals and opportunities are the same thing. This is a bit of a challenge in offices where the NXT vs. database team may not interact that much and will be speaking slightly different languages about this software. It is not a deal-breaker, just a trainable moment.

The Raiser's Edge is an industry standard for a reason. It's robust but doesn't play well with non-Blackbaud software.

Comentários: If you're a small-to-medium shop looking to invest in a CRM, The Raiser's Edge will work well for you. If you need easy integration with other software solutions (email marketing, event marketing, etc.) you may want to look elsewhere, but if your main need is a robust CRM, then The Raiser's Edge a good way to go.

Vantagens:

The Raiser's Edge is consistent and reliable as a CRM. Because it is so widely used, there are tons of good resources online if you have any questions, and you are likely to be able to easily hire staff who have experience with it. You are able to set up your data structure with a good amount of customization. The the query tool is easy to use as long as you understand how you've set up your fields. You don't need to be able to code to administer the database, which I appreciated. Permissions are fairly straightforward.

Desvantagens:

As part of the Blackbaud suite of products, The Raiser's Edge is not easy to integrate with other products. If you need easy integration with other software solutions, you'll either have to buy other Blackbaud products, which are expensive and sometimes not the best in their class, or do a lot of data transfers between the systems. For example, when I was administering a Raiser's Edge database, I had to regularly export lists for use with Constant Contact, and import transactions for our online giving page, because we didn't use Blackbaud solutions for email marketing or online giving. It wasn't very difficult to do, but it did slow us down with tasks that should be automated.

Valuable and versatile database

Comentários: I'm speaking to RE7, i.e. the database view specifically, which many nonprofits use exclusively but those who purchase the NXT bundle also have access to the full database view as well. I've been using RE7 for 12 years and overall I love it, especially in combination with the NXT web view.

Vantagens:

There is so much you can do with Raiser's Edge, it's a robust and powerful tool. It works "out of the box" without need for programming or customization per se (other than settings and configuration etc.) so you don't need to be a coder to set up and use. I particularly love queries to pull together lists of donors who meet certain criteria, which can then be used for mailing lists, reports, exports, etc. The acknowledgement letters are incredibly valuable, allowing variable data and personalized language, e.g. when a gift is designated to a particular program we pull in a paragraph about that program without our gift entry staff having to do any manual or extra work.

Desvantagens:

Can be a bit clunky, and not always intuitive (NXT web view is a huge improvement in those areas). The reports aren't pretty (again NXT is astronomically better there) and sometimes there isn't a report that will work for our needs so I have to set up with queries and exports. There is almost always a way to do what I need to do, but I sometimes have to go through some complicated digital acrobatics to get there.

It's kind of the gold standard for Donation Tracking for Nonprofits...should it be though?

Comentários: We use RE to manage donors and alumni for the college. We call upon the data to understand giving history and keep records of asks and changes in their business or personal lives that may affect our relationship with them or their giving capacity.

Vantagens:

The history of the donors is what is most useful. Raiser's Edge has been around for so long and we have such a long history with it that the historical data is priceless.

Desvantagens:

Because we have such a long history and so much historical data with RE, we can not really shop around for new products without the risk of losing data or enduring a massive implementation process.

Easier than database view but not as functional

Comentários: When comparing RE NXT to other products I have used it is about the same in functionality. Prompts are usually pretty intuitive. It is not very customizable. Going back and forth between NXT and the database is time consuming. Kind of like using two products to accomplish one task.

Vantagens:

The RE NXT product is easier to use than the database view. You can customize work tiles to easily access your work. Creating List is easier to do than queries. Just starting to create workflows. It looks like it has real potential to prompt actions.

Desvantagens:

Not all aspects are available in RE NXT. I still need to go to the database view to enter information. Customer service is extremely difficult to get in a timely manner. Chat agents can be abrasive at times. Would help if instructions contained some troubleshooting. Difficult to get real time examples outside of classes, which are not always scheduled when you need them.

Great Product with Room for Improvement

Vantagens:

This is such a great tool to keep track of your constituents. Everything is organized, making it easy to find the information you need with little hassle. It was also relatively to learn how to use it. I had never heard of Raiser's Edge before beginning an internship during college, and without any experience outside of that using it, I was able to find a job where I spend all day using Raiser's Edge. Not being particularly computer-savy, it's almost unbelieveable to me how comfortable I feel using this product.

Desvantagens:

There always seems to be little kinks and bugs that make little to no sense, and many times even those at Blackbaud don't seem to know why. For example, I work a lot with tributes. Recently I discovered that when you are entering a gift and you have a tribute open, if you go into one of the tribute acknowledgee's records and then back out, RE will check off all of the acknowledgees to acknowledge even if you previously did not have them all checked off. My manager asked why this was happening and how we can fix it, and the short-term suggestion we got was to exit out of the acknowledgee record instead of saving and closing. Frankly, that's a horrible suggestion. Obviously there are going to be times when we need to save and close. I understand you may not have an immediate answer, but I'd rather you not be able to give me a suggestion than to give me a bad one. In short, I think there are many kinks to be worked out and customer service can be improved.

Robust donor management capabilities, but clunky legacy solution

Comentários: The solution has served us well for many years, and the service from the sales and support teams has been one of the best parts of the relationship.

Vantagens:

RaisersEdge 7 has tremendous capabilities - perhaps too many. Although an industry leader in market share, for a small organization, we don't use the majority of functions available. Service from our sales support contacts has been very good.

Desvantagens:

The overall solution is very clunky and difficult to use. While Blackbaud is in the (multi-year) process of migrating functions to their cloud NXT platform, this process is slow and leaves users straddled between an old clunky solution and the functions that have been migrated to their cloud platform. The solution is expensive compared to other simpler solutions that can be better suited to small organizations. The mobile app, while useful, is very limited in its capabilities and seems to be a v1 mobile app.

NXT is good for larger nonprofits

Comentários: NXT is definitely more user friendly and easier to navigate than older versions of Raiser's Edge.

Vantagens:

There is a lot of capability with NXT and its visually more digestible than classic Raiser's Edge.

Desvantagens:

Building reports is still challenging in NXT--better than classic Raiser's Edge.

Incredibly disappointed

Vantagens:

NXT is easier to use than the traditional, back end with Raisers Edge when viewing records and can be accessed on your phone.

Desvantagens:

The ease of use is still light years behind other cloud-based CRMs. You only have limited access to the data and many fields are blocked (meaning you can't make changes unless you go into the more complicated back end). The biggest problem we have had has been with online gifts. We purchased Everyday Hero (which is Blackbaud's online giving module), and every time a gift comes in by a spouse, it overrides the current gift with that person's name, and only shows that they gave that one gift. There is no flag or warning that the address is a duplicate. So now that we purchased something that was supposed to expedite our online giving, we have to go back and do hours of clean up in our database. Also, they have "automatic upgrades" when your records reach another tier. The customer service is awful - takes hours on the phone or weeks to respond. It is exceptionally expensive for what it is offering. Also, doesn't integrate well at all with Financial Edge.

User for over 20 years

Vantagens:

The software is great for constituent management and tracking donors and gifts for non profits.

Desvantagens:

The vendor fees are extremely high. Once you commit to their software, they have you. It is near impossible to leave. They used to have great customer support. Their staff was always knowledgeable and willing to go the extra mile to help you with their product. Now you never hear from your account executive unless you contact them and then they pass you off to one of their assistants. Their assistants push you into buying products you do not need and then when you do purchase a product from them and sign the agreement to purchase, you cannot get answers. We purchased an add on module, we contacted them and we were passed to the assistant to our account executive. The assistant got the paperwork signed and it has been over a month and the add on product has still not been activated in our database. I have emailed and called the account executive assistant because we cannot talk to the account executive, i have talked to customer support and have been passed around. This is not the first time I have had this SAME experience from the new Blackbaud. New leadership appears to be clueless to the horrible experiences from their staff.

Raiser's Edge 7.94

Comentários: Overall, Raiser's Edge is a great product with a lot of functionality. It can be pricey, but my research shows me that for many major fundraising organizations, they all use it. Raiser's Edge is the industry standard. If your organization uses it, I would not migrate away from it. If your organization is not using, it might be a worthwhile investment for the functionality it provides.

Vantagens:

Relatively easy to use. Great functionality as a constituent database and donor giving software. Definitely top of the line.

Desvantagens:

Multiple modules needed for credit card processing, events, education/alumni. Each module is additional cost. Conversioncost could be high if converting away from Raiser's Edge due to its complexity compared to other providers. Customer support can take a long time to get through via phone. Sales really pushes to move you RE-NXT, which is cloud-based and costs several thousand more than server-based RE.