In this guide, we’ll answer five questions that you might have about Raiser’s Edge NXT whether you're new to the platform or a long-time user.
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Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, also known as RE NXT, has revolutionized the way nonprofits strategize and execute their fundraising efforts. With its robust features and capabilities, this powerful constituent relationship management (CRM) system empowers nonprofits to cultivate relationships with donors, streamline operations, and maximize their fundraising potential.
In this guide, we’ll answer five questions that you might have about Raiser’s Edge NXT. Whether you're new to the platform or a long-time user looking to deepen your knowledge, these insights will help you make the most of this powerful software.
In addition to being a donor database, RE NXT is a fundraising platform that includes the following features:
Donor data management: Maintain detailed constituent records, track interactions, and manage relationships with donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders.
Online giving tools: Launch fundraising campaigns, leverage prospect research tools, and build an unlimited number of online donation forms that align with your brand.
Event planning: Create event registrations, track attendance, and integrate event data with constituent records.Reporting: Generate custom reports to measure fundraising performance and make data-driven decisions.
Before moving into the buying process, determine what your short-and long-term goals are. If fundraising is at the heart of what you do and your current processes are inefficient, RE NXT’s features might be the perfect solution.
Raiser's Edge NXT was designed with fundraisers in mind. While it’s primarily used by nonprofits, it can be beneficial to any mission-driven organization that participates in fundraising. These organizations include but are not limited to:
Educational institutions: Colleges, universities, and K-12 schools can leverage Raiser's Edge NXT to manage alumni relations and launch fundraising campaigns.
Arts and cultural organizations: Museums, theaters, galleries, and other arts and cultural institutions often rely on RE NXT to manage memberships, ticket sales, and fundraising activities.
Healthcare organizations: Hospitals, medical research institutions, and healthcare foundations leverage Raiser's Edge NXT to maintain donor records, run fundraising campaigns, and support medical research initiatives.
Keep in mind that, while Raiser's Edge NXT is well-suited to support most medium to large organizations with donor management needs, other products might be a better fit. We’ll explore a few in the following section.
Before committing to Raiser’s Edge, consider how this product fits in with the variety of other online fundraising and constituent relationship management solutions on the market. For instance, you might compare Raiser’s Edge NXT to the rest of the Blackbaud CRM product family, which includes:
eTapestry: Blackbaud eTapestry is a cloud-based donor management software designed to help small to medium-sized nonprofits that aren’t quite ready for Raiser’s Edge NXT. With manageable pricing plans and simple, user-friendly tools, eTapestry is a good starter CRM for organizations that need to size up from basic spreadsheets.
Luminate Online: Blackbaud Luminate Online is a fundraising and marketing automation solution that can help your nonprofit manage email campaigns, personalize donation forms, and host events. Plus, it can be integrated with RE NXT to provide a comprehensive view of your constituent data.
Blackbaud CRM: Blackbaud CRM is a highly customizable and enterprise-level CRM solution, suitable for larger organizations with complex fundraising and constituent management needs. It offers robust features for managing donor relationships, major gifts, grants, events, memberships, and more.
When evaluating various CRMs, prioritize scalability. The prospective software should accommodate your nonprofit’s growth and evolving needs without requiring a complete overhaul or migration to a new system. This is crucial for long-term efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Raiser's Edge NXT does offer some customization options, but the extent of customization may be limited compared to other CRMs. That’s because RE NXT was designed to provide immediate impact through the features listed above.
Nevertheless, nonprofits can still customize their:
Constituent records: Create custom fields within constituent records to capture and track unique information specific to your organization, such as donor preferences, volunteer history, or program participation.
User access and permissions: Configure user roles and permissions to control who has access to specific features and data within the system.
Campaigns: Tailor campaign names, fundraising goals, and donor segments for a more personalized approach to generating revenue.
While Raiser's Edge NXT provides these customization options, it's essential to consult with Blackbaud or a certified consultant to understand the specific customization capabilities and limitations of the software.
While RE NXT features can be leveraged out-of-the-box and without extensive customization, it is recommended to train your staff to become proficient in the platform. Ongoing training can ensure that you maximize your ROI and get the most out of your platform.
If your nonprofit lacks the in-house expertise needed to lead training sessions, consider hiring an external consultant who specializes in Blackbaud products and can oversee:
Onboarding: After making the switch to RE NXT, consultants will develop and deliver training programs to ensure everyone on your team understands how to use the CRM system effectively. These programs can include role-specific training sessions, hands-on tutorials, and nonprofit-wide courses.
Change management: Consultants can assist in managing the organizational change that comes with implementing a new CRM system. For example, they may create a communication plan to explain the purpose of the investment, address staff concerns, and promote user adoption.
Troubleshooting: As you implement the CRM, consultants can offer ongoing support, helping your team troubleshoot issues and adapt to software updates. In turn, the CRM will remain a valuable tool in your nonprofit’s technology stack.
Performance monitoring: Consultants will work with your nonprofit to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) related to CRM usage and track your progress toward those goals.
No matter how you go about training, make sure that by the end of the implementation process, your entire team feels confident leveraging RE NXT. Implement assessments to evaluate their knowledge and identify areas that require additional training.
Carl Diesing, Managing Director – Carl co-founded DNL OmniMedia in 2006 and has grown the team to accommodate clients with ongoing web development projects. Together DNL OmniMedia has worked with over 100 organizations to assist them with accomplishing their online goals. As Managing Director of DNL OmniMedia, Carl works with nonprofits and their technology to foster fundraising, create awareness, cure disease, and solve social issues. Carl lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife Sarah and their two children Charlie and Evelyn.
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Blackbaud’s CRM tools are popular among our partner schools. We saw that a lot of you are finding a new favorite from the Blackbaud suite of CRM tools called Raiser’s Edge NXT. It is a lightweight tool with a simple and usable user interface, a significant improvement over its predecessor Raiser’s Edge 7.
If you haven’t migrated, you should probably consider it now. We understand that having data on multiple systems is very hard to maintain. A lot of schools usually resort to expensive third-party integration tools. We wanted to make things easier and hence built the RE NXT integration tool.
With our new integration tool, you will be able to seamlessly push the updated constituent data from Almabase platform to RE NXT or pull from RE NXT to Almabase platform. With this, you can be assured of having updated data all the time by keeping both the systems in sync.
To get started, you can instantly connect both the systems by authorizing your permission to connect to your Blackbaud account. (Look for Raiser’s Edge NXT Integration on your admin panel navigation)
Once connected, you have to map the Almabase properties and RE NXT properties. These mappings will help the tool to compare the values and find probable matches. For example “Mobile Number” on Almabase could be equivalent to “Cell Phone” on RE NXT.
Now you are all set to sync the records.
On the Almabase profile, we have given you options to either Push to RE NXT or Pull from RE NXT.
Several of our customers are already using and enjoying the benefits of our integration tool.
Alumni information on the Almabase platform is usually more up-to-date. This is because our software pulls in information from LinkedIn and Facebook regularly. It also enables users to update their profiles when the need be.
We offer you have full control over what information needs to be copied to RE NXT. For example, you can choose Residence Phone Number to be copied to RE NXT and set it to be the primary contact.
Similarly, you can pull the most relevant data from RE NXT to the Almabase platform. The user interface is simple. Pick and choose the information you wish to save, and you can preview the changes that are going to be saved.
As a Blackbaud Certified Partner, we seamlessly integrate with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, helping you sync constituent information including education, employment history, event registrations, gifts, and more.
If you have any questions, please get in touch with us on help@almabase.com
RE NXT Integration Tool
We understand that having data on multiple systems is very hard to maintain. A lot of schools usually resort to expensive third-party integration tools. We wanted to make things easier and hence built the RE NXT integration tool.
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It can be terribly hard to keep data sane and organized, and even more so when your team’s working with different platforms to store constituent data.
Moving things across several platforms can be a daunting task, but we’ve got you covered. If your institution uses Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge NXT to store constituent data, Almabase’s state-of-the-art integration with RE NXT makes data management a breeze. The integration works right out of the box, and with a push of a button, you can have your data flow seamlessly between Almabase and RE NXT.
Read how Northwestern Health Sciences University leverages Almabase & Raiser's Edge integration for their engagement and fundraising needs.
Here’s everything you need to know about Almabase’s integration with RE NXT.
We started working on this integration with a simple goal – to ensure that your team won’t have to spend resources (and their time) on an expensive third-party solution. That’s why our integration works right out of the box, without the need to set it up manually. With the integration, Almabase and RE NXT can sync multiple data points with the push of a button. What’s more, the data that flows between the platforms is going to be clean and structured, without the hindrance of duplicates. This means that there will be zero compromise on the quality of your data when it flows between systems, which is a huge plus for your IT team.
We’ve approached our integration to sync data based on three distinct fields, which are:
Each of these fields relates to an engagement touchpoint that a constituent might create through different channels. For instance, imagine an alum makes a gift to one of your campaigns, or another registers to and participates in your next event. All of these data-points will be captured and relayed back to RE NXT through the integration.
With Almabase, your alumni have the option to sign up using social sync (either through LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google). By using social sync to sign up, the platform automatically pulls the latest information of your constituent. This information will be fed back to RE NXT, where their records will be updated. Here’s a look at the data that gets collected and updated:
However, that’s not all. Any time a constituent updates their information while registering for, or participating in an event, the updated information automatically flows back to their record on RE NXT. All of this magic happens behind the scenes, without you or a team member having to lift a finger. This can be a huge time-saver for Advancement Services professionals.
Every time you create an event page on Almabase, the integration syncs key data points of this event (event name, date, description, ticketing details, and so on) with RE NXT. This means that all events created on Almabase will also be reflected in your RE NXT database.
Once an event page is live and open for registrations, you can go to the corresponding event page on RE NXT to view detailed participant information. Here are a few key details that get recorded on RE NXT as soon as your constituent completes their registration:
You can always create custom workflows to dictate how the data should flow back to RE NXT, and which fields they should correspond to. You also have a whole host of options when it comes to printing receipts. All of these features take the stress out of events for your event managers!
Every time a constituent pledges a gift to your giving campaign on Almabase, the data associated with each gift will be reflected on our versatile gift dashboard. Payments made on Almabase can be split into gift amount and services/tickets to accommodate any downstream processes as well. From the dashboard, you have the option of creating a batch of gifts, using a broad set of data filters. Once you’ve created a batch, you can run a workflow to import all the gifts corresponding to that batch into RE NXT. Here are some of the data points that get synced:
Creating a batch of gifts on Almabase is simple, as you have plenty of filters at your disposal. Once gift data flows to your RE NXT database, you can view all your gifts, and even make edits to gift details wherever needed. This can help professionals working with Annual Fund and Major Gifts to plan more effective campaigns and raise more funds.
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So there you have it – an overview of Almabase’s best-in-class integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT. While we tried to cover most of how the integration works, there’s still a lot we couldn’t fit into this blog post, for obvious reasons.
If you want to learn more about how the integration can help set your Advancement Team up for success, we have a blog post just for that.
Get in touch with one of our Alumni Success specialists if you want to see the integration in action - we have a feeling you’re going to like what you see!
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Almabase 🔁 RENXT | Simplified data processes for your educational institution
Almabase's industry-leading integration with Raiser's Edge NXT has saved Advancement teams from leading institutions in the U.S. countless hours and resources. Find out how the integration works, and see how all your data can move between Almabase and RE NXT.
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We are constantly adding new capabilities to our integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT to help you create delightful alumni experiences while minimizing the resources and time you spend collecting, cleaning, reporting and updating data.
That’s why today we’re thrilled to introduce the gift-pull feature that makes it effortlessly easy for you to pull gifts from Raiser's Edge NXT based on various criteria like fund, campaign, appeal, and date-range and relay them back to specific giving pages.
No more going back and forth to check if the gift data across your systems are the same. Gift-Pull ensures they will be.
Let's dive into the key highlights of this feature:
While previously you could push gifts received on Almabase in one click into Raiser’s Edge NXT, now you can pull any gift from Raiser’s Edge NXT. We’ve provided a range of filters like campaign, appeal, gift type and date-range to ensure you’ve complete control over what gifts you import.
We just one-upped the raft of filters that let you create personalized email outreach campaigns. Thanks to the gift-pull feature, your constituents’ gift history is now updated on Almabase, which means you can now build email lists based on giving behavior.
Planning a targeted email campaign just for LYBUNTS? Let’s do it.
Adding a gift manually to Raiser’s Edge NXT? No problem. Now you can relay that gift data back to Almabase, thus ensuring your leaderboards and campaign goals on the giving pages reflect the latest donations received. You can also configure automated gift-pull workflows at intervals you like for your ongoing campaigns.
Additionally, special care has gone into ensuring duplicate entries don’t crop up either in Almabase or Raiser’s Edge NXT every time a pull is made.
Keeping any collaborators informed will help avoid any unplanned imports. You can create a list of recipients to notify every time a gift-pull is completed.
Our gift-pull feature is available starting today.
If you’re an Almabase customer, simply log into the platform to create your first gift-pull.
If you’re not an Almabase customer, click here to learn more about our industry-leading integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT.
Automate gift-import into Almabase from Raiser's Edge NXT
We are constantly adding new capabilities to our integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT to help you create delightful alumni experiences while minimizing the resources and time you spend collecting, cleaning, reporting and updating data.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
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