We wanted to invest for the future and were advised that it might be easier to start with a leading CRM rather than migrate data from different departments once we were more established. We partnered with Blackbaud at a point when we had only three employees and were still working with spreadsheets! It was a significant decision for a charity of our size, but ultimately it has been well worth the investment. We chose Blackbaud due to its reputation as the gold standard for charity databases. We researched other CRMs that could have been suitable for us, but they didn’t feel specifically dedicated to the charity world; for us Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT is the perfect solution as a charity CRM.

I used to say a CRM is only as clever as the data you put into it, but Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT has become so intuitive and helpful with regards to what it can give you without having to put in prior effort. The biggest impact Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT has had on our fundraising has been in supporting us to develop new strategies through giving us a bigger picture of our fundraising initiatives. It’s really multifaceted; it helps us to understand how all campaigns are performing and allows us to use that information to understand and strategise.

Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT has been vital to our fundraising. We had several years of data to analyse in order to understand what we need to do to meet our targets. Having a retrospective view of our activities has allowed us to improve procedures and raise more money.

It has also helped the charity beyond fundraising in ways we didn’t anticipate. There are activities I have seen as being inherently separated from fundraising that are now incorporated within our CRM. An example of this is our support line, which helps newly diagnosed patients, patients with ongoing treatments, as well as their family and carers. These touch points with our service users are recorded confidentially through Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, where we can also track them.

Brilliant! I constantly feel very supported. The teams within Blackbaud help me understand what I need to do and exactly how to do it. Frequently, when I have a question, the answer is already easily accessible in a resource within the Knowledgebase. Looking back to implementation after the sales process, the support was great. It can be very daunting to set something like this up with no experience, but Blackbaud helped to import our data and gave us assistance to map the database and create a plan of where everything should be to benefit us in the long run.

The Blackbaud plugin for JustGiving® is great; it’s a huge time saver! We are processing thousands of donations per settlement, and with about five settlements per month, it is a huge amount of work which this plugin has helped reduce. We love JustGiving and thought it was the best news when we heard about the two organisations coming together. We were excited, because we thought it indicated positive plans for the future; the fact that the two companies within the charity sector were working side by side, they would understand each other better and understand us better—which could only benefit the sector.