Growing together with Raiser’s Edge

St Vincent’s Foundation has been using Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge for over 12 years, including four years with the web-based version Raiser’s Edge NXT. Robert Nash is the Foundation’s Senior Manager of Philanthropic Marketing. He says the Foundation chose Raiser’s Edge NXT for the wide range of features the software offers for growing organisations. The database is so intuitive and easy to use, and we’ve relied it on more and more as the organisation has grown.” Deputy Director Rebecca MacFarling agrees, saying: “When you’ve got a group of people who are using a shared system, there is a great opportunity to learn and evolve together, which has been so important for the organisation. Across the Foundation, Raiser’s Edge NXT provides transparency and clarity. The access it provides to information and reporting has allowed us to build a strong culture focused on donors and donations.” “I’ve used quite a lot of different databases throughout my career, but Raiser’s Edge NXT was my number one choice for St Vincent’s Foundation.

Raiser’s Edge NXT Offers “All the Features We Could Possibly Need”

Managing the Foundation’s philanthropic endeavours can be a complicated task, with so many different stakeholders to consider, including donors, staff, volunteers, and the Foundation’s advisory committees. Rebecca says Raiser’s Edge NXT has “all the features we could possibly need, including events, workflows, reporting, email marketing, and a whole lot more. I’m not sure how we would cope without it.”

“Incredibly Helpful” Events Features

One key feature the organisation has been increasingly reliant on recently is the Raiser’s Edge NXT Events module, which simplifies all aspects of special events, and helps with planning, organising, and implementing every stage of the Foundation’s fundraising events. “The Events feature that Raiser’s Edge NXT provides has been really important to us. It enables our team to easily see what events are on, who has been invited and who’s attending, which is incredibly helpful when we’re putting on fundraising events. In the past, we were using a third-party application for our event registrations, which incurred a 5.35% service charge. Since self-managing our event registrations through Raiser’s Edge NXT, we have saved almost $4K in service charges per year”, Robert says.

Workflows That Have “Upped the Game”

The Foundation uses Raiser’s Edge NXT’s intuitive Workflow designer to create and edit processes — known as workflows — to automatically send emails to their supporters and donors. The Foundation sends a series of welcome emails to new supporters, and can also assign phone calls and meetings to fundraisers to engage prospective donors.

“Workflows have really upped the game for us when it comes to donor communications. For example, when we receive data from the hospital about patients that want to hear from the Foundation, we are able to use workflows to trigger a set of emails welcoming them to the Foundation, while inviting them to share some information about themselves as well”, Robert explains.

Reporting That’s An “Enabler of Excellent Work”

The reporting features found in Raiser’s Edge NXT offer the Foundation a powerful and flexible way to assess their overall performance and effectiveness. Through dashboards and reporting, the Foundation has access to valuable insights and a new level of transparency across the organisation. “The reporting tools mean our fundraising team can look at things like the number of proposals sent, the success rate, and the level of income, all in a single view. That functionality is such a great equaliser and enabler of excellent work. It really cuts down on inefficiencies and all those spreadsheets. It’s very empowering for our team”, Rebecca says.

Robert adds “Reporting is one of those things that databases often forget about. But the reality is, that while it’s fine to have all your data in one place, you need reports to truly understand what’s going on. Using reports in Raiser’s Edge NXT is quite simple and works really well for us”.

“Fantastic” Digital Marketing Integrations

From mass engagement campaigns through to high-touch major giving opportunities, the integration of email marketing and donation pages within Raiser’s Edge NXT helps the Foundation achieve best-practice digital marketing campaigns that drive increased responses.

Robert says the functionality within Raiser’s Edge NXT has helped the Foundation grow from having an “ad-hoc and clunky” approach to email marketing, to now sending over 820,000 targeted emails to their database annually, an increase of over 3000%. “The functionality of having your email marketing directly connected to your database, instead of having to import and export from other applications, is fantastic. It’s the same with donation forms. You can create your form with Raiser’s Edge NXT, put it on any website, and all the data comes straight through to the database,” Robert explains.

An Exciting Partnership for the Future

Rebecca says the Foundation is looking to reach new milestones of growth and income in the future, and Raiser’s Edge NXT will play a key role in helping to reach their goals. “We’ve got two capital campaigns in the pipeline. One is a $20 million campaign and the other is a $40 million campaign.

“These campaigns are bigger than anything we have done in the past. The functionality, flexibility, and features provided by Raiser’s Edge NXT, together with the solid support offered by Blackbaud, has given us the confidence we need to set such bold targets for the future.”

“There’s no way that we’d be able to manage any such effort without Raiser’s Edge NXT in place.”