Since September, we’ve been running a provocatively titled breakfast series:
There’s more to fundraising CRM than Raiser’s Edge. Honest.
Let’s be clear about one thing. We’re not RE haters. Far from it – many of the team here have used Raisers Edge for years, in fact, we started life consulting about it when Purple Vision was founded in 2003. It is a stalwart of the fundraising world.
For every RE lover, we also know that there several more who are frustrated with where things are with the database – years of little investment and development. They’re stuck trying to adapt a dinosaur to the 21st century, and we hear the frustration of users feeling like they are stuck with this as there’s nothing else on the market that even compares for heavy duty, heavy lifting fundraising work.
Organisation and tech are intertwined
There are two parts to that issue obviously – just one is technology related, and the other is the organisational impetus, but both issues inform each other.
Often, one of the challenges that charities are facing in looking at Raisers Edge and whether to consider RE NXT or other tools is that other tech has been adopted to plug a gap. The result is a disconnected proliferation of tools that has only served to feed the frustration as data is not where it needs to be to run successful campaigns.
Hopes were high a few years ago when Raiser’s Edge announced NXT.
Hopes were dashed as charities realised it wasn’t all they’d dreamed of, and the price was as aspirational as they’d feared it might be.
Of course, options exist to upgrade to other Blackbaud products – let us not forget their full range (overview here) and the fact that there are many for whom these tools are just what they need.
Here’s what we learned from the breakfast series
Having delivered several More to… breakfasts where we outline the shared frustration (that’s news to some – they think they are alone in thinking RE is a beast!) and look at where technology is today, we’ve learned a few key insights about how fundraisers feel about their tech.
1 Everyone is REconsidering whether to move to NXT
2 Very few organisations are automatically upgrading
When RE NEXT was announced, it felt like a foregone conclusion that RE users would upgrade. As time passes since its release, fewer charities are inclined to tick the box to update. Still more are waiting for insight into what the leading charities are going to do with their tech.
Aside from a few early adopters, there seems to be little talk about who is making the move to NXT and a lot of talk about who is looking at alternatives or looking at CRM projects. Meanwhile, information about pricing and the like for NXT is still quite esoteric for those looking to eye up the marketplace – real costs are only really available if you speak directly to Blackbaud (which to be fair is the case with many tech providers, but we appreciate it does make it hard to get a full picture and there seems to be more “out there” on the net about other tools than RE).
3 We’re meeting Generation Y – and they don’t like it.
For a generation born with the steep uptake in tech and who are used to adopting tech and digital trends as they emerge, Raiser’s Edge is probably best described with some of the more colourful hashtags and emoji’s that form part of our modern parlance, with multiple exclamation points after each one.
It is a real dinosaur for this generation – our fundraising directors in the making – to get their heads around. Where’s the flexibility? Integration? Why can’t I manipulate my data like I want to? On my phone?
Generation Z is about to enter the workforce – this is the generation born with a phone nearly surgically attached to them – just imagine what they are going to make of it. How are you even going to get them to use it?! What will that mean for fundraising records?
4 Mid-sized charities are now looking to moving away from Raiser’s Edge
5 There are still question marks over whether Salesforce is a proven fundraising platform.
Of course, the alternative to RE is a platform based fundraising solution – recognising that there are multiple other fundraising database products around, there are two key players in the CRM market at this level – Microsoft and Salesforce.
Back in 2010, Purple Vision nailed its colours to the Salesforce mask and we’re a registered Salesforce partner. We’re also still independent – we don’t work exclusively with Salesforce and so are perhaps more receptive to any criticism that is levelled at the platform than some others.
Right now, a host of charities aren’t convinced that Salesforce has fundraising crm all sewn up. Much has changed in the past year about this, though, and we recognise that a lot of information isn’t yet fully appreciated by fundraisers.
How many know that the NPSP – the Non-Profit Success Pack – was fully relaunched last year (it was first known as the starter pack) and the content significantly ‘beefed up’?
More content for grants management and programme management was added and a comprehensive product roadmap outlined – it’s just an all-around better product for charities. Meanwhile, non-profit discounts now extend to all the array of cloud services (from Marketing Cloud to Pardot, service cloud to communities).
Despite all this, we’re not seeing a lot of new non-profit adoption case studies that resonate with the mid-size charity audience.
None of these tools for Salesforce look like Raiser’s Edge though which is also part of the adoption problem. The tech is current and so is quite a leap for some users to take to move to a completely new and unfamiliar interface with such a mix of users within their teams.
5 Causeview looks good – but can it ‘cut the mustard’?
The one tool for Salesforce that does ‘look’ like Raiser’s Edge (and by the look we mean that fundraisers review and see how they can immediately replicate essential fundraising processes with ease) is Causeview.
It is a managed package of fundraising functionality that sits on top of Salesforce and makes the most of the power of the behemoth CRM. It brings together essential functionality for fundraisers, volunteer management and a bit of event management.
It’s already in use in more than 150 charities in North America, Australia and Europe – but only a handful in the UK.
The market response to Causeview is good when it’s demoed and the price is fair for the functionality – but a few more case studies will help those who are wavering between NXT upgrades and a platform shift to make their move.
The good news – a whole new crop of users will be going live shortly which will help build even more confidence. Just watch this space.