Best Of
Re: 2 stage applications in New Grantmaking Portal
@Rhonda Oakley
As we rely upon a two-step application, I appreciate you highlighting this issue. I was hoping another BBGM user would respond by now, unfortunately I don't have an answer. Have you opened up a case with Support? It's disheartening that it is more difficult to set up a two-step application than in the legacy forms manager, which was pretty straightforward.
Also curious if Blackbaud has established the fix to link a NEW Stage 2 application with a Legacy pre-application/Stage 1 application.
Re: RENEXT - Best practice for updating constituents postal addresses to ensure they are accurate?
@Christine Robertson That would be ideal, but I am in the UK and I'm not sure that there is an equivalent. Thank you for your reply 
Re: Data points that help fundraisers to understand target analytics
@Payal Sen When I used RP at a previous organization. We used RP to enhance our internal data screening rather than the other way around. We created a series of weighted measures and run internal screening metrics eg. RFM analysis, cohort analysis, engagement, and relationship mapping. Hope this helps.
Celebrating Excellence in K–12: Golden Ticket and Developer Impact Award Winners at bbdevdays
K–12 made a “clean sweep” in the Golden Ticket Awards—with three sessions earning the highest feedback scores from attendees! Congratulations to our winners:
- Brian Cibelli, English Teacher, and Jeanne Townsend, Database Administrator at Thayer Academy, for their dynamic session, "Beyond the Bar Chart." Their innovative approach to data visualization is inspiring and transformative.
- Nick Marchese, Director of Academic & Strategic Technology at Emma Willard School, for his presentation, "Break Free from Manual Data Exports: Using the Query API." Nick’s insights can enhance data practices for any school.
- Vicky Wong, Director of Research & Advancement Information Systems at University School, and Rebecca Sundquist, Sr. Principal Consultant at Blackbaud, for their collaborative session, "Insights at a Glance: Unlocking the Power of Power BI Dashboards." Their work empowers institutions to make confident data-driven decisions.
And a big round of applause for our Developer Impact Award winner:
- Rochelle Toomer, Director, Advancement Services at Emma Willard School, whose “Event Check-in" template streamlines the in-person check-in process. The school is currently in a 5-year campaign that hit its goal early—after only 3 years—thanks to their fundraising CRM, Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, and the event tool that Rochelle built.
Mark Davis, VP of Education Products at Blackbaud, expressed his enthusiasm, stating, “We are immensely proud of the outstanding accomplishments of these individuals and their schools. Their sessions exemplify a commitment to excellence, fostering collaboration and driving advancements in education and technology. Blackbaud Developer’s Conference continues to serve as a vibrant platform, uniting Blackbaud's research and development teams with its dedicated customers. This partnership not only delivers impactful solutions but also consistently inspires progress in educational technology and practices.”
The executive director of Blackbaud’s K–12 Advisory Board also remarked on the importance of fostering innovation in educational practices, emphasizing the lasting impact of such initiatives. “I could not be prouder of the K-12 participants at this year's event. #bbdevdays continues to grow in both involvement and impact, and to see K-12 schools ‘crack the code’ and earn accolades from this impressive, brilliant community means a lot. I can’t wait to see the results of this event benefit both schools and the larger non-profit community.” – Austin Ewachiw, Director of Technology, Calvert Hall.
Learn more about #bbdevdays and watch their influential presentations on demand by visiting this link.
Congratulations again to all winners—you’ve set a high standard for future presenters and educators alike!
Re: Validation of Invoice Import is awful
@Dawn Asbury
It's not just importing Invoices. All the imports have a horribly inefficient way to validate then actually import. So many clicks, saves, views, repeat.
Re: Query for odd or even graduation/class of year
@JoAnn Strommen If you have a spreadsheet with the classes you want - you can copy those classes and paste them into a one of query like you would do with constituent ID. Class Year works the same way. Let Excel do the work and then you don't have to key them separately.
Hope this helps.
Re: Query for odd or even graduation/class of year
@JoAnn Strommen, this is the query we use to find specific class years ending in 1s or 6s, for example. Hope this is helpful.
Re: Stop auto-batching NXT WebView gifts.
@Dariel Dixon
Also, in all of the examples I've seen (when we launched NXT and then on BB youtube channel) it shows 1 - 5 gifts per batch as the examples. At the end of the day, the power should be in the customer's hands like it is in OLX to create batches on our own to better fit our needs
Re: Stop auto-batching NXT WebView gifts.
@Faith Murray With NXT WebView donation forms, NXT batches them several times throughout the day. And even though some of Blackbaud's online source says there are specific parameters to which the gifts are batched, the last rep I spoke with said that more often than not, I would end up with mostly 1 gift batches. Even though WebView has a friendlier recurring giving option, the batching process would be a nightmare for our organization.
Stop auto-batching NXT WebView gifts.
Many organizations need the ability to batch their own online donations. Ours receives a high volume of donations and I would never get through them in a timely manner. Having to process and post batches with only 1 gift in it would kill our organizations momentum. We would have 200 batches a day at a minimum. That's insane.