If 2020 was the year of swift modifications and accelerated deliverables to meet the needs of the evolving participation space, 2021 is steadily becoming the year of safety and peace of mind (for both your data and your personal health).

In Q1, our Product Managers and Engineers focused on enhancing the security of the charity admin, fundraiser, and donor accounts. We also increased the value of the RENXT JustGiving integration by adding more supported fields and configurations. Additionally, we enhanced the web design packages you can purchase to upgrade your event experience. But wait… there is more….

Enhanced User Security

As a part of our commitment to the safe use of the platform, we have enhanced security with the following updates:

Cease excessive attempts to log in via throttling.

New strength-increasing password requirements.

• Must be at least 12 characters

• Must include at least one number, a lower or upper case letter and a special character (#,$,%,&,@ etc.)

• Must not include your email, name, or a commonly used word

The inability to reset a password using a recent configuration to prevent malicious attacks.

• Password history - validation against previous six passwords when changing password.

Forced lapsed password resets.

• If current password has not been added/changed in the past year the user is redirected to update their password the next time they log in.

Safety and security are always top of mind for us. As such, we will continue to fortify our password requirements. It is critical to make sure your admin username connects to your correct email address so you can take advantage of the upcoming two-factor authentication that will be rolling out throughout the year. Once live, you will be asked (similar to other online providers) to authenticate with an access code that will be emailed to you separately. Log in now to tidy up your contact information by editing your details.

Continued Optimization for Page Visitors

In Q4, we completed a series of tests on the platform, geared towards identifying small tweaks in the visitor experience that would increase the amount raised/processed on each page. By running these experiments on your behalf, we are able to A/B test theories and bring the strongest performers live- helping you raise more money, all without ever having to lift a finger!

1. Be the First Donor- Tested multiple variants and designs to encourage the page visitor to be the first to donate. LIVE
2. Share on social media- Evaluated different button configurations and calls to action to increase the shares by 30%. LIVE
3. Added progress bar for personal page creation- By showing the status visually, 2% more individuals are completing their personal pages. This adds up to 20k more fundraisers globally! LIVE

Did you know?
Fundraisers using Strava to update their page are 21% more likely to raise money. In just a short time, they have raised over $22M dollars globally.

Ongoing development with the integration of JustGiving data with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®

Bringing you the strongest details about your donor and fundraiser interactions is core to the native value of doing business with us. We have a team dedicated to the continuous improvement of the RENXT JustGiving integration so you can have the insights needed to steward accordingly. You can now:

• Customize the incoming data per campaign with RENXT’s fund, campaign, appeal and package (NEW).
• See the full transaction amount with the “Donor Covers Fees” portion coming over from JustGiving.
• Set your acknowledgement status to “Not Acknowledged” so you can send additional emails or letters with an appropriate tone for P2P donors and fundraisers.
• Improved support of Anonymous Donors- Now, if only email has been brought over, the integration will match, so you do not have to review potential duplicates. If there is currently no one in your database with that email, the gift will be added to a single anonymous record, as dictated in the configuration.

Upgrade your current campaign design with improved design services

Need a little extra pep in your campaign step? With our add-on, you can enhance your visitor experience by purchasing additional design packages from our Professional Services team. Organizations who leverage Professional Services raise 5X more, so these pages are worth taking a second look at!
New features include:

• Fundraiser Coaching Emails
• Virtual Event microsites with fitness summaries
• Optimized Giving Day fundraising hubs
• Itemized (or name-specified) offline gifts in donor scroll
• Support for customized donation handles, tracking references, and redirect URLS through our Simple Donation Integration service

Want to learn more? Join one of the many webinars designed to help you take advantage of essential and new features in each of our products or chat with our Sales Team to get a demo of the Professional Services Packages.

Coming Soon:

Stay tuned for the next product update briefing in the fall, where we are likely to cover some additional enhancements like:

• Launching Blackbaud Peer-to-Peer Fundraising™, powered by JustGiving® in Canada!
• Ongoing improvements for the admin experience.
• Continued features and fields supported with the RENXT/JG integration.
• Flexibility with payment processors, platform fees, and mobile wallets, plus refund reports.
• Additional security updates like multi factor authentication.

In the meantime, click on the Idea Bank tab in the community to go and vote on your most need-to-have enhancement! You might see it in the next session.