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Moving to RE NXT

Darlene Ellis

We are a small College, but presently using RE7 and are being persuaded to go to RENXT. The price is a crazy jump (almost doubled what we pay now). The staff do not really use all the functions on RE7. We have 51,000 donors but 45,000 of those are alumni with no giving history. The price would be significantly lower if the alumni wasn't in the donor base. Has anyone gone through this? Is there a software that we could use just for the 45,000 alumni and then would only have to pay for 10,000 constituents with NXT?

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Comments

JoAnn Strommen

@Darlene Ellis

I get the “push”and the $$$$. IMO, the greatest reason to go to RE NXT is for your gift officers. They are the ones who would need to commit to using it and will like the “prettiness” of it.

As to your db records, if you don't have those alumni in your system how will you fund your future, do donor acquisition, keep records updated? I can't envision not having the alumni in the database. If you're only pulling over those who give, how will you keep records sync'ed?

Just some thoughts. Yes, it's a big decision.

Patrick Manning

@Darlene Ellis
Until Blackbaud puts some serious resources into their hosting capabilities, I would never recommend RENXT to any RE7 customer. There are so many infuriating issues with their database hosting (I'm not even talking about their 2020 data security breach) that we have lost any hope that they will address these problems.

Dariel Dixon

This is always a pro - con list for me. In a rare time, I disagree with @JoAnn Strommen. While in the past, NXT has been more functional primarily for gift officers and visual reporting, the fact is that RE7 hasn't seen any development in several years. Knowing that ALL of the development is on the NXT side, it may be something that you want to consider to look into. And, to be honest, if the cost is that significant, is it worth looking into another CRM altogether?

Here's the thing. Don't expect a fully armed and operational database. NXT is a work-in-progress. It does some cool things. Some things are not quite ready for prime-time.

That said @Darlene Ellis, the number of records is kinda non-negotiable. While you have only a small percentage of your database as donors, your goal is to try to convert the non-giving alumni into donors. I would really consider if moving to NXT is worth the cost, and what you will gain, and if is more cost effective (also considering the cost in lost efficiency to learn another CRM) to migrate to another system. A price jump of double is significant, but may not be much in raw numbers. While moving from a cost of, let's say $8K to $16K might seem a hard amount to bear, it maybe significant less than the cost of migration. These conversations need to take place at least a year in advance to allow for the budget to accommodate such a large shift.

Faith Murray

@Darlene Ellis, since your alumni will always be your best source of re-acquisition, I would keep them all in … unless they are deceased possibly.

As @JoAnn Strommen has said, the benefit to NXT is not in the database functionality, but in the major donor fundraising tools. However, you said your staff presently does not use all your RE tools. You'll need to ask yourself:

Are they not using the tools because they are not intuitive - but they would use the new web interface tools much more? If you have a MGO team that is dedicated and excited about using these tools, it can definitely be worth it.
Or, are they not using all the tools because you are understaffed and simply don't have time? In this case, NXT may not benefit you much, because no matter how pretty a tool is, it's useless if you don't have manpower to utilize it effectively.
Since there are already many features you don't use, you may consider negotiating your price by trading features. For example, you may decide to eliminate the Event module that you never use and bump your price down by subtracting Phonefinder services that you already perform through a cheaper third party. Do you have a large enough staff or high enough turnover to keep the Learn subscription past the first year? Do a feature audit and decide what is really necessary. The BB sales team will work with you, because they'd rather make a smaller sale than no sale at all. It benefits them to get everyone onto NXT because it ultimately reduces their software maintenance load.
If all else fails, there is a service from Omatic that integrates with NXT and allows you to store donor lists aside from your regular Constituent records in RE. You could then revive them only if they become re-acquired. However, I'm unsure if you are able to easily perform address update/phone append services on them, so your ability to re-acquire these alumni may be negatively impacted over the long term.

Arthur Gerstein

@Darlene Ellis I also would encourage you to move to the NXT version so you can have more control over choosing the time best for your organization. The locally hosted RE7 version licenses are no longer for sale so the writing is on the wall so to speak. Also, I don't believe Blackbaud is doing anything for RE 7 except for bug fixes but should be putting more features into the NXT version, as it is current and they should be selling this NXT version for a long time. Also, my personal opinion is that Blackbaud is the biggest player in this market and I believe in going with the platform that has the best chance of staying at the top of the nonprofit platforms.

Karen Diener

@Darlene Ellis
Very hard to answer without a complete understanding of your software ecosystem. I did work with a small college who was in a similar position, though they were just looking to drop down to a different constituent band and not to NXT.

They happened to have their alumni in MailChimp already, and decided to not move Alumni into RE until they made a gift. I don't recall if they were using the events module as well, but I would recommend putting them in RE if they attended an event as well. We carefully reviewed the alumni that were in RE and deleted (I think) 26,000 records. It seems to work for them and they are saving quite a bit of money right now.

Not saying that is what you should do, and everyone who has responded so far is correct that NXT is the way to go at some point. Unless you Blackbaud for another product, but that has quite a few other costs associated with it. Just wanted to offer up something else for consideration!

Karen

Wendy Albor

@Darlene Ellis
Everyone has valid points on this board. As a recent migrator to RENXT, there are the two components to it: webview and database view. In database view, you could opt to have the alumni data in List Management, an Import Omatic (built in tool in RE) function, that allows for ‘non-constituent’ records in your database which will not go against your contracted numbers. List Management is not an area you can query in RE or view in the same capacity as you do ‘constituent’ records. You can only view the data in the tool. Again, it depends on how you wish to use the alumni data in RE. My organization uses List Management for acquisition lists (which our lists are very large) to store the data in a ‘non-constituent’ record then when a gift is imported into RE using Import Omatic it will use this area to search for a match. If a record is found and selected as a match it converts the account to a ‘constituent’ record that then will count against your contracted number.

I rarely use the webview version of RENXT but our advancement team lives in it for major donor, planning giving and grant operations. It is great for seeing the charts of analysis as well. As a database manager this view isn't useful. All of the main tools still reside in the database view side. As everyone else stated, it depends on what your intentions are with RENXT to mitigate the high cost of the product.

Joe Moretti

@Darlene Ellis I find RE NXT very frustrating, since it is not complete and there are issues between and RE Database. Reporting and Query (List in RE NXT) are very limited with RE NXT. Fields in Database that you can make required are lacking in RE NXT, such as Proposal Date Ask and assigned solicitor. Uploading documents to the media tab must be done in Database, if they are done in RE NXT, they will not carry over to Database (very frustrating). While RE NXT is good for those not too tech savvy or Major Gift Officers or Executive, I find it not very functional to use. Probably the best thing in it is to automate recurring gifts. As a Database Administrator, I find Database View the superior product. Even some of the things that are good are only half-good since it is not complete, like the whole Prospect tab for the moves management. Having both is like working in two different databases. Not a fan of RE NXT at this point, since it is not complete. Would you buy a car with only two wheels or an audio system without speakers.