bbcon 2024: Call for Speakers is OPEN!

Crystal Bruce

We are super excited to announce that the 2024 bbcon Call for Speakers is now open. Help inspire members who are looking to submit a session by letting us know what topics you'd love to hear about at bbcon in the comments below!

Lee Grisham

@Crystal Bruce Would love to see some dedication to Volunteering and how to get that information to show up properly in NXT. Since it all has to be done in database view at the moment, for at least a few more years, it would be great to have some outside orgs talk about how their solutions can help put information into the correct fields to have that visible by our front-line fundraisers.

Reuben Schmitz

@Crystal Bruce It would be great to see a section on better utilizing ResearchPoint and Prospect Research in general. It seems like this product (and this field in fundraising) doesn't get a lot of attention.

Kimberly Pierce

@Crystal Bruce I would appreciate a section on the transition from database view to web view, particularly for database managers.

Lauren Henderson

@Crystal Bruce pending its availability and functionality at the time, I would love session(s) on the Common Record Engine and best practices for schools in managing student, parent and alumni data through it.

Jen Dittrich

@Crystal Bruce I second Reuben Schmitz's suggestion! I would love to hear more about best practices for using Research Point and doing Prospect Research.

Christopher Horn

@Crystal Bruce
I would like to see a presentation going into advanced usage of the reporting pages and Report Builder in NXT. They're very useful, but it's one of the few areas of the software where I went through the Blackbaud U course and read the knowledge bank articles and manual and didn't figure out the tool's usefulness and how it works until later.

The prebuilt insights at face value seem very limited and at first I dismissed the tool as useless. But by messing around modifying the attributes and insight filters, I've found a lot of very useful reporting options. But I still do not understand how or why it works. I can make a pie chart displaying giving in the last year by gift type or appeal category. This is helpful. But the only way to do so is to open up the giving by gender pie chart insight and to change the default attribute to appeal category or gift type. Given how unintuitive that is compared to all the other reporting options in RENXT, I have to assume there's useful reporting tools that people aren't aware of?

Info on the rules behind why a filter or attribute combines with an insight or gives an error would also be helpful. They all list on all the insights, so it means a whole lot of trial and error. The constituents over time line graph insight is a good illustration: a lot of the attributes that work are actually weird bar graphs with a line, in that they don't measure an attribute over time. And I haven't figured out the logic behind why the attributes that give error messages give error messages.

It's a very useful tool as a DBA. Being able to throw together a dashboard with info people in different departments use often and send them the link so they can reference it themselves at their leisure is great for staff who aren't in database view. I would be interested in a presentation on less obvious combinations of prebuilt insights, attributes, and filters that are useful for marketing, fundraising, executive, and DBA staff, the rules behind which combinations do and don't work, and what insight designer can do that you can't do by editing prebuilt insights.

Hallie Guiseppe

@Crystal Bruce
I third @Reuben Schmitz comment!

In addition to Reuben's suggestion, I'm interested in exploring how the DBA role is evolving, especially with the rise of cloud-based systems. Our industry is undergoing significant changes, and I want to understand how these shifts are impacting us.

Currently, I'm working on a strategic staffing plan for my department, which involves updating job descriptions and creating new positions. It's essential to accurately anticipate our future needs, and I could use some insights on drafting positions for growth effectively. Simply stating "Raiser's Edge experience preferred" no longer suffices.

JoAnn Strommen

@Crystal Bruce
For newbies and veterans, I always find the sessions for database admins valuable. From data entry, policies/procedures, db vs. web view, clean-up tasks.

Power Automate for RE efficiency - some of us are lagging behind in implementing

Heather Leonard

@Crystal Bruce A time set for those who want to share what they have learned to do with the product and what they want the product to do. These ideas to be shared with BB reps (and also other users.) A roundtable per se where the Reps listen to what we want for the product to do or what we have figured out we can do with the product.

Kathy Hannon

@Crystal Bruce I'd like to see Workshops with the K-12 Educational platform - Website tips & tricks; Ideas on getting information out to my constituents - through Resource buttons; Group pages; Push Pages; Official Notes; etc

Jeanne Townsend

@Crystal Bruce More sessions covering K-12 Education Management topics please! There is so much to talk about: enrollment, academics, assignments/assessments/skills, scheduling, data management, reporting, access/tasks/roles…

Amy Hentschke

@Jeanne Townsend I totally agree! I would like to add to this that K-12 information on advanced lists and on attendance would be appreciated.

Devan Bessinger

@Crystal Bruce This isn't a specific topic I'd like to see, but a general encouragement to those preparing sessions. Although you might be in a specific vertical (such as K-12), your ideas and concepts are often transferable! Consider not branding your session as vertical-specific, and I guarantee you will draw a good audience. For example, last year there were sessions about change-management, having a data committee, etc. These were presented by folks from the K-12 world. Although I'm not part of a K-12 org, I had a hunch these sessions would still be useful, and that paid off! These were great sessions. While some of their commentary was specific to the education-related platforms they were using, the majority of the content would have been helpful to any/all of us. However, I honestly, think if those sessions wouldn't have been branded as being for the K-12 audience they might have needed much bigger rooms! ?

Amy Barker

@Crystal Bruce I'd love to see more Luminate focused sessions!

Jen Dittrich

@Crystal Bruce I would love to see how others use Omatic with RENXT specifically the list management tool and best practices.

Marie Stark

@Crystal Bruce I would also like to know more about Report builder and dashboards.

Karen Diener

@Crystal Bruce I have ideas about what to potentially present, but it depends on how long the sessions are. Do you have any idea about that? Some really interesting ideas here but I think they could be difficult to cover in shorter amounts of time.

Lawrence Rush

@Crystal Bruce I think an event simulation using Blackbaud products could be helpful. See all the parts in action and discuss what's happening behind the scenes. Everything from registration, check-in, to auction/paddle raise, etc… wrapping up with checkout.

Marie Campione

@Marie Stark @Crystal Bruce

Institutional data management, research, dashboards, Insight Designer and third-party API dashboard builders like PowerBI, etc…

Miki Martin

@Crystal Bruce I was thinking of something along the lines of setting up and maintaining security. I had hoped to put something together on this to possibly offer but with the new job position I do not know if I will have access to that type of thing. Plus I think I still have a lot to learn about doing it properly.

Sara Niemiec

@Crystal Bruce, I'm wondering if a session on building a Policies & Procedures Manual would be interesting to anyone. I've been taking a ton of BBU classes lately, so it's at the front of my mind these days. I'm currently working on writing one up for my organization, and I have so many questions about what to include, how to organize it, and how to format things.

Carlene Johnson

@Christopher Horn
I would LOVE seeing a detailed session on Insights and reporting in webview! That would be so helpful!

Debbi Converse

@Christopher Horn BINGO!

Jim Willsey

This may be a bit too far outside the box, but what if Blackbaud could work with local nonprofits in the host city to identify a couple of their major donors and maybe even some lower-level annual campaign donors to find some who would be willing to present on a panel of donors.

We all share our ideas and advice from the same side of the fundraising table, but how great would it be to get advice from the donors themselves? They could give their perspective on things like:

• what asks have worked on them and why
• what asks do not work on them
• what makes them open a letter or email
• what has made them stop giving to an organization in the past
• what would make them want to increase their giving to a new level
  

Miki Martin

@Jim Willsey what a FANTASTIC idea! You could possibly even pull donors to different types of NPOs because I am guessing you can have varying donor types between healthcare, education and environment say.

Amy Shaiman

@Jim Willsey As @Miki Martin said this is a fantastic idea. Our local stewardship team has hosted such panels for an internal group, and each time they have been very enlightening and have generated discussions and process improvement.

Perhaps you could put together a proposal for such a session with some Blackbaud staff. Maybe @Crystal Bruce could suggest some possible connections.

Dawn Alonso

@Crystal Bruce

It would be nice to have some segments that deal with how to get the most out of Billing Managment, Enrollment Managment, and Core. Things like how to use Forms, Pushpages, Resource Pages, Student Billing, Financial Aid Management, ect. and get the most out of it to increase efficiency for positions that are typically handling more than just student billing.

There seem to be a ton of thing geared towards RENXT, and to be honest, I have zero interest. It is not something that I use and isn't remotely connected to for my job.

Hannah McKinney

@Heather Leonard This is a great idea! It is nice to see features, but how they are used in reality and ideas of what things could potentially make our jobs easier and more efficient would be genuinely helpful!

Ormiston Fundraising

@Crystal Bruce
I think it would be great to see any tips to make using RE easier that might be known by everyone such as on RE database view on a individuals record press the alt key and the letter underline to go the that tab e.g. alt and G takes you to Gifts.

Or another option might be learning about peoples supporter journeys

Tatiana Tuccio

@Crystal Bruce
Would love to see a session about “Making the Most of your Blackbaud Contract”

• include all the resources that are available (knowledgbase articles, webinars, community centers , etc
• in detail information about customer sucess Manager and go into details about should be meeting with them monthly; things your CSM can help you with
• utalizing Data Health Checks through BB
• utalize Raiser's Edge NXT Functional Demo
• utalize Blackbaud Data Enrichment Services (Deceased and AddAccelerator for RENXT )

this would have been incrediby helpful when i first started out as a Database Administrator.