Selecting The Right Tools – How It Started… How It’s Going

Cathy Rojo

My spouse makes a delicious pork in chile verde sauce. He first roasts a variety of green peppers, tomatillos, onion, and garlic then purées them together. Next, he pours the mix over the pork shoulder where it cooks slowly over low heat, requiring frequent stirring for hours. It is definitely a labor of love. I always crave this tasty yet time-consuming dish, so I tried to find a quicker way to make it while keeping the flavors.

Cue in the Instant Pot®. This kitchen tool enables you to cook some dishes faster by using the pressure cooker function. I put in the pork and tomatillo sauce and within 45 minutes we are eating the same delicious meal. What started as long hours in the kitchen has been tapered down significantly with the use of the correct tool.

This aim for efficiency is one of the core components of Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge NXT: Selecting the Right Tools course: find a way to produce the same result in an easier way. The class provides independent solution-work followed by instructor-led demonstrations in our sample database for optimum retention. And—in line with the spirit of optimization—we’ve scaled down the once 3-hour course to a productive 90 minutes.

This course will allow students to decide whether to use Raiser’s Edge NXT’s database view, web view, or a combination of both to accomplish their grouping, communicating, and analyzing needs. It’s also chalk-full of great tips like how to analyze which reporting tool to use for certain tasks: database view reports produce easy-to-read PDF files while web view dashboards graphically display data and measures various characteristics. Both are great options depending on your reporting needs and audience!

To get a taste of this new twist on an old classic, register today for Raiser’s Edge NXT: Selecting the Right Tool from the Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge NXT Fundraising Learning Path.

This course is included with your Blackbaud University Learn More and Learn Everything training subscriptions. Not a Blackbaud Learn^® subscriber? Chat with us now!

Nick McGinnis

We do not use RE, but I liked the analogy! (And the meal sounds delicious!)