Raiser’s Edge NXT Field Encryption Changes: A Guide to Celebrating Your Supporters’ Birthdays

Tanya Fitzgerald

Upcoming changes to field encryptions within Raiser's Edge and Raiser’s Edge NXT will enhance security around your data. It will also mean some database functions, like querying on exact birthdate will be suppressed. This does not have to mean the end to "birthday campaigns" that help strengthen your relationship with your supporters by wishing them well on their special day. Options exist - within web view, in partner solutions, and using SKY Developer options, to send personalized birthday messages to your supporters.Starting February 15, 2024, querying in database view on several fields, including birthdate, spouse birthdate, and others, will be restricted.



If your query criteria include any unit of time less than a full month (such as a specific date, week, or portion of a month), the query will return a failure message. However, you will still be able to edit the encrypted field in database view and access it in web view via Sky API. We acknowledge that this change affects your long-standing business processes; however, it presents an opportunity for enhancement by auditing current processes and embracing today's flexible technology processes.

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How can I acknowledge a supporter’s birthday with this change?

We understand how important birthday campaigns may be to your stewardship plans. They are an effective way to recognize each person and acknowledge their special day. Yet, managing to send birthday emails to all your supporters without spending hours on manual tasks may seem challenging. Subsequent to this patch you will continue to have options to automate your donor birthday campaigns that range from using Raiser’s Edge NXT Workflow Designer in web view, Microsoft Power Automate, and solutions available through the Blackbaud Marketplace.



You have modern options for creating engaging birthday campaigns!



In Raiser's Edge NXT web view:

Create a birthday campaign with Raiser’s Edge NXT Workflow Designer: Use Raiser's Edge NXT to create an automated email series, streamlining administrative tasks and celebrating donors on their special day. This option lets you program the system to send automated emails, track the recipients of each email in the series, and assess the performance of each sent email. You can send full HTML emails.

Note: This task will need to be replicated every year, as a constituent can only go through a workflow once.

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Using Partner Solutions:

Blackbaud Partners offer options for accomplishing automated stewardship campaigns, including birthday campaigns. For instance, Blackbaud partner Red Arc recently announced Scheduled Letters, coming mid-February. This new feature for their popular Letter Box app allows you to automatically send personalized letters to a specified list on a schedule - like supporter birthday greetings. The process is as simple as most Letter Box functions:

• Select your list (in this case, an NXT list that contains constituents with Birthday: today).
• Choose your template.
• Sit back and let Letter Box daily check the list and send that day's birthday letters. Automatically.

LetterBox and more applications to enhance supporter outreach can be found in the Blackbaud Marketplace.

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Low-code options:

Have you begun exploring SKY Developer applications and low-code tools like Power Automate? If so, you may wish to upgrade your birthday stewardship campaign using one of these low-code techniques (that require additional tools and training):



Create a birthday campaign with Power Automate: Implement the Raiser’s Edge RENXT workflow with Power Automate to establish an automated email campaign that sends personalized birthday messages to your supporters. With this automation, a birthday email will be sent to each constituent every year on an ongoing basis, eliminating the need for rebuilding. Moreover, the 'from' name on your birthday emails can be the assigned fundraiser for that constituent. Also, if you have a Learn More or a Learn Everything subscription through Blackbaud University, there are some helpful Power Automate training sessions to get started. (Requires a Microsoft Power Automate license)



Create a birthday campaign with Power Automate and AI Builder: Elevate your campaign one step further by adding a personal touch to each auto-generated email. As an enhancement to the previous workflows, AI Builder empowers you to draft personalized emails for review before sending. This capability adds an extra step to ensure your donors feel even more special. (Requires Power Automate, AI Builder and Dataverse enabled in the environment)

Best practices suggest that when using generative AI, your organization should have an AI policy in place. Stewardship is imperative for a successful annual fundraising plan, and AI can help you maximize that connection. Educating your organization on AI adoption is key, check out our Intelligence for Good resources.

A birthday campaign is a precise example of a simple and effective way to connect with your donors and boost engagement. Through automation, you not only save time and resources but also ensure that you don't miss any opportunity to reach out to your supporters.

Learn more about Raiser’s Edge® encryption changes or utilize the Blackbaud University eLearning session, Raiser's Edge: Birthdate and Field Level Encryption.