Product Update Briefing Q&A: Recognition Programs

Daisy Alarcon

Introduction 

Hello! I’m Daisy Alarcon and I’m a Product Manager on the Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® team.  

On behalf of my entire team, I want to say that we were thrilled by the engagement during our recent Product Update Briefing! Your feedback and questions in the Q&A were invaluable—more than 800 questions poured in under an hour. It was my first Product Update Briefing with Raiser’s Edge NXT and I was blown away by the volume of questions, the high energy, and the limitless enthusiasm of this user group!  

While we wish we could have answered every question live, we’re carefully reviewing your questions by feature area and will answer them in a series of blog posts like this one. Thank you for your passion and partnership as we shape the future of Raiser’s Edge NXT together! 

So, let’s jump into all the questions that you asked about Recognition Programs. 

Why Recognition Programs? 

For years, organizations have relied on a combination of custom fields, external lists, queries, and membership tools to manage donor giving societies. While workable, these methods can be complex and time-consuming, making it difficult to proactively engage and steward donors. We designed Recognition Programs to streamline this process, offering flexible rule definitions, dynamic lists, and automatic qualification, all within Raiser’s Edge NXT.  

Frequently Asked Questions 

When are Recognition Programs coming, and who can access them?  

The initial release of Recognition Programs empowers you to create Legacy Recognition programs (designed for individuals who have made a planned gift or a bequest commitment). It will roll out to all customers in Q1 2026. We plan to kick off an Early Adopter Program (EAP) in early 2026 before we move this feature to Generally Available (GA) for everyone.  

How do I sign up for the Recognition Program Early Adopter Program (EAP)? 

We received an overwhelming response during and immediately after the November Product Update Briefing, and the EAP for Legacy type programs is full.  

Where will we find the Recognition Programs functionality? 

We will locate Recognition Programs within Stewardship, a new option in the left navigation.  

Will Recognition Programs work with partner integrations? 

Yes. We will add Recognition Programs to the SKY API reference for Raiser’s Edge NXT. Partners and third-party developers will be able to pull recognition lists to use in their custom integrations.  

Can I migrate existing membership or custom field data into Recognition Programs? 

You’ll be able to set up constituent queries and program rules to help identify which donors should qualify into your recognition program based on their historical giving. You can test and validate your program criteria and rules during setup. Once you are confident it will include your donors from your prior memberships and/or custom field data, you can activate the program to start automatic approval or manual review of donors.  

If a donor didn’t qualify based on the constituent/gift rules, then you can reconcile your membership/custom field list with the recognition list and manually add those records as needed.  

Can Recognition Programs run off queries? 

Yes. You can use constituent queries to define which donors should qualify for a recognition program, making it easy to tailor programs to your organization’s needs.  

Will Recognition Programs include soft credits? Does it combine giving from individuals and organizations? 

Yes. We designed Recognition Programs to offer flexibility. You’ll have options for configuring soft credit rules, ensuring that giving totals can reflect both direct and soft credit contributions. You can set rules to include only individuals or organizations, or both. You can also configure matching gift credit rules.  

Will a donor’s Recognition Program(s) appear on their constituent record? 

Yes. You’ll see a dedicated Recognition Programs tile on each constituent record, showing their program participation and status. 

Key Features in the Initial Release 

• General Settings: Easy configuration to configure donor terminology, display name formats, and recognition categories.  
• Roles: User access can be set under Security with role-based permissions. 
• Action Hub: Streamlined navigation in an action hub page to view all programs, add new programs, and quickly jump to needs attention queues for manual approval reviews. 
• Programs: Create, view, and edit recognition programs with support for giving levels, custom rules, gift criteria, and testing functionality to validate your rules against your live database.  
• Recognition Lists: Dynamic lists refreshed daily with manual and automatic approval workflows, export options, constituent and gift list flyouts, the ability to manually add donors and create constituents lists for additional analysis. 
• Constituent Tile: View recognition status directly on constituent records. 

Next Steps and How to Get Involved 

• Early Adopter Program: The EAP will kick off in late January. Invitations to this EAP have already been sent. We will collect user feedback during the EAP and integrate it before planning the General Release date.  
• Stay Tuned for General Release: We’ll share more information, demos, and documentation in the Community Blog as we approach release of this feature in Q1 2026. 
• Share Your Feedback: We’re building this feature with your input in mind. Please comment below or submit ideas in our Idea Bank. 

Final Thoughts 

Recognition Programs are more than just saying “thank you,” they’re a strategic way to build lasting relationships, encourage continued support, and demonstrate the impact of your community. We’re excited to bring this new capability to Raiser’s Edge NXT and look forward to seeing how you use them to celebrate and steward your donors. 

Lucy Ann Gossett

Thank you Daisy and Team….I am so excited about this and look forward to the release.

Austen Brown

Thanks for sharing this, and for all the detail. I look forward to more outlines like this from PUB questions.

Bill Connors

This is a great post, thanks, Daisy. Appreciate the thoroughness and clarity. Question, please: Will Recognition be queryable? Of course it's common to include those in recognition groups in mailings and for other purposes, so these folks need to be pull-able. I know web view Query right now is limited to backwards compatibility with the db view, but when will this be changed, esp. for purposes like this? It's going to be hard to use this information until it's queryable (yes, I know, Lists can be turned into queries, but of course that just makes the whole process more complicated given all of Lists other limitations). Thanks!

Karen Diener

This is a good post and contains a lot of details. So disappointed that there may be a cost for some organizations, but thank you for at least being transparent about the possibility.

Kathryn Hall

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/309725#Comment_309725

Hi, @Karen Diener - sorry I wasn't clear when editing this post.

When Recognition Programs is released, it will initially support only Legacy giving programs. All Raiser's Edge NXT customers will get Legacy Recognition Programs at no incremental cost. We have plans to expand this feature to support additional types of recognition programs - like lifetime giving, loyalty giving, and annual giving - but we have not yet made a determination as to which Raiser's Edge NXT package these will fit into.

Bill Connors

@Daisy Alarcon, any thoughts on my question above? Thanks.

roger berg

I'm looking forward to implementing this feature - I can already think of several ways this will make my job easier :)

Daisy Alarcon

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/309703#Comment_309703

Hi @Bill Connors , yes, we absolutely want this data to be queryable! It is not planned for our initial release, but it will be included in future updates as we continue to build on Recognition. I don't have a timeline to share, but it is very near to the top of our backlog for Recognition. Stay posted!