How are you doing event registration?

Stephanie Thomas · May 2021

Hi there! With the vaccinations rolling out and hopes for more traditional in-person experiences to come back within the next year, I wanted to reach and hear from you all!

I am a part of Team Blackbaud and working on a project to collect insights on event registration. We are thinking, in an ideal word, you could create a registration form and manage your event in RENXT and in the sign up process, the user will be prompted to create a personal fundraising page via JustGiving BUT... I need you to gut check me. How are you doing event registrations now and how would you like RENXT and JustGiving to work together so you can pull off even more wonderful events that support P2P fundraising pages as easily as possible in the future?

Thanks in advance!

Heather MacKenzie · May 2021

Until gifts, events and forms progress more in the webview, we are still using Online Express and the database view for everything. We've used JustGiving in one campaign so far, and the amount of work I have to do after the gifts are committed to the constituent record, both to finish entering required data and optional data on both the constituent and the gift, is ridiculous. I'm pleased to see the direction those modules are all heading, but they're not yet at the point that we have moved over. That being said, I have no feedback to give you on the current webview functionality.

I think it would be handy for JustGiving gifts to also be attached to events (all gifts, really), but that's the only suggestion I have for down the road.

Joe Moretti · May 2021

Heather's comment is RIGHtT ON. Blackbaud needs to stop pushing out products that seem to still be in the development stages. It is like a car company putting out a car with no front tires.

Stephanie Thomas · May 2021

Joe Moretti‍ and Heather MacKenzie‍ Thank you for your candor and feedback! If you got to have a seat at the table in the decision-making room... What would you recommend? What kind of "tires" do you want on the car? Or maybe said another way, what is Online Express doing great that you want to make sure carries over to RENXT Events and what do you wish it did differently?

Joe Moretti · May 2021

First, do not push out products until they are 100% fully functional in ALL aspects.

As far as Online Express, you should be able to connect multiple events grouped together like what can be done in NetCommunity. Also many modules, etc should just come standard with Raiser's Edge instead of nickle and dime everything. RE is expensive enough, have it come with much more.

Elaine Tucker · May 2021

Events in NXT - BEFORE incorporating Just Giving functionalty it would really help us if Table Hosts could EASILY send "register now" links to their guest lists and the guest could then register as a GUEST of the host. Right now we create a NEW event form for EACH HOST and then send that link to the Host for them to distribute out to their networks. That is ALOT of extra work , also, incorporating a text to notify/donate that is integrated with RENXT would be greatly appreciated. Right now we use MobileCause for that and I have to export/import ALL lists. (again lots of work).

Heather MacKenzie · May 2021

Stephanie Thomas‍ Online Express is the gift processing piece of online registrations for events, it's not the events module itself. Please excuse me for stating what you may already know, but your reply comment made me think that perhaps you don't.

Online Express - allows for viewing and modification & adding on to gifts before they're committed to the record, as well as viewing and updating the record itself. For example, JustGiving completely ignores that constituent code is a required field for us in all records - so then I have to go back and find them and add that, as well as other info. Another thing I need is the ability to email to emails that I have in a list instead of them being records in RE. This is useful for when spouse records attend an event, but we have no reason to make them into their own full records. Also, we are looking at moving our newsletter into Webview, and there's no way that we are going to add all 5,000 records to RE that aren't yet full records just to be able to do that. Another piece that Online Express does well is sending to more than one list at a time.

JustGiving - in your original post, you appear to think that JustGiving can work for all events, and I think it can't. I can't envision how it would connect at all to a sit down dinner and auction event, for example. Can you share more about what you're thinking there? Did I misunderstand anything?

Events - I haven't done an event in Webview yet, so no thoughts there. I like the ease of marking participants attended. I've done that after an event. As long as we're still in this hybrid database view/webview world, there are things that need to float back to database view, and I've heard that events are not currently doing so. That's also why we're not using events in webview yet. All the queries and reports that we run after events are still done in database view. This means I actually CAN'T run reports after an event if we build them in webview.

Rhonda Bean · May 2021

We currently use cvent for events...open to suggestions.....Rhonda Bean, Development Coordinator/Stewardship/Grant Writer - The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston rbean@archgh.org

Rachel Cavalier · May 2021

Heather MacKenzie:

JustGiving - in your original post, you appear to think that JustGiving can work for all events, and I think it can't. I can't envision how it would connect at all to a sit down dinner and auction event, for example. Can you share more about what you're thinking there? Did I misunderstand anything?

This is what I am also curious about! We use JustGiving for supporters doing challenge events like the London Marathon - some of which, due to the nature of how places for that are allocated, we can't really have online signup for. We also have some people having these pages for celebrations or as memorial pages, but again, that's not a thing they would need to register at an event for.

Stephanie Thomas · May 2021

Rachel Cavalier‍ and Heather MacKenzie‍ - In some ways... Yes, I am oversimplifying because in my dream world, we are not having to use multiple tools to get a job done! Also, we are trying to think with an open mind- building the solution without having to operate within the parameters of an existing capability (or at least practicing that and then bringing it back down to earth to deliver). Thank you for sharing your insights. To more specifically answer your questions about JustGiving for events, we are open to the potential organizations have already demonstrated to us. We had many host galas, golf tournaments, fitness events, DIY fundraising, dinners, virtual events, etc on the platform. Some orgs will use whatever registration form they have and then email registrants with a prompt to fundraise too (or add it to the confirmation email or screen). We have been so impressed by the creativity and ingenuity nonprofits have demonstrated on the platform this past year that it opened a can of worms... in a good way! Thanks for your candor and feel free to keep the conversation going. We are excited to continue to learn and hear from you all.

Austen Brown · May 2021

Hi Stephanie Thomas‍ - What you have described in your initial post is exactly what we want to do: run registration through NXT event forms with an option to automatically create a fundraising page on JustGiving for registrants. We would like the process to be a seamless as possible to provide an easy registration process to our donors/event participants.

I also agree with what others have said about launching products that are not completely built out for all types of events. Ideally we would like registrations to be able run through the JustGiving site so that event participants can pay their fee and create a fundraising page all in one go.

Jessica Moya · May 2021

Things NXT event registration does well: The forms are easy to create and modify. The code output is nice to transfer to a webpage where constituents don't need to login or have access rights.

Things NXT event registration could improve upon: There needs to be some kind of review process for gifts and constituents prior to RE entering them into the database (something like what BBNC offers for gifts).

We ended up using our fake database environment to screen out all the bad data before it was entered into production, which took me weeks after the event was over to clean up, identify, and input the people who were invited, registered, and participated in the event. We used our BBNC donation form so they were unable to make a gift and register in the same swoop.

How are you doing event registration?

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