Prospecting and Donor Pipeline: Raiser's Edge vs Blackbaud CRM?

I do all the prospecting for my org. NXT and database view both have different strengths, and ideally you will use both elements to get the broadest prospect pool.

• NXT is good for pulling lists of donors based on Blackbaud's built-in wealth rating system. It's easy to pull a constituent list of anyone with 4+ stars, filter by geographic region with the mapping tool, and then create sub-sets of those who are alumni, those who are about to lapse, etc.
• In db view, you have fuller access to the complete menu of criteria. Depending on how your org enters historical information, you may find it easier in db view to pull searches based on
  • previous event participants who attended a high-end dinner event or overseas tour hosted by your organization
  • donors who belong to giving societies in the Memberships module
  • former Board members, faculty, and other high-affinity groups who also have a history of mid-range giving that could be upgraded
  • donors with close relationships to other major donors, foundations, matching employers, or partner businesses
  • donors whose previous gift channels included IRA or DAF gifts
  • donors with non-Blackbaud persona ratings or other custom ratings that don't lend well to NXT search functions

…or other such criteria.

We use database view for almost all our prospecting and research and only really revert back to RE NXT (with a saved static query) if we need some sort of hyper-local area-based research on prospects that can't be done by simply using states and counties as filters.

As @Faith Murray said so well: database view has so many more fields and options for technical queries than RE NXT.

All of our Development Directors use RE NXT for basic action and opportunity entry but most of our reports and prospecting information still has to come from database view due to the complexity of the fields and options available.