Wealth Ratings and Assets

Laura Marcinkowski
Laura Marcinkowski
Kudos 1 Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

Good Morning! Can anyone explain how the wealth ratings and assets work? We do not have ResearchPoint. But nothing is filled in with these in our constituent profile…do we fill these out? That wasn't how it seemed when the proposed this module. I havent got much feedback from out AE and am looking for help. TIA!

Comments

  • Christine Robertson
    Christine Robertson
    Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Laura Marcinkowski You have to obtain the ratings and assets before they would be populated. There are some NXT ratings that may come through automatically, but generally, these would come from a service like ResearchPoint, iWave, DonorSearch, etc.

  • Laura Marcinkowski
    Laura Marcinkowski
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1

    @Christine Robertson if we don't have RP, how would we do this? What is the purpose of this module without it?

  • Alex Wong
    Alex Wong Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Facilitator 4 bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    @Laura Marcinkowski
    You will want to reach out to your account manager as wealth screening and rating data is a separate paid service.

  • Laura Marcinkowski
    Laura Marcinkowski
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1

    @Alex Wong then what is the point of the NXT ratings in the first place? If you dont get any other info?

  • Alex Wong
    Alex Wong Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Facilitator 4 bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    @Laura Marcinkowski
    I can't answer that question. We have Target Analytics as well as data health. When we migrated over, there was some contractual change where something became free and something still need to be paid as paid service. That is why I said you should reach out to your account manager, and understand your org's contract on what comes and doesn't come with your subscription.

  • Christine Robertson
    Christine Robertson
    Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Laura Marcinkowski If you aren't using ratings, it is also possible that someone chose to add the module for use of the Opportunities/Proposals functionality. If you don't use either, then it would be worth identifying why your organization opted for the Prospect module.

    Personally, I haven't found the NXT ratings overly helpful because they don't have as much detail or context as I would like. I do see a great deal of value in adding the ratings from tools such as ResearchPoint, iWave, etc. into RE so that you can more accurately segment mailings, assign solicitors, etc.

  • Laura Marcinkowski
    Laura Marcinkowski
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1

    @Christine Robertson we want to use ratings but it seems like without ResearchPoint (or others), its pretty much useless and doesnt give us the info we want :( The contract was signed before I joined and we were originally given the Event module. They let us switch out so that we can utilize the prospect/opportunity module for our donors…but we don't have the ResearchPoint subscription. So i'm wondering if we won't get the info we need without that?

  • Christine Robertson
    Christine Robertson
    Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Laura Marcinkowski You won't get Ratings without a tool to run them. ResearchPoint is one way to do that, but you can absolutely use others on the market and import the results into the Prospect Module in RE.

  • Laura Marcinkowski
    Laura Marcinkowski
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1

    @Christine Robertson thank you for clarifying! Is researchpoint the only one that converts the data in NXT for you?

  • Christine Robertson
    Christine Robertson
    Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Laura Marcinkowski ResearchPoint has some syncing options to send data between RE and RP. However, if you have someone who is comfortable with import/export, you can achieve a similar end result with any of the tools with the data flow.

  • Lee Grisham
    Lee Grisham
    Kudos 5 Third Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    @Laura Marcinkowski I've been asking how the ratings actually work within NXT and haven't gotten a clear answer. It seems they run through BB's high level capacity tools to generate those ratings once a year on the day after they were created/added to the system.

    As for options for what you do now, I have two possible recommendations:

    1. Wait. Not a great solution, but I have heard elements of the basic package of prospect insights will be put into NXT in the future. This will be beneficial if you can have accurate information available for your donors. Focus on that and hope that upgrade comes down the pipe soon.
    2. Ask about adding in one of the packages like Prospect Insights Pro, RP, or Advanced Wealth Analytics. Something along those lines are great for larger shops that have dedicated staff to manage portfolios and time for prospect research.
  • Kelly Campion-Socol
    Kelly Campion-Socol
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 2 PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management Name Dropper

    @Laura Marcinkowski I look at the “free data” in this module as a starting point for potential capacity to screen potential major gift candidates. While it is not perfect or in depth it is a starting point for organizations (like mine) that are small and really to do not have the budgets/staff for a screening. I look at the ratings along with other data we have available in RE (giving amounts, including increased giving, contact, consecutive giving, what they are giving to, etc…) to develop a prospect list with potential proposals/asks based on what we have available.

    I have worked at other organizations where we did the same thing and then when this data was exhausted (or not providing any useful lists that we were not already aware of) we made a case to budget for a screening. I have used Research Point and iWave and you would add that data using the add rating feature. This is the area where you keep the data to determine ratings for prospect management. I liken this to using custom attributes.

    You will want to set up your own ratings based on criteria you set in Prospect Management. This will sometimes, but not always align with the generic overall wealth rating provided by Blackbaud.


  • Therese Morris
    Therese Morris
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Laura Marcinkowski while we have ResearchPoint, have used WealthPoint our Prospect Research dept has their own rating system, especially for larger donors. It combines these service's ratings with family history and prospect research.

  • Jeannie Goings
    Jeannie Goings
    Second Anniversary First Reply Kudos 1 Name Dropper

    @Laura Marcinkowski it's bait to get you to pay more for something that works.

  • Laura Marcinkowski
    Laura Marcinkowski
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1

    @Jeannie Goings yeah :( like at what point do you stop?!

  • Laura Marcinkowski
    Laura Marcinkowski
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1

    @Christine Robertson out of the different ratings tools you've used, which has been the best? iwave/RP/DonorSearch/etc?

  • Christine Robertson
    Christine Robertson
    Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Laura Marcinkowski I found iWave to be the easiest to use and understand. I think they all likely pull from similar data sources, so I would expect to see similar results if you were able to compare the functionality), but for me, iWave was very intuitive to use. If you do use it, you will want to add RE Constituent IDs to the records so that you can import the ratings back into RE when you're done.

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