"First Gift" different in NXT than it is in database view

Chris Fedor · May 21

We are trying to become more reliant on NXT since we know DB view will eventually go away. We had a staff member pull a list of new donors within a specific timeframe and excluded Recurring Gift and Pledge. I ran the same list in DB view and the number of people reported was different by three donors. It looks like NXT and DB view look at "first gift" differently .

For example, we had one person NOT on the DB list who made a pledge in 2003 and never fulfilled it. She made a one-time gift in June this year. If I export data from DB view, RE says her first gift was 12/19/2003. However, looking at her record in NXT, where it says first gift, it has a date of 6/28/24.

When we’ve always worked in DB view and we are trying to get used to NXT, how on earth can we keep up with it all when they don’t look at data the same? Has anyone else noticed these subtle difference that can make a big difference in reporting?

Patrick Kelleher-Calnan · May 21

@Chris Fedor
My guess is a discrepancy in gift type criteria. When you export First Gift info in DB view you have the option to choose which gift types to include. I believe the First Gift that appears on an NXT record is governed by the settings in Settings>Control Panel> Giving analysis. Messing around with those settings may resolve the issue.

Dariel Dixon · May 21

@Chris Fedor If you are excluding recurring gifts and pledges, how was the 2003 gift pulling into the report? I think @Patrick KelleherCalnan is right there that the giving analysis settings maybe the culprit.

But that does ask the question of what you would consider the first gift? In your example, I think 2024 is right, as I would not count any unfulfilled pledges.

Alex Wong · May 22

@Chris Fedor
A little more info will help understand the discrepancy.

How is your staff member pulling the list? Query? Standard Report? Gift List?

How are you pulling your report? Constituent Query? Gift Query? Export?

Chris Fedor · May 22

@Alex Wong The other staff member ran a Constituent List in web view. I ran a Constituent Query and exported it from DB view. I'm going to look at what others suggested about settings.

Alex Wong · May 22

@Chris Fedor
Constituent List on webview (actually anything giving related tying back to constituent) uses a Blackbaud defined definition of what is “consider giving by constituent”, which can be very different from what you explicitly dictates in querying (dbview or webview).

This is a “CON” when I investigate migration to RE NXT and flagged it as something I will need to build custom report to handle. Here's my original assessment:

First, Latest, and Greatest Gift columns does not work consistently in telling a "Revenue" story, these columns shows "any" gift type.
It also only show DIRECT credit to the donor.
Lifetime Giving is not fitting for us neither, it plays oddly with pledge and payment situations that occurs in our org.
Lifetime Giving =
Cash Received (new cash + pledge payment) Full Direct Credit Amount
Pledge Balance (unpaid portion of the pledge) Full Direct Credit Amount
Soft Credits (any soft credits percentage of the gift from other donors)

Example:
John (Lifetime = $3K + ($6K+$10K) + $1K = $20K)
PledgeA $10K (soft credit to Mary $10K and Tom $10K) - Balance=$6K
PledgeB $10K (soft credit to Mary $2K and Tom $4K) - Balance=$10K
New Cash $1K
Payment to PledgeA $2K

Mary (Lifetime = $2K + $0 + (100% of $6K + 20% of $10K + 50% of $2K) = $11K)
Payment to John Pledge $2K

Tom (Lifetime = $2K + $0 + (100% of $6K + 40% of $10K) = $12K)
New Cash $2K (Soft credit to John $1K and Mary $1K)

This is 2022 assessment, so I don't know if anything may have changed, however, probably still applies.

Brian Soucie · May 23

@Chris Fedor
I encountered this same issue when trying to replicate the NXT acquired donor numbers in DB-view. What I discovered is that NXT reporting considers someone as ‘new’ if it's their first recorded gift OR if they haven't given in 5+ years (BB calls these ‘lost’ donors). In your example, that person a lost donor so the 2024 gift becomes their first gift in NXT.

The decision that we needed to make was: do we accept the NXT definition or to continue with a DB-view query to determine who our ‘new’ donors were? We ultimately decided to run with the NXT definition and haven't had any issues since.

"First Gift" different in NXT than it is in database view

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