Pulling an Opportunities List by the Opportunity Name/Summary

Nicole Purcell · April 13

Can this even be done? I'm not seeing any way at all to filter by opportunity name/summary, which would seem a common way organizations might want to filter. Does anyone have a trick they use? Essentially, I want to see only the opportunities for our 2026 event and can't figure out how to do that (I don't wish to sort them and find them that way, because our ED is not the best to begin with on the tech side).

Joe Moretti · April 13

Unless people are using a uniform Name (which even in the best scenario, they are not), forget trying to filter off the name. We use the purpose (and make it mandatory) and it it great if you have it name appropriately and then you can filter off that. Any events we have have their own purpose, different projects, etc. This would be the way to go.

Delphine Rocher-Lewis · April 14

I somtimes use the search bar for this (Find in this list) but the Opp name has to be uniform and as Joe said, it's usually not. but we've been able to utilize this method for some really small projets with a dozen or so opportunities.

Nicole Purcell · April 14

I see. I hate that you can't do this! I also am confused that the names of columns you can select and what you can filter by are not in sync.

Thank you for your suggestions!

Dan Snyder · April 14

Good answers from @Joe Moretti and @Delphine Rocher-Lewis.

I actually just added an idea to change the Name field from text to table for more control over this.

https://renxt.ideas.aha.io/ideas/RENXT-I-9767

Joe Moretti · April 14

The only thing Dan if that field is made into a table, it can be overloaded with way too many names and I don't know if people want to deal with that. Having the purposed is better, since it can be a little more general but still have meaning. For example, one of our purposes is for an event, American Spirit Award, but for the name, we tell our Fundraisers to do FY2026 ASA, so that would change it year with the FY, so you do not want to keep creating a new name each year. Then we have name that people are not sure what the money will be used for, so they call it TBD. That would be like having the address line be a table field, you will end up with too much.

Madeleine Holdsworth · April 14

Perhaps use a query to generate the opportunity list. And if the event opportunities all allocate to the same fund, you could filter on the fund.

Nicole Purcell · April 14

I understand @Joe Moretti, but my organization only uses opportunities very specifically for set campaigns - ie: our names are related to a particular event or program, 2025 Event, 2025 Annual Fund, 2025 Major Giving Annual, 2025 Major Giving Capital - sort of similar to your "purpose" use. Purpose for us refers to the project area where funds are applied and are much more general. Now, we're going to end up shifting the way we use Purpose to repeat the year. Not ideal.

Nicole Purcell · April 14

@Madeleine Holdsworth this is what I ended up doing - but it's not ideal!

Madeleine Holdsworth · April 14

Web view lists definitely leave a lot to be desired!

Aldera Chisholm · April 14

I'm not a fan of changing the name to a table, as it's really helpful for us to have a free-text field - we do have conventions around it, it's helpful for us when we need to add some unique info that we can easily see skimming the Opportunities lists. I find that using a combination of Purpose and the CFA fields gives me the filter-able data.

Hallie Guiseppe · April 17

You can always query on opportunity name [contains] "2026 event". If you need it as a list you can then create a list from a query.

Shirley Dempsey · April 17

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/312975#Comment_312975

This is how we do it and it works well for us.

Melissa Lide · April 20

Any reason using the Campaign field—and requiring it—wouldn’t work here?

I use it to help ensure we standardize naming (e.g., “FY26 Major Gift”) and for FY projections. The designation field (like Scholarships) is also a great additional tracking, segmentation, etc. tool.

An NXT Opportunities list sample is attached. Query etc works too, as does an NXT insight, but the NXT list is a super easy way to grab it - especially if you customize your NXT home page with the link to the NXT list.

Hope that helps a little!

Opportunity List.jpg

Pulling an Opportunities List by the Opportunity Name/Summary

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