Online Express for Giving Day and JustGiving Integration

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Ilene Parlin
Ilene Parlin ✭
Fourth Anniversary First Reply
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion

Our Philanthropy & Engagement team converted to NXT in 2021. As part of the implementation, we started using NetCommunity for email marketing, donations, and our alumni directory/website. The product has come with a lot quirks and was somewhat problematic when we had our Giving Day Last year. Questions for anyone who may have answers:

  • Do you feel that Online Express has been a reliable tool? Do you ever experience delays in scheduling?
  • Have you used the JustGiving integration for Raiser's Edge and if so, did you use it in combination with Online Express? Another issue occurring is that we have been using GiveGab, which doesn't integrate with Raiser's Edge, and we are running into difficulty with suppressing donors from our email communications through NetCommunity. We have tried to use RE query functionality that is built into NetCommunity with consent codes. However, we were experiencing email delays using query, and with a Giving Day, you need to know your email tool is going to send emails when you schedule them.
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  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    @Ilene Parlin - It looks like your question is actually four separate questions. If you make it through my response and I still haven't answered something, let me know.

    1. Online Express Email Marketing is generally reliable. The only times where I have experienced delays with scheduling have been on high-traffic days such as Giving Tuesday or December 31. There is another tool available to you within RE NXT for Email Marketing - NXT Email Marketing found in Web View > Marketing > Email. There are a few differences between OLX and NXT Email Marketing to be considered, that may determine which one is better for your organization.

    2. JustGiving has a direct integration to RE NXT through Web View, meaning that gifts received through this platform would appear within Fundraising > Gift Management. This is likely outside of the current area you are utilizing (aka Database View Gift Batch) to process gifts. Something to be aware of as you look at this platform as an option.

    3. If GiveGab is working for your org, I recommend you keep using it. There are a few third-party tools that can be used to help bring data into RE NXT from an external source - I recommend you take a look at Importacular as the free version will likely to cover your needs, here's a link with more information on this option: https://www.zeidman.info/project/importacular/

    4. I recommend you utilize solicit codes to suppress constituents from email lists, rather than consent records, which can be done through merging queries directly within Database View. Here are a few links that explain how consent codes can be utilized to add solicit codes automatically to records and how to work with queries in Database View through merging:

  • Ilene Parlin
    Ilene Parlin ✭
    Fourth Anniversary First Reply

    @Austen Brown good to connect with you here. Our most immediate needs are:
    1. Finding an email solution for Giving Day where emails can be scheduled reliably for a large amount of records and emails sent throughout the day.

    2. Having the ability to easily exclude donors who make donations through GiveGab in this email utility (i.e. functionality to exclude an imported list of IDs)

    Although, what we are trying to do is possible in BBNC for Giving Day, for both items above, scheduling emails when using the BBNC RE query functionality to create email lists has not been reliable for us. Sometimes an email scheduled to be run at 6 am, for example might not run for 3 hrs. Our users ended up importing email lists into BBNC and manually kicking off the emails, but doing so this way limits some functionality from working.

    To follow-up on your responses:

    1. I was actually meaning the email functionality within NXT. I keep thinking this is online express, as well. I guess either could be an option though.

    2. We do typically create gift batches through Database View, however, we have some cases where we do utilize the batch creation in NXT. It could possibly work.

    3. We are utilizing ImportOmatic to bring gifts in from GiveGab. The issue for us has been around the lack of automated integration. It can take time for us to get gifts into the database, so trying to do this all as gifts come in on Giving Day may not be an option.

    4. We are actually utilizing solicit codes for emails. However, BBNC requires you to set up consent codes for opt outs, which we can then also map to a solicit code. It hasn't worked out all that well for us though thus far.

    P.S.

    Have another item I might run by you related to NXT integration with PowerAutomate.

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