Transcript for "Unlock Year-End Fundraising Success: Exclusive Webinar with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT® Experts": Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. I see some folks are coming on. We're gonna give everyone a few more, seconds, of course, to join in. I know it's not quite the time to start yet, so we're gonna give everyone a few more minutes just to get some time to come in. Alrighty. I guess, the time's turned to seconds. So we're gonna push forward at this time. First and foremost, my name is Justin Stanley, and I am a customer success manager here at Blackbaud. Today's session will discuss how to unlock your year end fundraising success with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT Total Web Solution, and I will, be introducing some of my colleagues shortly. But first and foremost, I want to let everyone know, just to give some quick housekeeping, tips and tricks, for your audio, it will be broadcasted through your computer speakers or your headsets. If you do have those on, if you do run into any issues, please refresh your browser or log out and then log back in. That's always important. But, of course, use the q and a, tab located on the left side of your screen, as well as on the right side of the chat tab, you'll see the q and a to put any questions that you do have, so we can answer those to the best of our abilities to make sure that you get the answers that are needed. So I wanna let that be known as well. And without further ado, I'm gonna pass it off to my colleagues, Trit and Maria, and they will take away from here to introduce you all, let them introduce themselves now. Awesome. Welcome everybody, and thank you, Justin, for kicking us off. My name is Trit Mulligan, and I am the head of Razer's Edge NXT. I am a almost thirty year veteran of Blackbaud, and I'm really excited to be here to share the future of what we're working on for Razer's Edge NXT. And I'm joined today by Maria Smith. And, Maria, would you like to introduce yourself? Hello, everyone. I'm Maria Smith, and I'm delighted to join you today as Blackbaud University software instructor. I'm based here in Charleston, South Carolina, owned the Blackbaud's headquarters, and I've been part of the Blackbaud family for seven years. And my focus has always been on empowering people to succeed with the tools they have, whether it's helping teachers get the most of their classroom technology or guiding nonprofit teams to maximize their impact. So in today's session, I'm gonna be guiding us through a progression of practical current tools within razor's edge that you can use to drive your organization's year end fundraising success. So we're gonna explore real examples, share tips and strategies, and discuss ways to approach the end of the year with confidence and hopefully a little less stress. But we won't stop there. Trent will also be sharing a look ahead at what's coming next for raisers edge, including exciting enhancements to online giving forms, prospect insights, and gift management. So today, we'll connect best practices with tomorrow's innovations. So you're not only going to leave today prepared for things that are come, but hopefully be inspired about what's possible. So before we dive into any of these tools and strategies, let's take a quick look at our agenda for today. We'll be walking through four key units that make up a successful year and fundraising plan using razor's edge and exceed. We're gonna start by setting up goals, organizing your campaign calendar and preparing your team and tools. Next, we'll explore how to launch and optimize one of the most impactful fundraising days of the year. Then we're gonna look at how to plan and manage a signature event that brings your community together. And finally, we'll show you how to monitor your progress, analyze results, and report on your success. So to help illustrate these strategies, we're gonna follow the journey of our favorite fictional nonprofit chocolate for all as they navigate their year end fundraising efforts. Their mission is simple. Bring chocolate to those who need it most, and we'll see how raisers edge helps them do just that. So let's begin here in unit one by talking about planning for year end fundraising activities. This is the foundation for every new thing that follows. Setting up goals, organizing campaigns, and making sure your team and tools are aligned. So to help bring this to life, we're gonna follow the journey of our chocolate for all here. Their mission again is to spread happiness through chocolate, especially during stressful times. And as the year wraps up, their team gathers to ask, how can we reach more people? How can we fund more chocolate deliveries and programs? While using Raiser's Edge, Chocolate for All starts by setting clear fundraising goals for Giving Tuesday, holiday appeals, and their daily event. They segment their donor base using query and list management, identifying key groups like live events, major donors, and volunteers. They build a campaign calendar using actions and tech and tasks, assign team roles with user management, and prepare donation forms and dashboards to track progress. So this unit will walk through how to do that so your organization can approach your end fundraising with confidence and clarity. So now that we've kinda laid the groundwork for planning, let's talk about how we can use Raiser's Edge to identify the right donors for end of year campaigns. Dashboards are a great starting point. They give us real time view of donor trends and campaign performance so we can quickly spot who's engaged and who might need a little nudge. For example, for preparing our Giving Tuesday, we might look at live on donors or those who gave last year but not this year and create a targeted outreach list. Or if we're planning our end of your gala, we could use dashboards to identify major donors or past event attendees who should receive a personal invitation. So these insights help us segment our audience and tailor our messaging. So when we move into creating our optimized donation forms and online registration forms, we're doing it with purpose and precision. So now that we've talked a little bit about dashboards, it kinda visualize donor trends and campaign performance. Let's take it a step further and talk about how we could build targeted donor groups using the query tool. So queries allow you to build targeted donor groups based on specific criteria, like last gift date, donor amount, or event attendance. For example, let's say, chocolate for all is preparing again for their giving Tuesday campaign. They wanna reach donors who attended their gala or made a gift over a thousand dollars. So with that query tool, they can set up a search for those donors they gave last year, but maybe not in the previous year, or maybe some folks who have not made a gift yet or who've attended the year end gala previously. So this let's say dynamic query instantly generates a list of high potential supporters for giving Tuesday outreach. As donor data changes, like someone making a new gift, the dynamic query updates automatically. So chocolate for all's team is always working with the most current information. So using queries like this kinda helps focus our efforts. We can personalize our messaging and maximize results for key campaigns like Giving Tuesday. And dashboards and queries also, again, are another way to segment our donors whether dynamically or statically based on real time data and engagement, but let's shift to another powerful tool, list management. So unlike queries, which can be dynamic and automatically update as donor data changes, list and razor's edge are typically static or more manually curated. That said, list can refresh when opened depending on how they're configured. So you can offer a flexible way to manage targeted donor groups. List management is especially useful when you have full control over who's included in a campaign or stewardship effort or even outreach. For example, we might handpick our top donors for personalized mailing or build a call list for board members to thank key supporters. And one feature worth highlighting is map view, which allows you to visualize constituents' location based on their preferred address as well as filter or fine tune your results. This is particularly helpful in planning regional outreach or in person events. And once your list is built, you can export it for mail merges, email blast, or follow-up calls, making it easier to execute your targeted strategy. So with the list management, you're not just segmenting, You're crafting intentional high impact communication strategies that support your year end fundraising success success. So dashboards, queries, and lists help us segment donors for targeted outreach. And let's take it even another step further with Prospect Insights. That's a tool designed to help you identify top fundraising opportunities. Prospect Insights uses predicted predictive modeling to surface constituents with the highest potential for major gifts. So instead of relying manual research or guesswork, you'll see donor ratings like excellent, very good, good, or low along with projected gift ranges based on giving history, wealth data, and other indicators. These insights allow you to prioritize outreach with confidence, whether you're inviting prospects to our and your gala, sending personalized appeals, or planning search of activities. For example, Chocolate for All might use prospect insights to identify donors most likely to support their gala or fund additional chocolate deliveries. By focusing their efforts on high potential supporters, they can maximize impact and dinner deepen donor relationships. What's especially helpful is how prospect insights integrates with your broader campaign strategy. You can filter top prospects into targeted lists, assign follow-up actions, and even use the insights to personalize your messaging by leveraging these insights. They can help your team focus into and focus their time and energy on cultivating relationships that are most likely to result in meaningful support. So making their your fundraising efforts smarter, more strategic, and even more successful. Now that we've seen how prospect insights help you identify and prioritize, I wanna turn things on over to Trit Mulligan. She's gonna be sharing a look at what's on the horizon, including new features and enhancements that can make it even easier to engage the most important supporters in the future. Trent, handing it over to you. Awesome. Thank you so much. In building on what Maria was talking about, whether you are looking to segment or using query or our list functionality, the power of what's coming is going to culminate in the ability to have a single place using natural language search to help you with your fundraising best practices, leveraging our Blackbaud data intelligence, to help you if you're trying to figure out how to, increase and motivate your team for giving year end. So you can do things like, if you're if you're if you need to find out some information about a specific major donor, you will be able to ask Blackbaud AI chat things like, provide a profile of Robert Hernandez for me, and it will provide, information about Robert Hernandez. It'll give you tips and tricks on how to reach out specifically to him. Maria, if you go to the next here's another example of how Blackbaud AI chat will be able to assist you. And this is specifically, focused on helping you segment develop those segments. So if you're looking at your year end fundraising and you're not quite happy with the results you're seeing, you might ask Copilot to help you find those LiveBonds. It'll automatically create the list for you and help you define action plans for each of those particular LiveBond, segmentation customers. And next, Maria, we will the third is the the the profile and being able to find, ways to draft cultivation plans, brainstorm ways to engage not only this donor, but other donors, using best practices. We're really excited about this new natural language search powered by generative AI. It is coming to an early adopter program, now, and we expect to have it to all of our customers early in, 2026. So I think I'm back to you, Maria. Thank you, Trit, for sharing those exciting updates about Blackbaud AI chat, and it's how it's shaping the future of donor engagement and fundraising. It's clear that AI powered insights are opening up new possibilities for our organizations. Now let's bring the focus back to our year end strategy. In this unit, we're gonna dive into giving Tuesday, one of the most impactful fundraising days of the year, and we're gonna explore at a launch and optimize your campaign using razors at Gen XT with a special look at how chocolate for all approach their giving Tuesday planning. So their team wanted a donation form that was easy to launch, mobile friendly, and designed to convert. So they chose optimized donation forms in Razor's Edge. They use donor segmentation tools again to identify live bonds and major donors, then tailored their outreach to drive traffic to the form. So what are the results? A streamline giving experience that help them reach more supporters and raise more funds quickly and efficiently. So let's take a look at how you can do the same. So one of the most important tools in Giving Tuesday is our donation forms, and Razor's Edge has two powerful options, standard and optimized donation forms. The standard forms give you flexibility to customize fields and branding, supports pledges and recurring gifts, and connects to one payment configuration perform through Blackbaud Payment Services. On the other hand, the optimized form is designed for speed and simplicity. It's mobile friendly, visually engaging, and built with conversion best practices in mind. It also includes recurring gift upsell as well as intelligent ask. However, both forms auto route gifts to batch, making an ideal for quick campaigns like giving Tuesday. And, for example, chocolate for all chose the optimized form. They wanted something quick to launch branded with their audience and is designed to convert. By pairing the form with targeted outreach using the segmentation tools, they were able to reach more donors and raise more funds quickly and efficiently. So whether that you choose the flexibility of the standard form or the efficiency of the optimized form, Raiser's Edge give you the tools to tailor your giving experience to your audience and goals. Now that we've launched that Giving Tuesday campaign, let's talk about what happens next. Tracking our results in real time. Raiser's Edge makes it easy to see exactly how your campaigns are performing. Here we're looking at a live dashboard that shows total gifts over time broken down by form. So for chocolate for all, this means that we can see instantly and compare how our Giving Tuesday optimized form performs versus our disaster relief form. This real time view lets us see which campaigns are driving the most support so we can quickly adjust our outreach if needed. For example, we notice a spike in gifts after a particular email or social post. We can double down on what's working. The summary section gives us a snapshot of key metrics, number of gifts, total amount raised, conversion rate, and even how much we've saved in processing fees. So this helps us stay on top of our progress and celebrate wins with our team. And you're something especially powerful. Returning gift upsell performance. So razor's edge tracks how many donors choose to make their support ongoing. Thanks to the upsell option built into the donation forms. So for chocolate for all, this means more predictable revenue and deeper donor relationships, critical for, say, sustaining our mission to spread that chocolatey happiness all year long. So big takeaway here, razor's edge, you're not just launching campaigns, you're empowering to track, compare, and optimize your results in real time. So this level of insight helps you make smarter decisions, maximize your impact, and show your supporters the difference their gifts are making. So we've seen how to track the results in real time and how that can transform our strategy. Let's using Chalka for all. But as we look ahead, it's clear that the future of online giving is even more exciting. Raiser's Edge is constantly evolving with new enhancements and tools designed to make fundraising even smarter, easier, and more impactful. And to give us a sneak peek at what's coming next, especially in terms of our online forms and donor engagement, Trit will Trit will walk us through the innovation on the horizon. So take it away, Trit. Will do. And if you're not using these online giving donation forms today, I would encourage you to go spend some time, crafting. They're very easy to create. We're seeing conversion rates greater than 30%, which is higher than the industry average. And with that, we also have, are planning on releasing a couple of really key things coming that that you all have been asking for. One of those is a new constituent form to allow you to collect essential information. This is if you're using Online Express today, this is called the email sign up form. But this is a form that'll allow you to collect information about your donors, whether it's consent information or allowing them to update their profile. We're expecting this to come and, be available early in 2026. You'll hear me say that quite a few times today. And if you'll go to the next slide, another thing that we're really excited about that's coming soon is automated receiving. Again, something that you all have been asking for, and we are going to be delivering. Automated receiving is just another opportunity for you to to acknowledge, a gift that's come in. It can be in replacement of the confirmation that is available today, or it can be included as a second receipt. For our Canadian customers, this is a compliance rule, which is why we're focused on making sure we get it to, not only those customers, but to all of our customers. Next slide. And then finally, another thing that I'm really excited about is, you know, we're really, really focused on helping you drive conversions. And one of the ways that we can do this is a lot of times donors might get, interested in finding out some additional information and navigate away from the donation form on your website. We are planning on bringing to you what we we like to call the nudge, which is if they if they, move away from the donation form, there will be a little toast, a little reminder that pops up to let them know to go back and to finish completing that donation, for you. Again, this is something that we expect to come early in '26. And back to you, Maria, for some more wonderful information. Thank you again, Trit, for sharing those exciting updates and future enhancements for online giving and Raiser's Edge. It's inspiring to see how these innovations will help our organizations. And let's now shift gears again and talk about another cornerstone of year end fundraising, the year at the end of year gala event. And this is often the signature event for many organizations, a chance to bring together your supporters, celebrate your impact, and inspire generosity as the year comes to a close. So planning a successful gala isn't just about the event itself. It's about using the right tools to identify your major donors and streamline invitations and registrations and ensure that every detail is managed efficiently. So in this unit, we're gonna walk through how Raiser's Edge can help you organize, manage, and maximize your year of and gala. So organ organizing all of this involves a few aspects or steps that make the process smoother and effective starting by creating your event record. You're gonna enter the Gaylord's name, the date, location, so every details captured from the beginning. Next, you're gonna add ticket types, prices, and keep capacities to match your fundraising goals and ensure everyone can participate. And sponsorships are a key part of any gala, and Raiser's Edge makes it simple to set up packages and track benefits of your supporters. Customizing your online registration form is especially important. Guests can RSVP and pay securely online, and you can brand the form to reflect your organization's mission just like Chocolate For All does to share their story and engage supporters. As registrations come in, tracking RSVPs, payments, and participant details is seamless and centralized. This makes follow-up easy and ensures every supporter feels value. So the main takeaway, Raiser's Edge streamlines every step of gala planning from ticket sales and sponsorship to participant management and payments. By keeping everything connected, you save time, reduce errors, and deliver a smooth experience for your team and guests. Now once your gala is set up, the next step is creating an online event registration form that makes it easy for supporters to RSVP and pay securely. So Raiser's Edge gives you that flexibility to design a branded registration experience. Your organization's colors and logo just like chocolate for all does to reinforce their mission. And the form supports multiple ticket types, sponsorship levels, and add ons, and you can tailor options for general admission, VIP guests, or special packages. The secure payment processing is built in, which means participants can register and pay online without manual entry. All registration data flows directly into your event record for seamless tracking and follow-up. Mobile friendly design ensures supporters can sign up from anywhere, And real time metrics let you monitor participant counts, fees sold, and registration stats right from the event dashboard. And after submitting, guests can receive a thank you message and email confirmation helping you build trust and re reinforce your brand. So Razor's Edge is helping us to deliver a professional efficient registration experience, making it easier to engage your community and maximize attendance for your year end gala. Now with a branded flexible registration form in place tied to your event record, your gala guests can sign up and pay securely online. And all of their information flows directly into your event record for easy tracking and follow-up. But efficient registration is just the beginning. The future of event management in razor's edge is all about making every step from registration to participant management and reporting even more seamless and powerful. Can you share what's next? We know it. Trit is gonna cover it. Let take it over. Thank you, Maria. So one of the areas that, we we have been working on, which is hoping you to improve your hygiene of your data for incoming transactions. So today with our donation forms, you're able to manage via an online data review tool. Be able to review a constituent record constituent, make sure there's not a duplicate in the in the system, and make some updates to the data. That is available today. What's coming soon is the ability to do this for event registrations. It's one of the highest marked ideas in our idea bank, and, we are excited that we'll be that we are actually in development working on this now, and we'll have this available to you early next year. Again, that's a theme that you'll continue to hear me say, over the course of this particular webinar. And I think that's back to you, Maria. Thank you, Trit, again, sharing those exciting updates about event management. And now let's take a look out your gala, your campaign, specifically how gifts are processed and managed in that gift batch workspace. So when donations come in from our online forms or event registrations, razor's edge automatically routes them into gift batch and web view. This means that your team can review, edit, and improve gifts efficiently without manual entry. So for organizations like Choco for all this, streamline process is a game changer. So after their gala, every donation flows directly in a batch, making it easy to check for accuracy, make any edits, approve guests before they're added to those donor records. And this approach saves time, reduces errors, and keeps fundraising data up to date. And with these new features on the horizon, managing your fundraising workflow will be even easier. So gift batch is your central hub for efficient and accurate gift management. And managing these gifts with central is essential for any successful fundraising campaign. So here, every donation, whether it's from an online form, manual entry, automated payment, or event registration is grouped for easy review and approval before being added to those donor records. So this batch work space affords various gift types and streamlines our processing. So your fundraising data is always up to date reliable. So, again, if we're processing gifts from our major campaign or signature event, we want to review and take a look at all of this information. And a key part of building trust with our donors is making sure that we follow through. And, again, this gift batch streamlines gift management. It's clear how these tools are able to be used for organizations, but the innovation doesn't stop here. There's even more enhancements on the horizon for gift batch designed to make fundraising workflows faster, smarter, and even more user friendly. So take it away, Trit. Thanks, Maria. We know today with our gift entry batch, that's in our web view solution but it's not, really designed for high speed gift entry, which is why we are bringing gift batch grid to the web view. We're really excited about this. This is enables keyboard, keyboard entry along with keyboard shortcuts, all the fields that you need, fly outs to update constituent records while you're doing gift entry. All of this is planned along with the ability to set defaults. Something that you can't do today, and we know that that has limitations, especially if you are entering a lot of gifts every day. This is currently moving to an early adopter program prior to BBCon, and, again, we expect this to be available for all early next year. Once we have this in place, we will, move all of our processing gift processing for donation forms and, event registration forms and other to directly into this gift batch. So that one will be, deprecated some point in the future, and this will be your one place to do all of your gift entry. And next, back to you, Maria. Thank you, Trit. Those are exciting updates about what's coming next in gift batch. So it's clear that managing gifts will continue to get faster and smarter for organizations of all sizes. And as we wrap up our journey today, let's focus on one of the most important aspects of the year end fundraising, tracking and reporting your results. So Raiser's Edge gives you powerful tools to monitor your fundraising progress. We review gifts received from your campaigns and events, generate reports that provide actionable insights for your team and leadership. And, again, for organizations like Chocolate For All, this means that you'll be able to instantly see how much was raised during Giving Tuesday, the end of your gala, or other campaigns all in one place. You can customize your home page to show those metrics that matter most, like total gifts, donor participation, year over year trends, and these are real time insights right at your fingertips. Because one of those powerful ways for us to keep our fundraising results front and center is about that customization. So when you log in, you can personalize your dashboard to show exactly what matters most, like your latest campaign results or event pro progress. So maybe our end of your gala, we can set up tiles for our Giving Tuesday campaign, gala results, and year over year fundraising trends just with a few clicks. We could add our appeal tracker, event tracker, fun tracker, and more. And this gives you an instant snapshot of your organization's fundraising health. And as soon as you start your day, you can drag and drop tiles to arrange our view. So maybe I want my gala results up front and center. Just move that event tile to the top, or maybe I want to adjust and move my Giving Tuesday front and center. So customizing this home page isn't just about making things look nice. It helps you stay organized and focused and ready to take action. You'll know where you stand, and you can celebrate your successes with your team. So we can quickly review, gets received, and how many donors participated and identify which form performed best all in real time. Now let's say after we've updated our home page, it's customized to keep that important fundraising information front and center. Let's talk about how we can turn those insights into actions with workflows. Workflows is razor's edge, tool to help you automate routine tasks and follow-up. So donor communication stays consistent and nothing falls through the cracks. So, for example, after our chocolate for all team reviews the results, they can set up a workflow to remind them to send thank you emails, assign follow-up calls, or schedule stewardship activities. It's important to note that while workflows can trigger these tasks and reminders, they don't automatically send emails or make those phone calls for you. Instead, the system will notify you or your team when it's time to take action, helping you stay organized and ensuring every donor receives timely, personalized communication. This automation saves time, reduces manual work, and make sure every fundraising opportunity gets the attention it deserves. So with workflows, you can build a recipe for success, triggering triggering notifications for emails, calls, reminders based on those results and making sure your cultivation and stewardship strategies are always in motion. So whether we're following up with new donors, thanking event attendees, or planning our next campaign, workflows help you stay proactive, efficient, and donor focused. And as we finish up today's session, let's take a moment to reflect on what we've accomplished together. We've explored the full toolkit for year end fundraising success from planning and segmenting donors to launching Giving Tuesday and gala campaigns, tracking gifts, customizing our home page for instant insights. And throughout this presentation, we didn't just focus on what's available now. We also gave you a sneak peek at what's coming next. Trick Fred shared exciting updates for future enhancements for online giving forms and prospect insights, showing how Blackbaud is continually evolving the platform to make your fundraising even more effective and donor friendly. And we saw how current tools like optimized forms, event registrations, and dashboards, and workflows can streamline our effort and help you build those stronger relationships with your supporters. And with all those new features on the road map, you'll be able to do even more in the months ahead. Exploring content from Blackbaud University's extensive library ensures you're getting the most out of product. When was the last time we've taken training? This ensures your product works best for you and your organization's needs. And as a quick reminder of the tools, Blackbaud University is a training subscription, and that's just one option. Blackbaud University offers a variety of classes designated to help you master every aspect of razor's edge, whether you wanna learn more about setting up or managing aspect of razor's edge. Whether you wanna learn more about setting up or managing events, creating and optimizing online forms, building and customizing dashboards, processing gift efficiently in gift batch, or automating your communications with workflows, there is a course for you. These virtual instructor led trainings give you hands on experience and practical tips so you can confidently use the tools we've covered today and prepare for the new future coming. So investing in your learning ensures that you and your team can maximize those results and streamline your process and stay ahead as razor's edge continues to evolve to the total web solution. And if you prefer learn learning at your own pace, there's also elearning classes available. These are by size modules that you can quickly take at any point at any time to build your skills on those specific topics. Whatever fits your schedule, whether you choose a live class or self paced, and then investing in your learning ensures you and your team can maximize those results. And as we wrap up today, I wanna thank each of you for joining us and for your engagement throughout our journey. We explored practical tools and strategies for our year end fundraising success and Raiser's Edge, highlighted new features on the horizon, and shared way ways to build your skills. No matter your organization size or resources, whether you're part of a large team or small nonprofit, the key takeaway is that Raiser's Edge offers flexible, powerful solutions to help you maximize your impact just like our friends at Chocolate for All. And thank you for your participation and for all you do, all your work to make a difference. And I'm gonna turn it over to Trit to wrap things up and share a few final thoughts. Trit. I don't know if anybody else is hungry, but hearing all about chocolate for all, I didn't have breakfast. But thank you, Maria, for all that wonderful, information about how you can plan and have the most successful giving year end giving season. I just wanted to say thank you to all of you, for if you're looking to learn more about what's coming, what's next, how we're gonna get to the unified view, make sure you register for the product update briefings. The registration will go out likely next week, and you will all receive, communication to get registered for that. There's a lot more that's on the horizon for razors at Gen XT, and we thank you all for attending today. Have a wonderful day.