Foundation keeps peer-to-peer fundraising
competitive with Blackbaud solutions, support.

Peer-to-peer fundraising plays a critical role in Eden Foundation’s support
for the faith-based mental health programs of Eden Health Care Services,
which brings “hope, healing, and community” to southern Manitoba. One of
the foundation’s most popular events—the Head for the Hills bike ride—can
involve as many as 200 cyclists who have a choice of a “gravel grind” option
or a scenic single-track route along the Trans Canada trail in the Pembina Hills.

Yet, even with success, Eden Foundation saw a need to upgrade its
technology to better meet the needs of staff and keep up with supporters
who rally friends and family for the cause.

“Peer-to-peer, for us, is huge,” explained Eden Foundation Director of
Development Earl Reimer, who joins in the Head for the Hills event as a
cyclist and fundraiser. “A significant amount of our revenue comes from
some form of peer-to-peer fundraising, and in order for us to be successful
at that, we needed to have a system which was easy for people who are
engaging with us.”

Recognizing and Eliminating Roadblocks

After extensive research, Eden Foundation switched to Blackbaud
TeamRaiser, leaving behind another peer-to-peer fundraising platform that
was falling short.

Prior to these changes, devoted fundraisers struggling with the former
platform often made calls to Eden Foundation to say, “Something’s not
working, can you help us?” While Reimer and his team resolved the issues,
they began to wonder whether those less committed to the cause might
be giving up due to technology roadblocks before the team ever heard
from them, and they considered the potential cost. “How many contacts
are we losing?” they asked themselves. “How much money are we losing?”

The team responded by adopting Blackbaud TeamRaiser, and at the
same time migrated from Blackbaud eTapestry® to Blackbaud Raiser’s
Edge NXT—Blackbaud’s flagship solution for fundraising and relationship
management. The timing came just ahead of the COVID-19 crisis,
and while making the shift in a period of global uncertainty required
steadfastness, Eden Foundation has effectively leveraged Blackbaud
solutions to engage supporters while navigating the twists and turns of
the pandemic.

From the start, Blackbaud customer support representatives were along
for the ride, always responsive and ready to provide guidance—which
was “head and shoulders above” what the foundation experienced with
its previous peer-to-peer platform. “We’ve done a number of things right,
and the switchover to Blackbaud TeamRaiser and Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge
NXT has been part of that,” reflected Reimer, pointing to the Head for the
Hills cycling event as a key fundraising win in 2020.

Successfully Shifting Gears

From the outset, COVID-19 forced Eden Foundation to rethink their
usually busy calendar of planned events, canceling some and postponing
others to the second half of 2020 with revisions for safety. By the fall,
the small development team was exhausted after an unprecedented
year. They needed the Head for the Hills event, which had been shifted
to September, to elevate its fundraising efforts and deliver a wonderful experience for supporters. Thankfully, their decision to switch to Blackbaud
TeamRaiser and Blackbaud RENXT made community engagement easy once
the event was set up. “We could leave it alone, and it would run on its own,
and that was huge for us,” Reimer said.

For cyclists who were also fundraising, Head for the Hills in 2020 was “clickand-go” with a superior set-up than before. With Blackbaud TeamRaiser,
they could easily input supporters’ contact information, create personalized
appeals and online pages, track responses, and measure their success
against other participants, fueling healthy fundraising competition.
Reimer knew that several top peer-to-peer fundraisers from the past had
been sidelined due to health concerns related to COVID-19 and expected
that could hurt the event in terms of totals. Yet Head for the Hills once again
exceeded 200 participants and $100,000 in fundraising—not far off 2019,
which was one of highest totals in the event’s history.

Likewise, with the benefit of Blackbaud solutions and support, the
foundation’s financial performance from the first year of the COVID crisis
rivaled or exceeded earlier years, Reimer said, and he sees further promise
as the organization fully realizes the capabilities of Blackbaud Raiser’s
Edge NXT. “I don’t think that we’ve tapped into all the potential that it
provides for us.”