The Salvation Army gives hope and support to vulnerable people in 400 communities across Canada. Yet the organization faced significant challenges with its antiquated local receipting program (LRP) in Canada, creating cumbersome processes that involved third-party vendors, often leading to unhappy donors, especially during the Christmas season.

Recognizing the need for change, Data Project Manager Adrian Enciso spearheaded migrating the team’s LRP database to Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, the leading software for fundraising and relationship management. With extensive research, coding, documentation, and training, the team successfully migrated off its LRP without any additional solutions or associated costs by leveraging the enhanced product functionality.

“The switch to Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT brought immediate benefits,” said Enciso. “It could take between seven to 10 days to produce a gift receipt or run a report. Now we can issue receipts instantly and run the reports in a matter of minutes.” This efficiency not only improved internal processes but also enhanced donor stewardship, allowing for more immediate and accurate communication with supporters.

Maximizing Community Impact

As a result of the transition, The Salvation Army also experienced significant cost savings. “By eliminating the need for a third-party vendor for gift imports, we save about $250,000 annually,” said Licia Donadonibus, director of development, data & innovation. “This strategic move not only saved money but also streamlined operations, ensuring that every dollar donated could have the maximum impact on our communities.”

Raiser’s Edge NXT helps organizations drive increased responses for all their outreach while building high-impact relationships. “We saw a huge increase of $22 million by making a few adjustments to the data in Raiser’s Edge NXT coupled with changes in how our fundraisers targeted donors,” said Donadonibus. “Having the ability to conduct tailored and in-depth analyses that we couldn’t before has clearly been a game-changer for us.”

Transforming What’s Possible

Using the extended functionality in Raiser’s Edge NXT, The Salvation Army is redefining and restructuring its campaigns, appeals, and funds to align with its financial systems. This alignment will enable more granular reporting and better data governance, ensuring the ongoing cleanliness and accuracy of their data. “It’s a huge win because this means that after 25 years, we’ll be able to pull in the data from a number of different places and accurately report on a granular level,” said Donadonibus.

The Salvation Army’s next big project includes the addition of a data warehouse, which will further enhance their reporting capabilities and provide even more insights to drive their fundraising efforts. “As a proud data-geek, I’m really excited to take it a step further and apply visualization tools, like Power BI or Tableau, to our Raiser’s Edge NXT data, to create reports that will really help fundraisers reach the next level,” said Enciso.