The Foundation supports the work of Canada’s leading heart health centre, the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, by connecting donors with the programs, facilities, and people who save lives every day. As a highly trusted organization that has served patients for decades, the Foundation has a solid base of longtime donors, many from the ‘Baby Boomer’ and ‘Civics’ generational cohorts. With newer generations of tech-savvy donors emerging and an upcoming 30-day virtual challenge, the Foundation knew it needed to start taking advantage of the latest features and functionality available in Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, the leading software for fundraising and relationship management.

Program Manager of Digital Programs and Donor Experience, Erika Johnston, explained that her position was created intentionally so that they could stay ahead of digital growth and proactively ensure they are able to meet the incoming donors’ expectations. “As our donor demographic ages and a younger generation steps up, it’s crucial to lay the groundwork now for future support,” she said. “Raiser’s Edge NXT’s extended functionality has been key, allowing us to better prepare while still meeting the needs of our existing donor base.”

Creating a Campaign to Attract New Donors

To attract and engage a new generation of donors, five years ago the Foundation conceived and created a 30-day virtual activity challenge, Jump In™ , a nationwide physical activity challenge in support of women’s heart health. From the very first interaction, they planned an event experience that would bring as many new supporters into the event as possible. Using Raiser’s Edge NXT, the team created registration forms that could be embedded into the website, creating a smooth user experience.

“By embedding signup forms directly on our website, users are no longer sent to an external webpage, giving them a seamless brand experience with a consistent look and feel,” said Johnston. “And because every registrant is also instantly added into Raiser’s Edge NXT, we can leverage its analytical tools to strategically follow up and build lasting donor relationships.”

Empowering Fundraisers with Innovative Software

What started as an effort to address in-house server challenges resulted in a transformation in fundraising potential for the Foundation’s small-but-mighty team. They upgraded to Raiser’s Edge NXT in spring 2023 after using Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge since the early 1990s. While a little anxious about this transition, the Foundation’s servers were becoming overburdened with the volume of donor information they held. The Foundation’s Advancement Services Team department decided to upgrade to Raiser’s Edge NXT to benefit from Blackbaud’s scalable cloud hosting.

As it turns out, the upgrade opened up so much potential for the fundraising team. “Diving into Raiser’s Edge NXT’s comprehensive array of features was like moving the whole family from a house we lived in for decades into a new, modern, much larger version of the same house, like a smart home,” said Johnston. Additional support from Blackbaud’s customer success team was instrumental in the transition. Working together, they conducted extensive testing sessions and active learning experiments to determine what techniques worked best for the Foundation.

For small, nimble fundraising teams every minute counts. They found that Raiser’s Edge NXT features like automated future action alerts and access to donor data anytime, anywhere, allowed them to reach new levels of efficiency.

“Tapping into Raiser’s Edge NXT’s extended capabilities successfully boosted our productivity,” said Johnston. “It’s allowing us to move towards a one-product solution which simply processes and eliminates the need to manually update and to sync between different databases.”

The team also loves the many simple but powerful features they’re discovering that they never knew they needed, like donor photos on constituent records. “When attending a large 500-person event, keeping donor’s faces straight can be difficult. It’s much easier now that I see their photos every day in Raiser’s Edge NXT,” added Elizabeth Rogers, director of major gifts.