Moving from Raiser’s Edge to the New Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud: What Nonprofits Need to Know

If your nonprofit has been using Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge, then you might have reached the point that you need a more sophisticated and modern solution. If so, you might be considering a move to the new Nonprofit Cloud from Salesforce.

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for Fundraising is built on the Salesforce platform to support a fundraising department’s efforts, including managing donor relationships and tracking giving. But it can also do much more, helping you take your fundraising campaigns to the next level with data-driven insights into how best to raise more funds and create lasting donor relationships for greater impact.

While moving to a new solution brings exciting new possibilities, it can also seem intimidating. How do you know if switching to the new Nonprofit Cloud is right for your organization? What do you need to consider, and what benefits can you expect to get out of the move?

Here are three helpful things to know as you consider a move from Raiser’s Edge to the new Nonprofit Cloud.

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud is a different kind of solution than Raiser’s Edge.

When you consider moving from Raiser’s Edge to Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, it’s important to know that you’re not looking at an apples-to-apples comparison. Raiser’s Edge is a fundraising-specific product. The new Nonprofit Cloud is built on the Salesforce platform and offers multiple products, including:

• Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for Fundraising
• Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for Grantmaking
• Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for Program Management
• Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for Case Management

With the product approach, you have a single application that serves a specific purpose, with limited ability to customize and configure it to your business processes. You’re locked into using the tools provided in the product. However, with the platform approach, you have a foundational layer that allows you to use a combination of built-in features, pre-built applications, integrations with additional tools and data sources, and/or custom-configured functionality. You can select the products and features that best meet your needs.

The platform approach requires a different way of thinking about your software. It also takes time and effort to make the switch. But it pays off in the long run: An organization that leverages data across departments will have better outcomes, create more impact, and raise more funds.

Learn about options, benefits, and key functionality in this guide: The Basics of Salesforce Solutions for Nonprofits

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud addresses common challenges you may be having with Raiser’s Edge.

The new Nonprofit Cloud offers a wealth of benefits from the Salesforce platform that address common challenges you may be having with your current system, such as a poor user experience, lack of data integration, and security concerns. Benefits of the new Nonprofit Cloud include:

Innovation

Salesforce delivers product updates/upgrades three times each year, offering new product functionality and enhancements in each release. Salesforce also continues to roll out new offerings within the new Nonprofit Cloud. This commitment to innovation helps to ensure that organizations using Salesforce products always have the latest and greatest technology.

Flexibility

As with all Salesforce offerings, the new Nonprofit Cloud provides a great deal of flexibility to meet your organization’s needs today and in the future. There are nearly unlimited ways to customize it. You can also extend it with third-party apps and other Salesforce products to meet your specific needs.
For example, you might add third-party apps to Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for Fundraising to provide specific functionality for things like online giving, wealth screening, document generation, and e-signatures. You might also decide to add Salesforce products, such as a marketing automation tool for email automation and deeper data segmentation or Tableau for data visualizations.

Integrated data

Because it’s built on the Salesforce platform, Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for Fundraising is centered around CRM, which can help you grow donor relationships more effectively. It gives you a holistic view of donors and other constituents so that you have more insights into donor and prospect behaviors and preferences and can send targeted messages to the right people at the right time.

Security

Trust is a core value for Salesforce and is the foundation of what makes Salesforce a trusted infrastructure. Salesforce offers transparency, security, compliance, and privacy, allowing nonprofits to focus on the people at the heart of their missions and the impactful work they are doing, rather than worrying about security concerns.

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud offers a sophisticated fundraising solution.

In addition to providing fundamental fundraising capabilities, such as gift entry, gift acknowledgements, and reporting, Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for Fundraising supports key functions within a fundraising office. It includes crucial functionality for:

• Mass market engagement, including campaign management and audience segmentation
• High-touch fundraising for major donor stewardship
• Fundraising operations that optimize fundraising tasks, such as entering gifts and managing recurring donations

And since it’s Salesforce, you can tailor the user interface so that different roles in your fundraising department can have the information that’s most meaningful to them right at their fingertips. Plus, with a connected cloud platform providing a complete view into all of your activities and constituents, your fundraising data combines with other departments’ data to gain meaningful insights that help you tell a better story and make a better appeals.

Learn more about the new Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud

If you’re thinking about moving from Raiser’s Edge, then check out this webinar to learn more about the new Nonprofit Cloud:
From Raiser’s Edge to Salesforce: A Look Insight the New Nonprofit Cloud.