Blackbaud products, including Raiser’s Edge are largely enterprise donor management systems (DMS) focused largely on the nonprofit market. As donor management systems, they are primarily databases to keep track of donors and other supporters. Raiser’s Edge includes fundraising and accounting functionality, along with the database. But all Blackbaud products orient around organizing your existing data and reporting on the information you enter into them.

In contrast, NationBuilder is the world’s first leadership software. As such, NationBuilder’s orientation is outward-facing; it’s designed to help you identify, attract, and engage more supporters, donors, voters, customers, as opposed to simply managing existing data. NationBuilder is also fully integrated, meaning the “CRM” or database component of the software is integrated directly with your website, all your communications tools, including email, social media, and text, and the fundraising tools you need to raise and accept donations. Full integration of all the tools you need to lead improves your insights into the impact your organization is having, and helps you to take action on those insights from within the platform. NationBuilder also offers an extensive app ecosystems to plug in additional functionality unique to your organization.

Blackbaud systems are largely outdated, especially in their integration of social media, text, and peer to peer engagement tools. Blackbaud’s user interface is not user friendly, and generally pretty difficult to learn. NationBuilder is deeply social in its design, action-oriented, fully integrated with all the features you need to lead, and is updated with innovative new features and improved functionality in real-time, not just with the purchase of new editions like most Blackbaud products.

Organizations with money to burn or that have already learned these tools might not want to switch, but for everyone else, NationBuilder is generally an elegant replacement for these outdated donor management systems.

Pricing

Blackbaud product’s pricing is complex, but largely based on the number of administrators (in addition to some other factors). Solutions like Raiser’s Edge are some of the most expensive sold into the nonprofit market. Additionally, there is likely a significant upfront cost, as most organizations need customization to meet their organization’s needs. The per administrator pricing schema makes it quite expensive to provide administrative access to large teams or networks, which can limit the effectiveness of the database, as only certain people can update contact information, add notes, from a meeting, or create a new contact.

NationBuilder includes an unlimited number of administrators, so that your organization can scale, and unlimited use of features, to encourage a robust use of the software and maximum impact for your organization. Additionally, for most customers, no technical support or consultant is required. For larger, more complex organizations, NationBuilder offer specific enterprise packages with more support, as well a separate product, NationBuilder Network, specifically built for distributed organizations with chapters, affiliates, country offices, or locals.

Want to integrate?

Is Blackbaud already embedded in your workflow? Is the idea of transferring systems daunting? Does your accounting team want to keep your existing system, while the rest of the company upgrades? Now you can. A NationBuilder integration can be used by as many departments as you’d like, including fundraising, communications, program, or others, to grow and engage your community of supporters, then you can send relevant updates to your Blackbaud integration to keep things in sync. You can even automate the process with our Omatic app integration or by working with a NationBuilder developer.