The Challenge
When VP of Advancement, Kevin Trotter, joined Josiah White’s in 2018, the organization was working with eTapestry. However, shortly after joining, Blackbaud acquired the nonprofit fundraising platform which spurred their advancement team to consider moving to Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge to simplify their fundraising tech stack. Kevin was just beginning to build out their advancement team and wanted to make sure that they could successfully fundraise to support their mission-critical programs and services.
“At that time, Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge was the gold standard CRM. However Raiser’s Edge was more of a skin, or interface, that made us believe that we were working in the cloud but in reality, we weren’t. While Blackbaud was building a cloud-based platform, we were really working in a database view with a cloud skin over it.”
Kevin Trotter, VP of Advancement
To complicate matters for their advancement team, it took an extraordinary amount of effort and required additional technology to complete basic functions inside Raiser’s Edge. “The learning curve for Blackbaud was difficult for our team. It took forty additional steps and even work outside of the system to get something done”, says Andy Stout, Director of Development. Andy continues, “You had to start well because if you began a process inside Raiser’s Edge and then deviated from that, it would be impossible to get back on track.”
Because of the lack of cloud-based functionality as well as an inability to clearly communicate data across their systems, Josiah White’s began searching for a new nonprofit CRM that more closely aligned with their fundraising philosophy and goals. “We wanted to create better relationships in our ministry and needed a system that supports that well. We really wanted to find a solution that would match our approach to fundraising”, says Kevin.
How We Helped
Donor-Centric Software
After determining the need for a new nonprofit CRM, Kevin and Andy began the search for a new solution. “We had come across Virtuous before at the annual CLA conference once before. After the second year attending the conference, and meeting the Virtuous team, it was a stars aligned moment”, says Kevin.
“By then, we had hired Andy and the team was beginning to be built out. It made sense to migrate from Raiser’s Edge NXT to Virtuous as it would greatly enhance our ability to track data and manage the data as part of our relationship building with our donors and it aligned with our philosophy.”
Additionally, it’s easier than ever for other teams to work within Virtuous, something that wasn’t possible in Raiser’s Edge. “It’s much easier for us to add team members to Virtuous. We’ve gone from fifteen users to thirty users! It’s easier for us to train and add them to the system. With Blackbaud, it was always difficult adding new users. It either wouldn’t happen or something would get hung up with customer support,” says Kevin.
Partnership with Rooted Software
When it was time for Josiah White’s advancement team to begin the migration process from Raiser’s Edge to Virtuous, it was recommended that they utilize the team at Rooted Software to help with the process. When they previously migrated from eTapestry to Raiser’s Edge, Kevin completed the majority of the work himself and the idea of hiring a consultant appealed to him.
“I was pleasantly surprised when we were introduced to Sam Roderick from Rooted Software. Their team was more than ready to support the migration instead of leaving the heavy lifting to me and Andy.”
Kevin Trotter, VP of Advancement
Additionally, Sam and his migration team had a deep knowledge and understanding of Raiser’s Edge which helped the Josiah White’s team feel even more comfortable in the migration process.
With their deep understanding and expertise in migrating Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge clients to Virtuous, Sam and his team could better assist Kevin and Andy by conceptualizing specific aspects of the migration process – where they had data originally, where they wanted it to be inside Virtuous, and how to consolidate the two so they could use it in practice.
However, to complicate matters, the Rooted Software migration team had a deadline to complete the process by November 2022 – giving them six months to successfully complete the migration. Their current contract with Raiser’s Edge was ending in December 2022 and the advancement team wanted a brief bridge of time between the two platforms to accommodate the year-end fundraising system.
“Our experience with the Rooted team was great! Everyone was in lock step and they made sure that we were able to meet that deadline”, says Andy.
A Holistic Fundraising Platform
With Virtuous, the Josiah White’s advancement team could begin their responsive fundraising journey where each donor could be treated with personalization and stewarded with care. “One of my favorite activities is to see who’s the next best call to make each day and writing the first five donors a note on that list”, says Andy.
It’s now much easier for their team to conduct outreach to their donors in a personalized way – especially when thanking donors for a contribution. “In Raiser’s Edge, it would take us multiple steps to send a receipt out to donors,” says Kevin. “Now we can send personalized and custom receipts to donors in a faster and timely manner.”
Additionally, their advancement team has more sophisticated tracking capabilities that gives their fundraising team greater visibility and transparency into the data. “It’s clearer now when we send out receipts because it automatically logs it to the contact record when you do it through the receipting tool”, continues Kevin.
Their marketing team has seen a similar experience with Virtuous’ Events functionality. Now each time Josiah White’s hosts an event, they can log every action and see it translated back to the donor’s contact record – creating greater trust in their data.
“One of my favorites is the ability to create donation pages with RaiseDonors. With RaiseDonors we are able to create a memorial or donation page in just ten minutes!”
Kevin Trotter, VP of Advancement
Being able to create custom and personalized donation pages within minutes has been a timesaver for their advancement team and creates a more authentic experience for their donors.
About Rooted Software
Our founders Toby Weiss and Josh Bechard have a combined 4 decades of experience working with nonprofits driving technology change. They started Rooted Software out of a passionate desire to see ministries and nonprofits leverage technology effectively. With experience in CIO, CTO and Lead Developer roles, they are excited to utilize their expertise across 3 key areas: Systems and CRM Consulting, Managed IT, and App Development.
Our team brings a wealth of experience to our customers across broad technology areas including CIO/CTO level leadership and strategy, software development and architecture, system selection and implementation, security and infrastructure oversight, as well as expert support services.
Our culture is to serve you with Fidelity (what you see is what you get), Compassion (people first, technology second), and Drive (batteries included).
