DonorAtlas for Raiser's Edge NXT — User Manual

1. Introduction

DonorAtlas for Raiser's Edge NXT puts DonorAtlas prospect research inside your CRM. The integration does two things:

• The DonorAtlas tile on every Constituent page shows the person's full DonorAtlas profile: bio, wealth estimates, giving history, relationships, contact info, and more, with citations.
• Synced fields write research into native Raiser's Edge records — ratings, contact information, relationships, education, and more — so you can use it in RE lists, queries, exports, and reports. DonorAtlas keeps them current by refreshing synced constituents overnight.

The two work independently. The tile always shows the complete profile; your team chooses which fields (if any) are written into RE itself (Section 6). Some teams live in the tile, some build their reporting on the synced fields, and most use both.

They also reach different people. The tile is for DonorAtlas users: you need a DonorAtlas account to see it. Synced fields are ordinary Raiser's Edge data, so everyone in your RE database can see and report on them, DonorAtlas account or not.

This manual is for day-to-day users; the few settings that need an admin role (Section 2) say so. It assumes the integration is already connected to your RE environment — if not, start with the Quick Start Guide, or send your admin to the Technical Documentation.

2. Getting Started

The DonorAtlas tile appears on Constituent pages in RE NXT, alongside the other tiles. Syncing, resyncing, unsyncing, and viewing a constituent's profile all happen from the tile.

You need two things:

• A DonorAtlas account on the team linked to your RE environment. If you don't have one, ask your DonorAtlas admin to invite you.
• Your usual Raiser's Edge NXT login.

Two DonorAtlas team roles manage the integration: Admin and Configure Only, the role for people who configure integrations but don't use donor search or billing. Where this manual says “an admin,” it means either role; the places that need the Admin role itself say so.

Everything else lives in DonorAtlas, under Integrations in the sidebar. The Raiser's Edge NXT card there shows whether you're connected and links to:

• Configure, where your team chooses which fields sync (Section 6).
• Bulk sync, for syncing whole RE lists (Section 7).
• Users & connections, where admins see who's connected and set what each person can do (Section 12).
• Auto-resync, which shows how and when synced records refresh (Section 10).

Configure and Users & connections appear only for admins.

3. Logging In

The tile is for DonorAtlas users, so it asks you to sign in before it shows anything. Data DonorAtlas has already written into RE is not affected — ratings, contact information, relationships, and education are normal RE records that every user in your database can see, whether or not they have a DonorAtlas account.

The first time you use the integration, the tile says “Log in to continue with DonorAtlas.” Each person on your team does this once:

1. Click Log in in the tile. A DonorAtlas window opens; sign in if it asks you to.
2. Click Authorize on the Blackbaud screen that follows.
3. When DonorAtlas shows “Connection Successful!”, you can close that window. (Left open, it moves on after a few seconds to the configuration page, which only admins can open.) Return to Raiser's Edge and refresh the constituent page; the tile now shows the constituent's sync status.

You can also connect from DonorAtlas: on the Integrations page, click Connect your account on the Raiser's Edge NXT card. Once you're connected, the card says which RE account you're connected as.

4. The DonorAtlas Tile

Once you're logged in, what the tile shows depends on where the constituent stands.

“Not synced”

The constituent hasn't been synced. Click Sync with DonorAtlas. DonorAtlas reads the constituent's name, nickname, birth date, addresses, employer, and school from RE and matches them against its database — the more complete the record, the better the match, and a name plus an address or employer is usually enough. Each sync uses 1 import credit (Section 13).

If you already know who the constituent is in DonorAtlas, use the search box under or match manually instead. Type a name or paste the link to a DonorAtlas profile, pick the right person, and click Confirm match. DonorAtlas links the constituent to that profile and writes your synced fields, just as a sync would, and it uses 1 import credit the same way.

“Syncing…”

While DonorAtlas matches the constituent, the tile shows a spinner with Syncing… and a progress bar once there is progress to show. Matching usually takes a minute or two; the tile updates on its own, so you can stay on the page or come back later.

Synced

A match was found, and the tile now shows the person's full DonorAtlas profile. A toolbar above the profile shows when and by whom the constituent was last synced, along with three buttons:

• Resync refreshes the constituent with current DonorAtlas data (Section 9).
• Unsync removes everything DonorAtlas wrote to this constituent.
• Open in DonorAtlas opens the profile on the DonorAtlas platform in a new tab.

While a resync or unsync runs, the profile stays in place and the toolbar reads Resyncing… or Unsyncing… next to the last-synced line, and its Resync and Unsync buttons stay disabled until the work finishes.

Resync appears only if your team lets you sync, and Unsync only if it lets you unsync. With neither, the toolbar says View only in their place (Section 12).

“No match found”

DonorAtlas couldn't confidently match this constituent. The tile says when it last tried and offers two buttons:

• Try match again runs the match again. Fill in more of the constituent's RE record first (address and employer help the most). It runs as a new sync, so it uses 1 import credit and the tile shows Syncing… while it works.
• Unsync clears the result, and the tile goes back to “Not synced.”

The or match manually search appears here too, so you can pick the right person yourself.

Organization records

DonorAtlas syncs individual donors, so there's nothing to sync on an organization's constituent page. When DonorAtlas has a matching organization of its own, the tile links to it with View in DonorAtlas.

When the daily limit is reached

Blackbaud limits how many requests each SKY API key can make per day. When your team's daily limit is used up, the tile replaces its Sync with DonorAtlas, Try match again, Resync, and Unsync buttons and the or match manually search with a message such as “You've hit your team's daily Raiser's Edge NXT limit — try again in about 4 hours.” Work that has already started isn't lost; it carries on once the limit resets. Adding personal SKY API keys gives your team more room (Section 6).

5. Where Your Data Lands

Synced fields are written to native Raiser's Edge records, so they show up in your existing views, lists, queries, and reports. Most are marked so you can tell them apart from your own data: ratings, addresses, emails, and phones carry a DonorAtlas source or type name, and relationships carry “DonorAtlas” in the comment.

Education entries, online presence links, and the Deceased flag have no such marker.

Everything below is optional. Your team picks which of these fields DonorAtlas writes (Section 6), so a synced constituent will show only the categories you've enabled — and none of them if you've turned everything off and use the tile alone.

Ratings

Wealth and giving figures land on the Ratings tab, each with Source: DonorAtlas, the sync date, and an explanation comment where one is available:

Contact Information

• A mailing address with the DonorAtlas information source.
• Emails typed DonorAtlas Verified Personal Email and phones typed DonorAtlas Verified Mobile Phone.
• Social and website links under Online presence.

DonorAtlas never marks its address, email, or phone entries as primary, so the contact info you maintain stays in front.

Relationships

Employers, board seats, family foundations, known donation recipients, and a spouse appear on the Relationships tile. Organizations are linked as organization records (DonorAtlas creates the organization if it isn't in your database yet):

• Employer relationships, with job title and dates where known.
• Board Member relationships for nonprofit board seats.
• Family Foundation relationships for private foundations, with the person's role.
• Donee relationships to organizations they've given to publicly, with the gift range in the comment.
• A Spouse relationship carrying their spouse's name. DonorAtlas doesn't create a constituent record for the spouse.

Education

Education entries with school, degree, and class year.

Deceased

With the Deceased flag field on, DonorAtlas marks the constituent as deceased in RE when it knows the person has died. It never clears the flag, and unsyncing leaves it in place.

6. Choosing Which Fields Sync

Which fields get written into RE is up to your team, and it's set by someone with the Admin or Configure Only role. In DonorAtlas, go to Integrations in the sidebar and click Configure on the Raiser's Edge NXT card.

Move fields between Synced Fields and Available Fields with the arrows, then click Validate Configuration. Validation checks your RE database for the entries each field needs (rating categories, phone types, and so on) and creates any that are missing. Fields marked with a green Synced check are active. A field marked Not Synced still needs something set up, and the message at the top of the page says what. While any field has a problem the button reads Re-validate Configuration; click it again once you've fixed the problem.

The field names under Synced Fields and Available Fields map to the records in Section 5:

• Ratings: Net Worth Range (Min), Net Worth Range (Max), Giving Capacity, Average Public Gift, and Largest Public Gift.
• Contact information: Mailing Address, Verified Personal Email, Verified Mobile Phone, and Social Media & Bio Websites.
• Relationships: Employment, Board Affiliations, Private Foundations, Public Donations (summary note), and Spouse (relationship).
• Education and Deceased flag, each with its own section.

Changes apply going forward: newly enabled fields are written the next time each constituent syncs or resyncs, and fields you disable are cleaned off each constituent at their next resync. Auto-resync (Section 10) reaches every synced constituent on its own.

Organizations DonorAtlas added

An employer, board seat, foundation, or donation relationship needs an organization on the other side, so DonorAtlas adds the organization to RE when it isn't there yet. The setting Remove organizations DonorAtlas added when they are no longer used, below the field lists, decides what happens to those organizations when constituents are unsynced. It's on by default, and with it on, an organization DonorAtlas added is removed once nothing is connected to it and nobody has edited it. Organizations that were already in your environment are never removed. Changes to this setting are saved when you click Validate Configuration.

Your personal SKY API key

Blackbaud limits each SKY API key, and DonorAtlas pools every healthy key your team adds, so adding your own key under Your Personal SKY API Key on the same page speeds up your team's syncs. A key from the same Blackbaud subscription as one already added shares its limit and adds nothing. You need to have connected your RE account first.

7. Bulk Syncing RE Lists

To sync many constituents at once, open Integrations in DonorAtlas and click Bulk sync on the Raiser's Edge NXT card. The page lists your saved constituent lists from RE — plus All Constituents — with how much of each is synced and when it was last synced. Click a list to see how many of its constituents are Synced, Processing, and Unsynced; expand any of those to see who's in it, with a link to each constituent in RE.

From a list's panel:

• Sync All queues every unsynced constituent; the button shows how many. If your team has fewer import credits than that, the button reads Sync with the number your credits cover, and syncs that many.
• Re-sync refreshes the list's constituents that are already synced; the button shows how many, or reads Re-sync all once the whole list is synced (Section 9).
• Unsync all… removes DonorAtlas data from every synced constituent on the list, after you confirm. Only people with the Admin role who also have the Bulk and Unsync permissions see it.

A few things to know:

• Already-synced constituents are skipped, so re-running a list continues where the last run left off. Constituents that came back “No match found” are skipped too: their match already used its credit, so the Bulk sync page counts them as synced. Retry them one at a time from the tile with Try match again.
• Only Individual constituents are synced; organization records are ignored.
• Fields like Employment, Board Affiliations, Private Foundations, or Education make many more API calls per person, so a list with them enabled moves more slowly than a ratings-and-contact sync.
• A single run covers tens of thousands of list members, and more when your team syncs fewer fields. On a list bigger than that, the run stops partway, and the rest of the list won't sync on its own, even if you run the sync again. Contact support and our team will continue it from where it stopped.
• Runs are also limited by your remaining import credits: one credit per newly synced constituent. The panel shows how many you have left.
• Because of Blackbaud's daily limit on each SKY API key (Section 4), a first sync of a large list can take a while, sometimes more than a day. If your team's limit runs out partway through, the sync pauses and picks up again by itself once the limit resets; you don't need to start it again.
• Bulk syncing needs both the Bulk and Sync permissions (Section 12).

8. Sending Donors to RE

Syncing also works in the other direction. When you find a prospect in DonorAtlas, click Sync (with the RE logo) in their profile toolbar. In the Sync to Raiser's Edge NXT window that opens, you can either:

• Search your RE database by name or constituent ID, pick the constituent who is this person, and click Link selected, or
• Click Create new constituent if they aren't in RE yet.

Before creating anyone, DonorAtlas checks your RE database for the same person:

• If a constituent clearly is them (the name and an email, phone, or full address agree), DonorAtlas links to that constituent instead of creating a duplicate.
• If it finds constituents who only might be them, it shows them under Potential Duplicate Found, where you can open each one in RE before choosing Create Anyway or Cancel.

Whichever way the constituent is found or created, DonorAtlas then writes all your configured fields. Sending a donor to RE doesn't use import credits.

Once someone is synced, that button becomes View, which opens their constituent record in RE.

Sending a whole list

To send everyone on a DonorAtlas list, open the list's menu on the Lists page and choose Send to Raiser's Edge NXT (it reads Send to CRM if you're connected to more than one CRM). For each donor on the list:

• Donors who are already synced are skipped.
• Donors DonorAtlas can confirm are already in RE are linked, by the same rule as above.
• Donors who might already be in RE, but can't be confirmed, are left unsynced rather than guessed at. Sync those from their profile, where you can pick the right constituent yourself.
• Everyone else gets a new constituent.

Sending a list doesn't use import credits, and it needs both the Bulk and Sync permissions. The Donors Synced with Raiser's Edge NXT list can't be sent, since everyone on it is already in RE.

9. Resync & Unsync

Resync

Resync (on the tile) refreshes every field your team syncs, from ratings and contact information to relationships and education, with current DonorAtlas data. Only what changed is rewritten, and fields your team has turned off since the last sync are removed. Resyncing doesn't use import credits.

You rarely need to click it: auto-resync refreshes synced constituents overnight (Section 10). To refresh a whole list at once, use Re-sync on the Bulk sync page.

Unsync

Unsync removes every record DonorAtlas created on the constituent: ratings, address, emails, phones, relationships, education entries, and online presence links. The constituent itself is never deleted. After unsyncing, the tile returns to “Not synced.” To unsync everyone on an RE list at once, people with the Admin role can use Unsync all… on the Bulk sync page.

A few things stay behind:

• If RE has made DonorAtlas's mailing address the constituent's preferred address, RE won't allow it to be deleted, so it stays.
• A deceased flag DonorAtlas set stays set.
• Organizations that were already in your environment are never deleted. Whether organizations DonorAtlas added are removed depends on your team's setting (Section 6).

10. Auto-resync

DonorAtlas keeps synced constituents fresh on its own. Each night it looks through your synced constituents and resyncs the ones whose data is older than your team's refresh frequency, the same way the Resync button does. You don't need to start it, and it doesn't use import credits. If a bulk sync, resync, or unsync is still running that night, the refresh waits for a later night.

To see the details, open Integrations and click Auto-resync on the Raiser's Edge NXT card. The page explains how it works and lists recent nightly runs with how many records each one refreshed and how many failed. Admins can also see the team's Refresh frequency and Next scheduled resync there, and change them with Edit settings:

• Refresh frequency: how many days old a constituent's data can get before it's refreshed, from 1 to 90. The default is 7.
• Next scheduled resync: leave it on Automatic, or choose Schedule for and pick a date. A scheduled run refreshes every synced constituent that night, and the regular frequency resumes afterward. Until that date, the nightly refreshes pause.

11. Your Synced Donors

Every synced constituent's DonorAtlas profile is collected in a list called Donors Synced with Raiser's Edge NXT, under Lists in DonorAtlas. Use it like any other list — filter, export, and see insights across your synced donors. Each profile in it links back to its RE constituent via the View button, and unsyncing a constituent takes them off the list.

12. Permissions

Team roles decide who can configure the integration. Separately, anyone with the Admin or Configure Only role can decide what each connected person may do through it, under Integrations → Users & connections. There are three permissions:

• Sync: sync and resync individual records, send donors from DonorAtlas, and match constituents by hand.
• Unsync: remove DonorAtlas data from individual records.
• Bulk: run list-level operations. It needs Sync as well. Unsyncing a whole list also needs Unsync and the Admin role.

Everyone has full access until an admin restricts them, and changes take effect on the person's next action. Viewing is never restricted: every connected member can see the tile and synced profiles, and someone with none of the three permissions is view only. When something is turned off for you, the tile hides that button and tells you, for example “Syncing is turned off for your account.”

On the same page, an admin can use Remove connection for someone. That disconnects their RE account and clears their permissions, so if they reconnect they're view only until an admin grants more. Records they already synced are untouched.

13. Credits & Usage

• Matching a constituent from RE costs 1 import credit from your team's balance, whether it happens from the tile (Sync with DonorAtlas, Confirm match, or Try match again) or a bulk sync. The credit pays for the match, so a sync that ends in “No match found” still uses it.
• Sending donors from DonorAtlas to RE, one at a time or a whole list, doesn't use import credits, and neither does linking a donor to an existing constituent from the donor's DonorAtlas profile.
• Resyncing (including auto-resync) and unsyncing don't use import credits.
• Your balance is on the Usage page in DonorAtlas, and the Bulk sync page shows it too. When it runs out, the tile says “No imports remaining. Ask your team admin to add more.” and bulk syncs can't start until credits are added.

14. Troubleshooting

For anything else, request support from inside DonorAtlas or email team@donoratlas.com.

15. Glossary