How To: Connect or disconnect Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT to Mailchimp

Overview

The Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT integration for Mailchimp syncs constituents, donor attributes, and giving activity from Raiser's Edge NXT to your audience so you can build donor segments, trigger fundraising journeys, and personalize your outreach. By connecting these platforms, you can welcome new supporters, thank donors right after a gift comes in, and steward recurring givers without manual exports and imports.

Before you start

• This integration requires an active Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT account.
• The Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT integration is available on paid Mailchimp plans.
• Before you connect in Mailchimp, a Blackbaud Marketplace admin needs to connect the Mailchimp application to your Blackbaud environment using its application ID. Only users with the Marketplace admin role in Blackbaud can connect or disconnect applications. To learn more, read Blackbaud's guide on Permissions to connect applications.
• The integration can only access the Raiser's Edge NXT data that the user who signs in during the connection is allowed to see. Make sure this user has rights to the constituents, gifts, lists, and queries you want to sync.
• You'll need a saved list or query in Raiser's Edge NXT that contains the constituents you want to sync to Mailchimp.
• To make changes to the Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT integration, you'll need a Mailchimp account with Manager level access or higher. To learn more about Mailchimp's user roles, read Managing User Levels in Your Account.

Connect the Mailchimp application in Blackbaud

First, connect the Mailchimp application to your Blackbaud environment. You'll do this once, in Blackbaud, before you connect in Mailchimp. If your organization has already connected the Mailchimp application, skip to the next section.

1. Copy the Mailchimp application ID: 822a30f4-7726-48cb-8344-e35b01f0bcf5
2. Sign in to Blackbaud and go to the [Blackbaud Marketplace].
3. Select Manage, then select Connect app.
4. Paste the Mailchimp application ID and select Connect.

The Mailchimp application now appears in your connected applications. Connecting the application doesn't give Mailchimp access to your data yet. You'll grant that in the next section when you sign in to Blackbaud from Mailchimp. For more detail, read Blackbaud's guide on how to Connect an application.

Connect the Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT integration in Mailchimp

To connect the Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT integration to Mailchimp, follow these steps.

1. On the Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT page in your Mailchimp account, select Connect.
2. Review the connection steps and select Continue.
3. Sign in to your Blackbaud account, review the access permissions you'll be granting to the integration, and select Authorize.
4. Select the drop-down menu and choose the Raiser's Edge NXT list or query that contains the constituents you want to sync. Only constituents in that list or query will be added to your audience.
5. Select the drop-down menu and choose the Mailchimp audience you want to sync your constituents to. If you have a single audience, we'll select it for you.
6. If any donor fields already exist in your audience, we'll show you how they'll map to your Mailchimp fields. You can keep the suggested mapping or adjust it.
7. Select Sync now. You'll see a message confirming your sync is in progress.

We'll begin syncing your Raiser's Edge NXT constituents to your Mailchimp audience. The initial sync usually takes up to an hour, but it may take longer based on the size of your list or query. After the first sync, we'll keep your audience up to date automatically as constituents and gifts change in Raiser's Edge NXT.

Note: Each constituent's subscription status in Mailchimp is based on their consent in Raiser's Edge NXT for that channel. Constituents who have consented to email in Raiser's Edge NXT are added as subscribed to email, and the same applies to SMS. Constituents who haven't consented to a channel won't receive marketing on that channel from Mailchimp.

About Audience Field Limit

Each Mailchimp audience supports a limited number of audience fields, based on your plan, and Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT needs 10 of them. If your audience doesn't have enough available fields, you'll see an alert and won't be able to complete the sync. To fix this, go to your audience fields, remove a few fields you no longer use, then return to the Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT page and connect again.

Use Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT data in Mailchimp

After you connect, you can use your donor data across Mailchimp to strengthen your fundraising.

Manage your Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT connection in Mailchimp

To manage the integration from your Mailchimp account, follow these steps.

1. Select Integrations, and then choose Manage.
2. Select the Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT tile to open the integration settings.
3. n the dashboard, you'll find the number of constituents synced to your audience.
4. Select Go to Blackbaud to manage your constituents, lists, and queries in your Raiser's Edge NXT account.

Automation triggers

You can use Raiser's Edge NXT activity to start automation flows:

• Gift added: Thank a donor shortly after a gift is recorded in Raiser's Edge NXT, and reference the gift amount and date in your message.

• New constituents: Constituents synced from Raiser's Edge NXT join your audience like any other contact, so you can welcome them with Mailchimp's welcome new contacts automation.

Note: Constituents added during the initial sync are marked as existing contacts, so they won't trigger your welcome or thank-you automations. Automations run for constituents and gifts added after the connection is live.

Segmentation criteria

Target specific sets of donors using the segment builder with the synced donor fields. You can create segments based on different criteria.

• Constituency codes: Reach board members, alumni, volunteers, or any other constituency you track in Raiser's Edge NXT.
• Giving history: Filter by lifetime giving, gift count, or last gift amount to separate major donors from first-time givers.
• Last gift date: Find lapsed donors who haven't given in a while, or recent donors ready for an upgrade ask.
• Recurring donor: Send monthly-giving stewardship to recurring donors, or invite one-time donors to start a recurring gift.

Contact profiles and activity

Donor attributes are synced to each contact's profile as audience fields, so your audience stays current without manual imports. You can also use them as personalization tags to personalize your emails, for example greeting donors with their formal addressee or informal salutation from Raiser's Edge NXT. Synced fields include:

• Addressee
• Salutation
• Constituent type
• Constituency codes
• Lifetime giving
• Total gifts count
• Last gift amount
• Last gift date
• Recurring donor
• Constituent ID

You can view individual donor activity in the contact profile page, which displays events like joining your audience and making a gift.

Disconnect Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT in Mailchimp

To disconnect Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT from your Mailchimp account, follow these steps in your Mailchimp account.

1. Select Integrations, then choose Manage.
2. Select the drop-down arrow for Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, then choose Disconnect.
3. To confirm, select Disconnect.
4. You'll see a message confirming that you've disconnected Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT from your Mailchimp account. Select Continue.

That's it. You've disconnected Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT from Mailchimp. Contacts and donor fields already synced stay in your audience, but they'll no longer update. To also remove Mailchimp's access to your Blackbaud data, a Marketplace admin can disconnect the Mailchimp application from the Manage page in the Blackbaud Marketplace.