Related Idea Bank submissions:

• RENXT-I-8260 – Voting Open

• RENXT-I-7344 - Voting Open

• RE7-I-6186 – Planned

I recently came across existing Idea Bank submissions addressing the ability to assign fundraisers without requiring them to be established as users in an organization's NXT instance. I support this functionality and recognize that it is an important piece of improving solicitor management.

However, as we work through solicitor cleanup and database maintenance, I've identified a few additional functionality gaps that I believe deserve consideration as part of a more complete solicitor management solution.

1. Restore the Ability to Inactivate Solicitors

In DBV, we had the ability to inactivate a solicitor while retaining their historical information and relationships. I do not see an equivalent option in NXT.

Over the decades, organizations accumulate a significant number of former employees, trustees, volunteers, committee members, and other individuals who have served as solicitors or fundraisers. We need to preserve their historical interactions, gift solicitor credit, and fundraiser relationship types without keeping every former employee and volunteer in the active selection lists indefinitely.

Without an inactivation option, the solicitor list continues to grow, making it increasingly difficult for staff to identify current fundraisers and increasing the potential for selection errors.

2. Allow a Donor to Also Be Assigned as Their Own Solicitor/Fundraiser

NXT should allow a constituent to be designated as a solicitor/fundraiser on a gift where they are also the donor.

For example, we have annual fundraising campaigns where students are given fundraising goals and recognized or rewarded for reaching those goals. Students may raise money through car washes, bake sales, and other activities, and sometimes contribute those funds under their own names. We need to be able to credit the student as both the donor and the fundraiser responsible for generating the gift.

This is important for accurately tracking fundraising participation, recognizing individual efforts, and reporting on campaign results. A constituent's role as a donor should not prevent them from also receiving solicitor/fundraiser credit.

3. Support Better Solicitor Maintenance and Administration

In addition to the functionality above, it would be helpful to have the ability to manage solicitor status through bulk updates or imports. For organizations with decades of historical solicitor records, updating individuals one at a time is not a practical approach to database cleanup.

Solicitor management needs to support the way advancement organizations actually operate. A fundraiser is not necessarily an employee, an NXT user, or even someone who needs ongoing access to the database. A donor can also be a fundraiser, and someone who served as a solicitor years ago should remain part of the historical record without continuing to clutter active selection lists.

These are basic database management and data integrity needs. We should be able to maintain accurate historical attribution while having the flexibility to manage who is available for current fundraising assignments.

I appreciate the existing Idea Bank submissions addressing fundraiser access. My hope is that Blackbaud will consider these additional enhancements as part of making solicitor management more flexible and sustainable for advancement organizations.