I have worked for 3 major museums and they all use Raiser's Edge. At the risk of sounding like a complete and utter I love Raiser's Edge/Blackbaud. I know how to use most everything about RE and their Special Events module very well. I also worked in museum accounting for awhile and we used their financial software (it was called Blackbaud Accounting but has since been upgraded to Financial Edge).

I think it is very user friendly, they have great customer service/support, and if your company commits to using it to it's full potential you can do a lot of really cool stuff. You should definitely check out Blackbaud's website and talk to one of their reps. (I would seriously love to work for Blackbaud, I love RE that much. Yes I'm a dork.)

My former company was thinking of switching to Tessitura (which was developed specifically for the Metropolitan Opera in NYC)-- They showed us a demo, omg, it was horrible. Very clunky and not user friendly at all.

I use Blue Link Elite.

I don't even know if that is the right answer.

JustErin said:

That's Canadian, yah? Looks more like an accounting software?

NDRU said:

Like I said. I'm clueless when it comes to nerd talk.

I was just trying to support your thread.

I have worked for 3 major museums and they all use Raiser's Edge.

DevotedPuppy said:

After some looking, it seems Raiser's Edge is not compatible with Mac.

NDRU said:

Really? I'm kind of surprised--I'd think they'd have some sort of patch or whatever that would allow Mac users to use RE. Well I guess in that case, you should switch to PC so you can use Raiser's Edge!

I'm also surprised you couldn't get through to a real person. Whenever I called them for help I never had to wait more than 10 minutes. Are you calling in the late afternoon? They are based in Charleston SC, so there is a time difference.

Are you looking for a complete solution?

Or do you have developers who will maintain the product?


A lot of companies with older systems implement a 3-tier solution with the middle tear being something like a BEA Weblogics server that takes information from your older databases and makes them work with a new SQL one like Oracle or DB2, or god forbid, MS SQL server.

But leverage a middle tear app like Weblogics means you can pick and choose when to retire the older databases while extending their functionality with newer ones. All you need on the front end is a browser and a Java runtime environment or an Adobe Flash front end. Hell, if you have really old programs that use VB6 or something like that you could even use jintegra to make it talk to the weblogic backend.


But if you don't have internal developers to help create the solution, I woudln't know what you'd go with. Most of the companies I know tweak the shit out of anything so nothing is truly "off the shelf."

Are you looking for a complete solution?

Or do you have developers who will maintain the product?


A lot of companies with older systems implement a 3-tier solution with the middle tear being something like a BEA Weblogics server that takes information from your older databases and makes them work with a new SQL one like Oracle or DB2, or god forbid, MS SQL server.

But leverage a middle tear app like Weblogics means you can pick and choose when to retire the older databases while extending their functionality with newer ones. All you need on the front end is a browser and a Java runtime environment or an Adobe Flash front end. Hell, if you have really old programs that use VB6 or something like that you could even use jintegra to make it talk to the weblogic backend.


But if you don't have internal developers to help create the solution, I woudln't know what you'd go with. Most of the companies I know tweak the shit out of anything so nothing is truly "off the shelf."

Are you looking for a complete solution?

Or do you have developers who will maintain the product?


A lot of companies with older systems implement a 3-tier solution with the middle tear being something like a BEA Weblogics server that takes information from your older databases and makes them work with a new SQL one like Oracle or DB2, or god forbid, MS SQL server.

But leverage a middle tear app like Weblogics means you can pick and choose when to retire the older databases while extending their functionality with newer ones. All you need on the front end is a browser and a Java runtime environment or an Adobe Flash front end. Hell, if you have really old programs that use VB6 or something like that you could even use jintegra to make it talk to the weblogic backend.


But if you don't have internal developers to help create the solution, I woudln't know what you'd go with. Most of the companies I know tweak the shit out of anything so nothing is truly "off the shelf."

Imago said:

Say what?

Beyond your pseudo-technological name dropping, you do make a good point. We are considering how much we want to be involved in this whole process. We have a database guy, but he's expensive. We also can't afford to put all of our people one these new "all inclusive" systems because they charge by the # of records.

that means we are considering keeping the old system while transitioning essential data to the new one.

the BEA WEblogic looks like a little much, though, we're a small nonprofit.
[Edited 8/21/08 14:21pm]

NDRU said:

And you can't just get a roladex?

mdiver said:

our bar-napkin is almost full, so maybe, yeah

Imago said:

Say what?

Beyond your pseudo-technological name dropping, you do make a good point. We are considering how much we want to be involved in this whole process. We have a database guy, but he's expensive. We also can't afford to put all of our people one these new "all inclusive" systems because they charge by the # of records.

that means we are considering keeping the old system while transitioning essential data to the new one.

the BEA WEblogic looks like a little much, though, we're a small nonprofit.
[Edited 8/21/08 14:21pm]

NDRU said:

Then you might be able to just port the database over to something like SQL-Lite server, and use FileMaker which runs on MAC to front-end it.

I know little to nothing about SQL-Lite and FileMaker though, but I would imagine they could talk to each other as they're both industry standard. I'm not sure what the limitations of SQL-Lite are, but unless you need to make millioins of transactions a minute, It would probably suit your purposes. Plus, I think it's free?

I think FileMaker will front in MySQL too--which is , to my understanding, a completely free solution. However, to set this up you'd need a Project Manager, your Database engineer, and a developer. Though I'd imagine you could do it for less than 20 grand if you had all your requirements defined.

But again, I'm not 100% familiar with lower end solutions so I may just be blowing smoke. Our systems run millions of transactions every few minutes, so we
HAVE to shell out the money for these types of solutions.



page to file maker edit
[Edited 8/22/08 9:59am]

Imago said:

thanks! I think you're thinking of platforms for databases that would require a lot of work to get going. I'm looking for something pre-fab.