How to use Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® and HubSpot together

By Camille Winer, Yodelpop · Updated November 12, 2026

Your fundraising team knows your donors. Your marketing team knows how supporters engage with your organization. But when that information lives in separate systems, bringing it together can be difficult.

If your nonprofit uses Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT for fundraising and is considering HubSpot for marketing, you may be wondering whether you need to move everything into one platform.

Not necessarily.

Your organization may have years of donor history, constituent relationships, gift records and established fundraising processes in Raiser’s Edge NXT. At the same time, your marketing team may need more flexibility to segment audiences, automate communications, understand supporter engagement and measure results.

You don't necessarily have to choose between preserving your fundraising operations and improving your marketing capabilities.

The opportunity is to understand what each system does well, identify which information your teams need to share, and build an approach that supports both fundraising and engagement.

This guide will help you explore why nonprofits adopt HubSpot alongside Raiser’s Edge NXT, what information should move between them, and how to decide whether integration or migration is right for your organization.

Why nonprofits start looking for a more connected marketing platform

Your nonprofit may already have tools for sending email newsletters, managing social media, publishing website content, registering event participants and tracking campaign performance.

Those tools may serve their individual purposes well.

But as your organization's communications become more sophisticated, coordinating activities and information across multiple platforms can become increasingly difficult.

For example, your team might use an email marketing platform such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact, a website content management system, a social media management tool such as Sprout Social, and spreadsheets to consolidate campaign results.

Meanwhile, your development team maintains constituent and giving information in Raiser’s Edge NXT.

The challenge isn't necessarily any single tool. It's the work required to connect your marketing activities with each other and with the people you're trying to engage.

Moving beyond individual email campaigns

Email newsletters and fundraising appeals are important parts of nonprofit communications.

But they're only part of the supporter experience.

Your organization may also want to welcome new subscribers, introduce first-time donors to its mission, encourage event participants to stay involved, or create different communication journeys based on supporters' interests and activities.

These experiences can become difficult to manage when every campaign requires someone to create a list, update contact information, schedule follow-ups or move data between platforms.

A more connected marketing environment can support ongoing communication journeys that respond to meaningful changes in supporter information or engagement.

Creating more relevant audience segments

Your fundraising database may contain valuable information about the people who support your organization.

But if your marketing team relies on occasional exports, its audience lists may become outdated between updates.

For example, someone who recently donated might still be included in a campaign intended for people who haven't given.

Or a new member might continue receiving communications encouraging them to join.

Keeping selected fundraising information current in a marketing platform can make it easier to build relevant audiences and maintain appropriate communications.

Understanding engagement across channels

Email platforms provide email performance metrics. Social media platforms provide engagement information. Website analytics can show how visitors interact with content.

Fundraising reports tell another part of the story.

When these activities are measured independently, it can be difficult to understand how supporters discover your organization, engage with its content and deepen their involvement.

You may know how many people clicked an email but not whether that audience included recent donors.

Or you may know how much a fundraising appeal generated but struggle to examine its relationship with your broader marketing activities.

Connecting marketing and fundraising information creates opportunities to ask more meaningful questions about those relationships.

Reducing manual coordination

Nonprofit teams often manage substantial responsibilities with limited staff time.

If someone regularly exports lists, transfers information between systems, recreates audience segments or assembles reports from several platforms, those tasks can consume time that could be devoted to strategy and supporter relationships.

Automation and more reliable data connections can reduce some of that recurring administrative work.

Building coordinated supporter experiences

Consider someone who first discovers your organization through an article, subscribes to updates, attends a webinar and later makes a donation.

Each interaction is an opportunity to understand what interests that supporter.

When marketing activities and relevant fundraising information are connected, your team can use that context to plan more thoughtful communications.

Instead of treating every interaction as an isolated event, you can develop a more coordinated approach to supporter engagement.

Why HubSpot enters the conversation

HubSpot combines contact management, email marketing, automation, website engagement, campaign management and reporting capabilities within a shared platform. Eligible nonprofits can also get discounted pricing through HubSpot for Nonprofits.

For nonprofits seeking to coordinate more of their marketing efforts, that can provide a useful foundation.

But adopting HubSpot doesn't necessarily mean replacing every existing marketing tool. Your organization may still need specialized event management, social media, fundraising or other applications.

The goal isn't necessarily to eliminate every separate system.

It's to create a more intentional marketing environment where information is accessible, responsibilities are clear, and the tools work together to support your organization.

What should live in each system?

Once you've decided to evaluate a connected approach, the next step is understanding what each platform should be responsible for.

This is one of the most important decisions in any fundraising and marketing integration.

Without clear ownership, organizations can end up maintaining competing versions of constituent information, inconsistent communication preferences or conflicting reporting definitions.

A useful starting architecture is to give each system a defined role.

Raiser’s Edge NXT: your fundraising system of record

Raiser’s Edge NXT continues to manage authoritative fundraising constituent and gift information, including the specialized processes and records your development and advancement services teams rely on.

HubSpot: your marketing and engagement platform

HubSpot manages marketing communications, engagement activities, contact segmentation, forms, relevant website interactions and marketing workflows.

Integration: the connection between them

An integration makes selected fundraising data available in HubSpot.

Depending on the integration's capabilities and configuration, it may also make selected marketing information available to fundraising staff.

This architecture is a starting point, not a universal requirement. Specific data ownership, mappings and synchronization rules should be established for each organization.

How can marketing engagement support fundraising?

Connecting fundraising and marketing isn't only about bringing donor information into HubSpot.

Marketing activity can also provide useful context for development staff working in Raiser’s Edge NXT.

This is particularly relevant to organizations where fundraising officers manage long-term relationships with donors and prospects.

Give gift officers additional engagement context

Imagine a development officer preparing to contact a donor.

The donor's fundraising record already includes giving history and relationship information.

But the donor may also have recently clicked an email about a particular program or visited relevant pages on the organization's website.

That activity doesn't establish giving intent, but it may provide useful context for the conversation.

When selected marketing engagement information is available in Raiser’s Edge NXT, the gift officer can review it alongside the fundraising record.

This allows development staff to remain in their primary working environment while benefiting from information collected through marketing activities.

Improve coordination between departments

Marketing and development teams often communicate with overlapping audiences.

A donor might receive newsletters, event invitations, stewardship updates and fundraising appeals from different staff members.

Sharing relevant information can help teams better understand the communications a supporter has received and how they have engaged.

It also creates opportunities to coordinate outreach and avoid unnecessary duplication.

Use engagement as context, not proof of intent

Marketing engagement metrics have limitations.

Email opens don't reliably prove that someone read a message. Website visits and email clicks don't automatically indicate that someone is ready to donate.

These signals are most useful when considered alongside other knowledge of the supporter.

The goal is to help staff have more informed conversations, not reduce complex donor relationships to marketing scores.