What Is Insight Designer—And Why Should Every Fundraiser Care?

Drowning in data but starving for insight? You’re not alone. If you’ve ever opened a Raiser’s Edge report, blinked at the columns, and asked, “What am I actually looking at?” this is for you. 

Insight Designer is your not-so-secret weapon. It helps you go from mountains of data to meaningful, actionable insights. No data science degree required.

So, what is Insight Designer? 

Insight Designer is an add-on module available in Blackbaud’s ecosystem, specifically in Raiser’s Edge NXT, Financial Edge NXT, and Education Management. It builds on the foundation of SKY Reporting, giving users the power to design their own reports and visual dashboards. 

It’s like giving your fundraising data a visual translator. 

Instead of scrolling through spreadsheets or static reports, Insight Designer lets you: 

• Create charts and graphs that show trends over time 

• Segment data by donor type, campaign, or location 

• Drill down into giving patterns, recurring gifts, and more 

All with a drag-and-drop interface that’s built into your existing NXT environment. 

Is Insight Designer right for my organization? 

Here are just a few examples of reports you can create with Insight Designer: 

• Recurring Gift Projection
  Visualize how much recurring revenue you can expect over the next 6 or 12 months, based on active recurring donors and average gift amount. 

• Gift Revenue Over Time
  Build a line graph showing donation trends by quarter or fiscal year—and filter by campaign, fund, or appeal. 

• Lapsed Donor Heatmap
  See where donor retention is slipping and where your re-engagement efforts are working. 

• Major Gift Pipeline by Officer
  Track how many prospects each gift officer is managing, broken out by stage. 

What are the differences between Insight Designer vs. Dashboard Builder? 

Dashboard Builder gives you a way to compile and organize insights on a single page, but the insights themselves are either canned (out-of-the-box) or pulled from Insight Designer. 

Here’s a simple breakdown:

Feature	Dashboard Builder	Insight Designer
Prebuilt Visuals	✅ Yes	✅ Yes (with more control)
Custom Report Creation	❌ No	✅ Yes
Drag-and-drop Interface	❌ Limited	✅ Full control
Filters & Attributes	✅ Basic	✅ Advanced
Export/Share Visuals	✅ Yes	✅ Yes

 

Who Can Use Insight Designer (And Where)? 

Insight Designer is currently available as an add-on module for: 

• Raiser’s Edge NXT 

• Financial Edge NXT 

• Education Management 

If you’re a Solution Admin, you can activate a 30-day free trial to test it in your production environment. (Test and sandbox environments are not supported for trials.)

Why does this matter to my team? 

Fundraisers are constantly balancing gut instincts with performance metrics. However, too often, your tools aren’t designed for your questions. 

Insight Designer helps you: 

• Visualize fundraising trends without waiting on IT 

• Customize reports for leadership, board meetings, and campaigns 

• Monitor and share what’s working – and where to pivot 

And because it lives inside your Blackbaud solution, there’s no messy exporting or rebuilding reports in Excel or PowerPoint. It’s built to work with your data, not around it.

 

Coming Up Next… 

So… is Insight Designer worth the investment? 

In our next post, we’ll break down the pros and cons—and how to decide whether your team is ready for the upgrade. Stay tuned.