Blackbaud Altru vs. Blackbaud Target Analytics vs. Virtuous CRM

Well suited for smaller organizations that want to centralize many systems. Smaller organizations will have less constituents to manage and fewer events (our organization has 100,000+ constituents, daily programs/events, and a large donor base). Many areas within Altru are not updated to be functional for 2020. Because of this, we do not use the merchandising feature, the volunteer portal, or marketing communications. It does a little bit of everything "okay enough" to be better than having separate systems. It's restrictive in many areas, but being able to do SO much in one database outweighs the negatives! It is 100% necessary to have a data manager who spends all of their time in Altru doing data cleanup, researching and writing policies and procedures, training new users, keeping staff up-to-date on new processes, creating queries and running reports, creating workarounds for "unfixable" issues within the database.

ResearchPoint is well suited for Prospect Research, especially if the user has Raiser's Edge as their main database given its integration capabilities with qualified data; however, it is not necessary. I used the Target Analytics product that came before ResearchPoint (The Researcher's Edge) as a stand-alone prospect research database for about a year. For small shops that do not have a prospect researcher or prospect research team, it could even be used by gift officers looking for new prospects or for wealth data on their known prospects. Once systems are in place, the content is fairly intuitive and easy to navigate. The product is really a one-stop-shop, find prospects, wealth screen them, verify the data (the product saves you time by verifying a lot for you already), sync your findings to The Raiser's Edge, and if you'd like, export or print a professional-looking profile to a .pdf for your president or gift officer.

Incentivized

I think it's great for organizations that simply need to manage their donor base in a user-friendly way. If you treat all of your donors the same and do not do much segmented communication, Virtuous is great for you! if you do need segmentation, they need to improve their email marketing software. Also, if you plan to use other tools, they really lack any kind of integration, which is not ideal.

Incentivized

• Ticketing and tracking many different types of admission sales including group, facility rental, individual tickets, and class registration.
• Membership management, including membership card mailing, recurring memberships, and renewal reminders.
• Being an all-encompassing database rather than forcing you to use multiple databases.
• Great customer service and client support, including ongoing updates to better the system.
• Has a merchandise inventory management system.

• Address Updates - starting at the basics, the Target Analytics products allow you create a firm foundation for the data in your system.
• Data Hygiene - taking it a step further is creating and updating data on an individualized basis - such as DeceasedRecord Finder, and Email Finder.
• Data Modeling - Once your data has been appended it can be modeled for increased donor interaction, stewardship, and solicitation.

• User-friendly CRM.
• Knowledgable support staff.
• Allows for email marketing on a mass level.

Incentivized

• Query system not user-friendly for management with limited database background.
• Limited company-to-user support outside of an online community of users. No long term account managers for program.
• No email analysis tools for eblasts.
• Limited merchandise capabiity for shop use, though the program does allow third party programs to work with it.

Incentivized

• Confirmed relationships needs to be a field that can be synced to The Raiser's Edge
• Philanthropic giving, when synced to the Prospect tab, needs to be able to be sorted by dollar value (like in Excel); this is a change that would need to happen in The Raiser's Edge
• With increasing competition from other wealth screening vendors, it would be useful if data sources were updated more frequently (i.e. real estate and giving).

Incentivized

• Does not currently have action based/click based email marketing automation capabilities.
• Lacks integration with any other tools we/our nonprofits are using.
• Expensive, even just for the support they charge hourly.

Incentivized

Blackbaud Altru is a very integrated system, but training is lacking and the use of the system takes some getting use to

They are always available and very knowledgable. Many times I am able to come up with a solution before they've finished troubleshooting just by having talked through it with them. I really appreciate the Chat feature to answer simple questions in a timely fashion. The training I received was top notch and very detailed.

Incentivized

While there is always room for improvement, I have always had good luck with TA support. There are so many ways to get help! Sometimes I can answer my own question by just accessing the vast Knowledgebase directory. I have been able to get quick answers by initiating a live Chat without having to navigate the call center voice mail options, which can be a little overwhelming. Sometimes my question or problem is more involved and I'll submit a case online. Between email conversations or a phone call, the representatives I've worked with have always been super helpful, never condescending, and they often follow up days later to make sure everything is working well

Incentivized

We switched from Raisers Edge in 2012 due to the need to have all processes in one database. Group Sales/Rentals had to use a separate database for their sales than the Members and Donors department. We also could not sell tickets for events and programs in one space. Being able to have all of these in one database is why we chose Altru.

Currently there are several prospect research software companies on the market, such as WealthEngine. In my opinion, Target Analytics with the ability of integration between Raiser's Edge and ResearchPoint creates a greater value for an organization.

I think the way to look at a CRM is really based on what provides the easiest user experience for you and your team. These days, they all do basically the same thing. Nothing about Virtuous stands out as significantly unique compared to the others. So if you like it, use it... but the others are just as good and actually have better integrations and more capabilities.

Incentivized

• It has become very tedious to account for registrants in each session of a class or camp, because you have to "sell" them into each session in order to have an accurate class roster.
• It is very easy to process payment and entry fees to our Museum and programs.
• It is easy to retrieve accurate information and records of patrons.

Incentivized

• Address Appends - we are saving tons of money on returned mail, NCOA updates, and ensuring donors are receiving timely correspondence.
• Data Appends - ensured that we know who we have in our database and how we need to reach each household. Not only through updating records of deceased constituents but knowing the correct email addresses and phones to reach out and share our mission.
• Prospect Research - allows us to learn more about potential donors, existing donors, and how to create increased donor-centric interactions and solicitations.

• Better donor management.
• Better predictive analytics on donors and giving numbers.
• Increases were seen in overall revenue since joining with Virtuous.

Incentivized