Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review A potential student calls in and we can enter all the information in CRM right then. Ellucian CRM Advance makes it easy for when we go back a week later to see all the notes on the student rather than asking them all over again. Admissions takes the call and enters all info into CRM Advance and then Academics can just log in and see all the notes Admissions took on the student.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Ties fundraising efforts to alumni. Seamless integration from Ellucian Colleage or Banner. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Some of the data is not in the most intuitive location. The initial learning curve of the system was a bit steep, but after working with the system exclusively, our users got proficient very quickly. Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review CRM Advance is very efficient and overall a great product. We have been using CRM for many many years with really no complaints. It fits our needs.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review We actually recently dropped CRM Advance and are now live with Raisers Edge. Raisers Edge was much more user friendly and built around the fundraising experience. Integration was possible through a secure FTP interface with Ellucian Colleague. Other Blackbaud products have since been purchased to further enhance fundraising and gift giving.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review We are now able to do a more effective review of applicants and see overall trends of characteristics such as source locations. This helps to focus other efforts such as marketing to support those areas and increase others. There is now a full picture of the needs of our students. By being able to view information in a logical progression, trend data can be identified and reacted to. Read full review ScreenShots Blackbaud Altru Screenshots