Blackbaud Altru vs. Salsa Labs (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Blackbaud Altru
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Designed for General Admissions OrganizationsN/A
Salsa Labs (discontinued)
Score 7.9 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Salsa was a donor and constituent management system. Salsa Labs was acquired by EveryAction in 2021 and joined with Bonterra. The Salsa CRM product is no longer available for sale.N/A
Pricing
Blackbaud AltruSalsa Labs (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Blackbaud AltruSalsa Labs (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsAltru’s pricing information is catalogued below, as supplied by the software provider or retrieved from publicly accessible pricing materials. Altru is priced as an annual subscription. This includes hosting, unlimited users, access to unparalleled product support – everything you expect from a complete cloud solution.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Blackbaud AltruSalsa Labs (discontinued)
Best Alternatives
Blackbaud AltruSalsa Labs (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Bonterra Network for Good
Bonterra Network for Good
Score 9.4 out of 10
Bonterra Network for Good
Bonterra Network for Good
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bloomerang CRM
Bloomerang CRM
Score 9.1 out of 10
Bloomerang CRM
Bloomerang CRM
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRM
Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRM
Score 7.6 out of 10
Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRM
Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRM
Score 7.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Blackbaud AltruSalsa Labs (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(11 ratings)
7.0
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.2
(3 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Blackbaud AltruSalsa Labs (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Blackbaud
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.
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Discontinued Products
Salsa Engage provides a robust interface to Salesforce--our primary CRM--allowing non-intervention synchronization to categorize supporters into groups for email communication. As we are only six months into our implementation, we have not found areas where it's not appropriate to use beyond nit-picky synchronization delays and smart group updates.
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Pros
Blackbaud
  • 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.
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Discontinued Products
  • Autoresponders and automated emails have been really cool and simple to use, that tool in itself has added a lot of value and has been a powerful way to keep supporters engaged.
  • Donor management is one thing that Salsa CRM gets really technical with. There is so much information that you can have on each donor.
  • I like the forms and how easy they are to embed on the website, like email sign up forms or donation forms. I can make them look seamless as they sit on the website and gather information and donations.
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Cons
Blackbaud
  • 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.
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Discontinued Products
  • When we started with Salsa, not every option was available online, some were desktop specific. As it has been some time since I worked with Salsa these have probably been resolved.
  • The ability to communicate between Salsa CRM and other Salsa software options. Sometimes the crossover was not as efficient as was needed.
  • Tagging and setting up rules for particular donors was somewhat confusing - meaning, therefore, that the amount of training needed to implement the software was somewhat intensive.
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Likelihood to Renew
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Discontinued Products
It suits all of our needs.
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Usability
Blackbaud
Blackbaud Altru is a very integrated system, but training is lacking and the use of the system takes some getting use to
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Discontinued Products
You do not have to be a tech-savvy person to be able to use the CRM. Reporting is easy to do.
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Support Rating
Blackbaud
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.
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Discontinued Products
Support response has been swift and knowledgable, though not always the answer I've wanted. One huge design flaw is if I add a new Salesforce field to sync, Salsa Engage will not sync it unless it has changed since the last sync, requiring me to fake an update for an entire database or re-sync the whole enchilada. Better to recognize it's a new Salesforce field and perform the sync en masse.
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Alternatives Considered
Blackbaud
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.
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Discontinued Products
Salsa Engage is one of the easier products to set up and use, but with that comes limitations. If you want something simple, this works, but if you have more complex needs, then you'd be better off investing in another system that requires more set up work, but provides more customization and robust reporting opportunities.
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Return on Investment
Blackbaud
  • 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.
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Discontinued Products
  • Has helped increase our donor retention as we are able to track all communications with donors ensuring that they remain connected.
  • The improved emailing (with fewer bounce rate) has helped increase our website and donation page visibility.
  • We've sold more tickets to our fundraising events with an improved event management system.
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ScreenShots

Blackbaud Altru Screenshots

Screenshot of Constituent Record: Get a true 360-degree view of each constituent's activity.Screenshot of Daily Sales:  Improve sales speed and visitor experience with a smart POSScreenshot of Group Sales:  Keep group sales orders organized and manageableScreenshot of KPIs:  Measure and monitor organizational performanceScreenshot of Membership Dashboard:  Improve membership acquisition and retentionScreenshot of Organizational Calendar:  Effectively manage events, programs, spaces, supplies and equipment

Salsa Labs (discontinued) Screenshots

Screenshot of the development dashboard.Screenshot of a donor detail report showing donation history.Screenshot of donor cultivation for major giftsScreenshot of mail merge and direct mail fundraisingScreenshot of a donor profile with unlimited custom fields