Blackbaud Altru vs. Tiltify Catalyst

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.

I mean, I love having any and all non-profits use Tiltify! From a fundraising standpoint —having all my favorite orgs easily accessible for fundraising across my platforms is SO NICE. That said, I've also worked with orgs that are just getting into the space, and they really struggled with getting set up due to a lack of resources. Yes, I can walk them through everything and encourage the use of all of Tiltify's features, but there isn't a readily available/accessible source to learn what's available to them and how it works.

• 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.

• Fundraiser & donor data collection.
• Customizable pages & features per event.
• Toggle-able options for non-profits to use based on their core audience and what makes the most sense for them.

• 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

Invited by the Vendor

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

• (1) How Tos for the charity, please! Donors/fundraisers have them available, which we LOVE, but not having a "How Set Up An Event" or "How To Use Your Reporting" for the non-profits, I feel, is a bit of an oversight, as, you know, they're users too!
• (2) Event Page Design: Under the Fundraiser Rewards section, there is a tiny corner of pixels that pokes out from behind the "Top 100" or "Raise $200.00" labels, and it BOTHERS ME TO NO END. I understand the labels over the rewards images have curved corners, and the rewards have the hard 90-degree corners, which is why it happened. It's just like when someone goes to erase what's on a whiteboard but leaves a single line in the middle. My current solution has been to just cut that corner off my rewards images prior to upload —anyways, super tiny and just a pet peeve.
• (3) Event Page Design: You've given us so many customization options, and I'm not taking those for granted. I would love the option to change the color of the buttons, just as we can change the color of each individual section.
• (4) Branding, Social Links: Two things. "Twitter" is still on there (I know it's annoying, but "X"). Would love a "Bluesky" option.
• (5) Event Options, Lifetime donor rewards: Is there something we could get for Lifetime Fundraiser rewards?
• (6) Reports: When I download the Donations report is has the Date & Time of donation in a single column. I don't know how other people use this report, but I usually have to download the donations, create a new column, delineate the data for date/time, then pivot table from there. Plus, the "time" data we receive is delivered in a way that's borderline unusable. Example: 2023-12-31 07:46:07.667963Z -- *I* know to read this as December 31, 2023 @ 7:46:07 AM , but do we *really* need the ".667963Z" ? All it does is mess up any automated data analysis.
• (7) Repots: Could we get a disclaimer at the top of the page that says if you don't toggle the UTC, the reports pulled will be from the time zone of the user pulling them? It took *way* too long to figure out why the report pulled by my colleague in Pacific time was different than the report pulled in Central time.

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

Again, as someone who has been on this platform for a very long time, I find it easy to use. Where I find myself mostly having issues: Navigation. I have built out 40+ events & campaigns over the years (both on the fundraiser & charity side) and still find myself getting lost in the language hierarchy and difference between Setup/Event detail/Brand & marketing/Options (like those all feel semantically the same??).

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

Invited by the Vendor

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

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.

• 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

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info