Blackbaud Altru 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.

Virtuous is a great tool for fundraisers and nonprofit organizations that want to keep all their donor records, gift transactions, donation landing pages, and reporting in one platform. It may not be well suited, though, for for-profit businesses, organizations, and agencies.

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.

• 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

• Virtuous only keeps track of contacts on forms for a given period of time, not the lifetime of when the form was deployed.
• Virtuous Customer Support can sometimes lag, and you end up waiting days for a response to your inquiry or issue.
• Virtuous reporting, while very detailed and segmented, can sometimes be a little overwhelming, and the terminology does not always translate to what you are looking to accomplish with your reporting outcomes.

Incentivized

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

In my experience, Virtuous CRM has great self-marketing, talented salespeople, and a half-baked CRM that shows glimmers of competence but the actual experience is more akin the the scene in the Simpson’s when Sideshow Bob keeps stepping on rakes.

Incentivized

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

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.

In my experience, the sales pitch and demos are slick, but upon actual use there is a quick realization that no small or medium charity should touch this software with a 10-ft pole. In my opinion, if you have a large org with lots of cash, and a dedicated database manager who is tech-literate, you can make this work. HubSpot is by far my favorite but lacks the nonprofit features needed to truly manage donor relationships and portfolios.

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

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

Incentivized