Blackbaud CRM

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Blackbaud CRM
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Designed for large, complex organizations as well as federated and international nonprofits.N/A
Pricing
Blackbaud CRM
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Blackbaud CRM
Free Trial
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Blackbaud CRM
Considered Both Products
Blackbaud CRM
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud wins because of the overall organization's specific focus on fundraising. Where Ellucian has been more focused on Banner and other products, showing less interest in alumni/donor engagement and more in student-centered products.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
When were doing our search, in 2016/2017 we identified three products that might have potential for our use. They were Ellucians Advance, BlackBaud e-CRM and Sales Force.
We had 18 years experience with Ellucian, we had several Sales Force installations on campus and very …
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud was the industry leader in higher education CRMs at the time.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM is more robust and has better functionality. It is necessary for a bigger fundraising shop. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge and NXT worked well in smaller organizations with fewer users and fewer donors/prospects. RE was more affordable than CRM was for the smaller …
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud is an excellent program that stacks up well with the competition. It provides post-secondary institutions and other not for profits a great way to track donations and donors, reconcile donations, print charitable tax receipts for donors, and provides a strong set of …
Chose Blackbaud CRM
I've used Salesforce, which is not good for donor management. I've used e-tapestry which has major limitations as well. However, for a basic user experience, this is a good program.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud is the powerhouse and able to handle a large number of donor files. It is not difficult to learn if you take the time to utilize the tutorials. The conversion team was amazing as we worked through the transition.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
We previously used Raiser's Edge NXT before switching to Blackbaud CRM. Raiser's Edge was helpful, but it was strictly from a fundraising standpoint. As a higher education institution, we needed the platform to do so much more than just organize fundraising information. We …
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud is a big name brand, that has a lot of options for your organization. Since it has different layers, you have the ability to seek support from all of those layers whenever. There are organizations all around the world, so you have the ability to join support groups …
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Because we have Blackbaud, using their event module makes database updating and integration much easier that outside products. It is nice to be able to see the full event in one place (guests/seating/donations/tickets/meal choice...) rather than going from database to database …
Chose Blackbaud CRM
I was given Blackbaud when I started, and we ultimately switched to Classy because of their support, functionality, and flexibility in making new campaigns and pages.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM is a great product, especially when fully optimized, implemented, and supported. Its many features often dwarf some of the smaller CRM offerings on the market. That said it is a complex product requiring a great deal of training in some situations and not all …
Chose Blackbaud CRM
I didn't select Blackbaud CRM, it was chosen for us by our National organization. I would not choose Blackbaud if it was my choice. It's outdated and not user friendly.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
This system has been in place for awhile and we haven't had the opportunity to look at others yet. It was originally selected for price point and smaller size of our organization.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
With Blackbaud you are getting an industry specific solution. Other products can be molded and adapted to fit into a non-profit environment. However, the Blackbaud platform is made for this environment right out of the box. You are paying more than some of these other competing …
Chose Blackbaud CRM
I have never used similar products, but I have used Basecamp for a CRM tool. Basecamp is super limiting compared to Blackbaud. They truly do not compare, as the size limitation of Basecamp is a fraction of BB's capacity.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
It is more difficult to run reports and extract the information you are looking for. They are a very large company who has no concept of customer service.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
In comparing Blackbaud CRM to Raiser's Edge, there is more room to configure, customize and seems more refined. In terms of more refined, I am referring to the user interface, the capturing of data, ability to perform simple or complex marketing processes.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
I found the Blackbaud database to simply be more comprehensive and easier to manipulate than the others. The user friendliness of the modules and availability of information in the Blackbaud system was just better.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM was much more focused on fundraising and was more customizable. Other products considered were often not 'out of the box' in terms of functionality, however much design was needed prior to implementation.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
Honestly I have moved to Salesforce. Salesforce has a stronger user group community, less expensive, more innovation with the appexchange.com and because many corporations use Salesforce, it is pretty easy to get volunteers to support your efforts.
Chose Blackbaud CRM
This would really be like comparing apples and oranges. With the exception of Convio, the other platforms are more Enterprise focused where Convio was Non Profit focused. Silverpop & ExactTarget are going to be best in class at what they do just because of the resources they …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Blackbaud CRM
Small Businesses
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Ellucian CRM Advance
Ellucian CRM Advance
Score 5.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Blackbaud CRM
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(36 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(8 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.9
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Blackbaud CRM
Likelihood to Recommend
Blackbaud
It works well enough for fundraising purposes and donor tracking. I think it would be less appropriate for instances or industries where you don't need so many data points on someone. You are able to attach a lot of information to a record so if you don't need that info (simply need contact info for example) you might want a simpler system
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Pros
Blackbaud
  • Accessing in-depth data for a single constituent is easily done and customizable by user working with "tiles" on the home screen
  • Generating lists of possible prospects with specific similarities can be done with a few clicks and then stored for more research later
  • well designed relationship options allow for a a look at specific constituents and how they might relate to other constituents in the system leading to more effective prospecting
  • Screens can be easily customized by user or user group eliminating irrelevant data and presenting only truly relevant information
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Cons
Blackbaud
  • Certain aspects of Blackbaud are oddly non-customizable.
  • Blackbaud updates/support is slow and often ineffective - our organization switched to Microsoft 365, which is apparently incompatible with Blackbaud. Help/support recommended clunky workarounds that don't actually work, rather than proactively enhancing compatibility
  • There should be a flag in constituent search to show which people in the results list are deceased.
  • Query isn't very user friendly. It should be simple to locate the information that you want to pull, and add parameters to that information. Instead you have to write multiple queries to set parameters, then write a query that looks at those other queries. It's time-consuming and easy to make mistakes, and the knowledge/proficiency is difficult to explain or transfer to new staff.
  • Blackbaud generally just feels like its technology is outdated. It wasn't built for the needs of a modern organization, and its developers have failed to make the necessary improvements over time to stay competitive.
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Likelihood to Renew
Blackbaud
We've covered a lot, but mostly because we are happy with the system overall. There are a few kinks, and sometimes it takes a minute to figure out the right wording to pull a report or the best way to code a new category that we want to track. But Blackbaud is always there to help us, and once things are figured out - they are super simple to replicate. It wouldn't be worth it to switch to a new system and lose of all our information and time put in to mastering the system
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Support Rating
Blackbaud
I have not personally had to reach out to Blackbaud CRM Support, because we have a central office that manages the Blackbaud CRM relationship. However, any time I've reached out to our support team, there is nothing they can't figure out by utilizing the support they receive from Blackbaud CRM. I've not had any issues that have gone unresolved, and they can always get things done in a timely fashion.
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Implementation Rating
Blackbaud
Most of our issues were self-inflicted and related to BB's work. We did not "staff up" correctly, our data to be converted was not in great shape and we set some unreasonable goals. With BBs help we were able to clean our data and prep it for conversion and we adjusted the goals to be more achievable with the timeline we were given. We found the BB staff to be responsive and focused, especially when working on-site with us.
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Alternatives Considered
Blackbaud
Blackbaud CRM is more robust and has better functionality. It is necessary for a bigger fundraising shop. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge and NXT worked well in smaller organizations with fewer users and fewer donors/prospects. RE was more affordable than CRM was for the smaller organization.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Blackbaud
  • Change is always expensive and painful, but CRM is worth the time and effort. One immediate benefit is improved transparency internally, especially for internal accounting, controls, and compliance departments.
  • Cloud hosting helps cut cost and demand on organization staff. Improves access and meets compliance on every level.
  • Ability to make global changes to recording donor phone communication makes it a one-stop resource for a well-run development team.
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