Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRM vs. Bonterra Network for Good vs. LiveImpact

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

Incentivized

I used Network for the Good to run a fundraising event it was awesome. My organization is part of a larger regional non-profit dedicated to servicing those in our community who need a little help. By banding together under a larger regional organization, we can extend our impact through the utilization of Network for the Good across all associated organizations. It empowers smaller groups to have a larger impact on their community.

Incentivized

LiveImpact would be an excellent choice for any nonprofit, irrespective of size. For those still using Excel to manage their donor data, this would be a hyper boost of productivity and tracking. For those hosting events or campaigns, the development and deployment of microsites are super easy and user-friendly.

• 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

Incentivized

• The donation software is very user friendly to add donations to.
• The report section is very easy to use and to run what you need.
• The contact portion is extremely user friendly and is easy to keep track of donors, what they've paid and communication to them.

Incentivized

• All-in-one solution with CRM, microsites for campaigns/events, and communications
• Very easy reporting systems
• Excellent customer support, plus continuous feature enhancements

• 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.

Incentivized

• In exporting reports, it would be helpful to have a "select all" option so you can easily select everything without having to manually click each one.
• In exporting reports, it may be helpful to have the option of saving various options for different needs so you don't have to manually click or unclick each choice every time, as you can currently only save one type.
• It would be helpful to be able to change an event/ticket information after it has already gone live for sales as we recently had an issue with this.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

We are still learning and rebuilding our nonprofit using this platform, so this year is a trial run to see how we can increase our network and our donations. So long as we are able to see a significant return on investment in terms of donations received through the platform, we will renew for next year.

Incentivized

BGF is an easy-to-use platform for entering, editing, and analyzing customer or donor data and giving. I would highly recommend it to any organization looking to improve its customer relationship management functionality. As a previous user of different CRM platforms with other non-profits, BGF has made tracking donor information and communicating with donors much easier.

Incentivized

In 5+ years we have never had an issue with it not working when we needed it to. It is very reliable and doesn't seem to have a lot of bugs or interruptions in service.

Incentivized

It is always fast for us and reports have a very quick upload time. We don't integrate it into other programs so I'm not 100% sure about that, but it always works when we use it and is very reliable. Even when we run Excel files for complete information on donors, it always works very fast.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Most of the time they are quick and friendly and help me resolve any issues. There have only been a couple of times that we couldn't find a resolution and I was just told that NFG didn't have that capability.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We only had one hiccup with the domain that was an issue on our end but NFG struggled to help us. It was finally resolved and we've been good ever since

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I like Bonterra Guided Fundraising more than OneCause because OneCause was only used for events at the last nonprofit I worked at. Bonterra Guided Fundraising allow nonprofits like ours to have event pages, fundraising pages, and donor management software at a better cost than OneCause. Ultimately, I would always choose Bonterra Guided Fundraising!

Incentivized

Ease of use, more comprehensive, price

We are happy with all of the options

Incentivized

It works for the departments we need it in, finance, administration and fundraising and marketing. It does everything we need.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• We went from raising only 12k at our gala to needing to implement the auction software as we work to raise 75k at our next gala. We wouldn't be able to facilitate such a large event without our software.
• We're able to streamline a lot of tasks. Instead of using several interfaces, we're able to rely solely on Bonterra Guided Fundraising, which saves a lot of time.
• We're able to dream about expanding the ways we reach people. Instead of simply sending out emails or using Facebook, we can send out newsletters and promote events with their own website link, which is a huge step up.

Incentivized