Blackbaud CRM vs. NetForum by Community Brands

It is advanced and relatively easy to use. It keeps track of information well and makes it easy for fundraisers to manage their relationships. It may work well for organizations with a lot of alumni (maybe 20-30,000?). Not sure. It may not be best for smaller nonprofits because it is a significant financial investment.

Incentivized

If you have a question about a function or tech problem it's a great place to get answers

Incentivized

• It is incredibly user-friendly! From the first time I opened a constituent profile, I could easily navigate between tabs and find the information I need in a timely fashion without confusion.
• It allows personalization! Depending on what information is most relevant to me, I can organize the widgets that are shown first. I typically look at the same few pieces of information on every profile, so I don't have to dig for it!

Incentivized

• Can store a lot of information. There are many different modules and each module has a lot of spaces for details such as birthday, gender, spouse and children's names, emergency contact information, photos and more.
• Can be linked to our internal systems. Our awards system is run through our organization's website but the winners are sent to netFORUM so that their records indicate the awards and distinctions they have achieved without us having to manually enter all of these.
• Can provide a lot of reporting information which is useful for data collection or year-end reporting needs.

Incentivized

• The marriage of event registration (on-line) and CRM needs some work.
• Challenges to adapt to organization culture surrounding things like "naming conventions", specialized reporting needs, some bugs in roll-up reporting on couples or families.
• Tribute giving tracking/reporting is awkward.
• Better shared language of function between BBCRM and other BB products like Netcommunity and Raiser's Edge. Can cause some errors in the implementation process.
• Netcommunity functionality pushing data to CRM is messy and fraught with challenges.

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• need more users
• better search

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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

It is purely dependant on who you reach and speak to. You can call twice in an hour period and get two completely different answers. You can get people who are willing to help, people who just tell you no, or people who have no idea what to do. They need to work harder on training their support people. The chat function works very well for simple questions and is my preferred go-to when seeking help.

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It is highly customizable in some respects and not so much in others. Overall, it is great to pilot, review, and continually review the functionality of it

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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.

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netFORUM is better at data collection and support for the price.

Incentivized

• If you go with Blackbaud purchase the extended training package. Your staff will thank you.
• The mantra is "If it isn't in Blackbaud it doesn't exist" is a contradiction because best practice with Blackbaud is to not use attachments which means we had to archive copies of donor letters or membership in a completely separate system. Really? What is the point? Or pay more and more and more...

Incentivized

• Easier to use product
• Features i never new before
• Save a ton of time

Incentivized