Blackbaud eTapestry vs. Foundation Directory Online by Candid

As we are a small Foundation with only one Administrative Assistant, eTapestry is perfect for me to keep all of our CRM. Once I got used to how it worked, I found it to be user friendly. If I have any problems, I can either try to find the answer for myself in the extensive library, chat to support or email our Customer Service Representative with questions. I cannot fault either the Support team or Customer Service Representatives I have dealt with over the years as all of them have been knowledgeable and extremely helpful. I would prefer to have better options within the Email section as the templates are very basic. There is another option to use an eTapestry partner, but there are additional costs involved in that. The email templates are OK to use if you wish to send quick information to your database.

Incentivized

Beyond any pros or cons, the simple fact is that FDO is the industry standard for grant prospecting databases. Others like GrantStation, GrantSearch, and more can offer some other functionalities or different UX/UI, but ultimately I've never found something that other search platforms had that FDO did not. If you are a non-profit organization, you need a subscription to FDO if you have any serious interest in prospecting (and getting) institutional funding.

Incentivized

• Report Scheduling is great. Reports can be scheduled daily (even on specific days of the week), weekly, or monthly) and auto-emailed.
• Reports can be displayed on the screen, downloaded, or emailed in CSV, excel, or pdf and can have columns pre-sorted in your preferred order.
• Online donations are automatically added to the donor's account and automatically create an account for a new donor.

Incentivized

• Summarizing foundation information (contact info, funding priorities, geographic priorities, etc.) in a user-friendly format
• Recommending similar foundations based on certain criteria, this is helpful when looking for new funding opportunities
• Being able to search through organization's 990s using crtl + F

Incentivized

• When I started using eTapestry, you had to pay for courses to learn how to do more complicated things in the database. These courses were fairly expensive and our small organization couldn't afford that. I had to figure a lot out on my own or using the tech folks in chat or the odd free thing. Not sure if the courses are still costly or not.
• It is not particularly user friendly--for example, you would think the drag and drop email template would be pretty straightforward but it is not! And there aren't built in instructions to help as you try to use things.
• Figuring out how to organize queries and reports and communications in folders in order to find things again has been challenging. It is possible to search on keywords, which is very helpful. But finding something in a list of queries that is not alphabetical isn't particularly easy.

Incentivized

• As this platform grows, more data will be available and I'm looking forward to even further narrowed search results.

Incentivized

We do not always get positive solutions from Etapestry. There are a lot of resources and solutions that you can read about and reach out to. I participate in Community Forums and trainings to see what we can be doing differently.

Incentivized

eTapestry was the first donor database I had ever used and always found it to be much easier to use and administer than the databases I was used to (patient care and payroll databases). The rare times I can't figure out how to do something, I just hope on the chat and someone from the team pleasantly walks me through the process. If it's something that database is incapable of doing, they encourage me to log my suggestion in the idea bank so it can be considered for enhancements. On top of that, the regular training provided allows you to continue building your skills within the database

Incentivized

I have never had an issue accessing eTapestry. It does occasionally go down for maintenance. When that happens, they give you a lot of notice and generally schedule maintenance for hours between midnight and 6am so that business won't be disrupted.

Incentivized

The product does what it is supposed to, although there are downsides. There are positive and negatives for every product. This is less expensive alternative for a small organization tracking minimum information.

Incentivized

My favorite feature is the Live Chat. If we get stuck, we can get immediate help, download the chat and save it for later so if we need help again we have it on file. The Knowledge Database is also extremely helpful.

Incentivized

Any question is answered within 24-48 hours, professionally. If one person can't answer right away, they will seek answers within their support group and find the answer for you.

Incentivized

In person training is always helpful for a new product however I think that the online tutorials would do just fine.

Incentivized

They explained everything well to us throughout the process. It was easy to find resources needed to answer any questions that we had. Support was also available should we need further assistance from the resources found online. They were also quick to respond to our teams inquiries, which was much appreciated.

Incentivized

I was not there for the implementation of this platform. Unfortunately I am unable to just skip this question as it requires a response, which needs to be fifty characters, so here we are. At thirty four, I need to add a few more words to satisfy this requirement. Done.

Incentivized

We have researched 2-3 other donor platforms and we just aren't at a place to change, although we are very tempted. eTapestry is getting us by for now and we don't look forward to the day when we have to change platforms and have to change things for our monthly donors. We worry about attrition if our donors have to change platforms.

Incentivized

I have also used Grant Station and GuideStar for foundation research and have found Foundation Directory Online to be the most user-friendly, provide the most detailed information about foundations, and to have the best search features in order to find the funders that I am looking for as well as to discover new funders

Incentivized

No, I would not change anything

Incentivized

The product overall is not too bad but I would not suggest for a large nonprofit organization.

Incentivized

We didn’t use professional services

Incentivized

• Increased our capacity to fundraise.
• Allowed more opportunity to know our donors (tracking and data collection).
• Limited users - due to steep learning curve - as such less of our development staff know how to use the system to its fullest potential.

Incentivized

• We don't apply for many grants, however; we use look for resources to direct nonprofit when looking for additional funding outside of our funding process.

Incentivized