Blackbaud invites the user to manage and improve your funding and giving process with Blackbaud FIMS, a single, customizable foundation management software solution.
It is based on the former MicroEdge FIMS product.
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Cvent Abstract Management
Score 8.2 out of 10
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Cvent Abstract Management is a submission management solution for academic conferences, providing a CTP workflow solution. The application may be integrated into Cvent Event Management.
It is a very robust system and with the various modules you can accomplish much of what is needed for traditional transaction US-based grantmaking. If you have more complicated grantmaking, deal with foreign currencies or want to have tighter alignment of finance and budget numbers, GIFTS may not meet your needs. Additionally, some of their core projects have limited accessibility in terms of various mobile devices or access from outside the organization's network.
Preparing for conferences and gatherings is a demonstrated good use for this product. Similarly, other efforts that involve many moving pieces would be well-suited- projects with a number of different participants/authors, team retreats, and situations where there is a benefit to storing and organizing information in a decentralized way where no one person needs to bear that responsibility.
While GIFTS Classic is the most barren interfaces of all MicroEdge products, there are some simple capabilities I wish GIFTS could still perform such as better email integration from outlook to a GIFTS request, more efficient requirement reminders, and a wider use of Microsoft Office and other external product integration (GuideStar).
It's disappointing that you have to purchase an additional "Customizer Module" or "Budget Module" in order to access basic functions of a GMS. This seems like a basic system function that MicroEdge takes advantage of, unfortunately.
The online application module (IGAM) is still quite antiquated and you have to be knowledgeable of basic HTML in order to really customize your organization's online application. More flexibility and design functions would be greatly appreciated with the online application function, especially since this is a public document and represents your organization.
I typically receive a response to an inquiry within an hour or two, if not sooner. Most tech support people are knowledgeable about our problems, and if not, they will escalate to the proper person.
Support has been great! The chat feature is phenomenal and every agent I have talked to has gotten back to me instantly with a solution, or done a fantastic follow up on where a status of an issue is. I have been very impressed with the professional demeanor and help I have gotten from Cvent support. They are even available at odd hours of the night
It is really a matter of priority. I can see situations where GIFTS Classic is a very strong option! Once an organization determines its priorities then it should definitely consider GIFTS to see how well it compares with mission critical functionality.
This was already in place when I started at my organization. Because I can import or transfer the speaker info into the event management side, it’s a great option. The other two software work too but I’d have to import their info into the system instead of it being there already
Reporting was difficult on GIFTS - often we had to place data into Excel by hand since we could not create simple customized reports. This increased time spent on tasks GIFTS was supposed to streamline.
GIFTS did not alert us to duplicated organization records, so often it was difficult to reflect an organization's full grant history to our Board of Directors, leading to employees spending time searching through paper records to make sure all information was properly reported.
GIFTS created duplicate contact records, meaning it was difficult to find out which contact was related to which organization and cluttered our data. This caused decreased processing and response time to "new" contacts who turned out to be previous contacts or contacts whose information was tied to previous organizations. Even when contact information was updated for a new organization, sometimes the program would revert to the first organization contact information, several times leading to checks cashed to incorrect organizations---the very worst consequence of using GIFTS to our organization. Thankfully, the money was recovered upon the few times that error occurred, but it led to me and other employees reading through out 800+ checks before issue to make sure the correct organization was in fact being rewarded.
Our client has used Cvent Abstract Management for two years now. They saw almost a 50% increase in abstract submissions year over year.
While the product has saved the client time in sending acceptance/rejection notices and scheduling abstracts to their event, the output of the reporting has still been an issue; a lot of manual adjusting has to take place with the data for them to utilize it properly.
