Blackbaud Grantmaking vs. brightwheel vs. VSTracking

As I mentioned, cost is prohibitive for us. Because it is highly customizable, it is very powerful, but if you are looking for an intuitive, easy to use solution right "out of the box" solution because you have few staff and no IT dept. this may not be the best fit (unless they develop some lower cost / less customizable options?). That being said, we have managed to implement successfully with no IT. I completed the implementation, code the application and online reporting forms (using HTML) and use Blueprint to customize what we need, but it has been a big learning curve and an investment of time to manage the back end of the program. I will say that training new general users is pretty straight forward so their ability to search for information they need and quickly is greatly enhanced. The automatic customized reports and reminders are pretty great, and the overall integrity of our processes and data are greatly improved. Sometimes we wonder if it is overly complex and if there is a way e could "hide" more of the aspects that are not relevant to us, or that we are not using, so we can have a cleaner interface.

Incentivized

Any preschool can benefit from brightwheel, no matter the size. Brightwheel is also excellent for billing, which is especially helpful for schools that do not have other databases and billing systems. Because our school is a PS-12, it is a little cumbersome to have brightwheel along with another management system that we use school-wide. It would be nice to have a separate price point that does not include the things that another database system does for schools that are required to use what the older grades also use.

Incentivized

• We like to create our own numbering system and Blackbaud Grantmaking allows us that flexibility. When we were having issues with items being in numerical order the tech support was amazing.
• Creating your own forms is very important for us. We have several different donors and we have a grant application form and a report form for each one. They are easy to create as well as update and access.
• Alternative ways to hunt for information. I can access a grant by the organization name, project name, grant number or even the name of the person who submitted the grant application. This is critical in a case where the program officer has a nickname for the grant (you can include that as well in the profile) and can't remember anything else.

Incentivized

• Recording data for students.
• Connecting to parents with photos, videos, and messages.
• Signing in and out electronically and saving paper daily.

Incentivized

• Application linking process is time consuming
• System enhancement ideas must be submitted to a community portal and other users must take the initiative to vote on their favorite ideas instead of vendor programmers collecting received ideas and doing the work themselves.
• Lack of conditional logic in online application
• Communication with other Blackbaud products notably Employee Volunteering and Engagement (fka AngelPoints)

Incentivized

• Offering a price point that does not include billing.
• Allowing more freedom of uploading own documents.

Incentivized

As long as there is continued development in the product allowing us to create efficiencies, streamline operations, deliver on our reporting requirements and the usability for internal and external partners remains strong we would have no reason to look elsewhere from a systems perspective. If costs changed substantially we'd have to look at different options to meet our cost savings objectives.

Incentivized

There is room for improvement and the development of the software seem slow. As customers, we hear a lot about what's in development and promises of new features rolling out. However, it feels like those developments take a really long time to show up in they system for my day-to-day use.

Incentivized

When it was microwaves they were a lot more Hands-On assistance, but since merging they have better tracking of the issues.

Incentivized

Preparing and cleaning up your data prior to implementation, will make the process much smoother and easier. Garbage in, garbage out.

Incentivized

At the time that I used GrantedGE, the product was in the development stages and there were a lot of bugs and issues with functionality. The customer service didn't have the bandwidth to quickly respond to issues. BlackBaud's customer service and history in the field are advantages

Incentivized

Brightwheel does much more for the preschool level than FACTS does. The creators of this app know early childhood. The company also provides helpful webinars that are unrelated to their software, such as staff retention or ways to market. They understand the business of early childhood and exist to make the lives of providers easier.

Incentivized

• It has increased our return on reaching our business objectives.
• It has moved us (or started to move us) to a better place in reporting and transparency.
• It has helped us transition from an act of corporate giving to a goal of social change.

Incentivized

• Value add for parents
• Saves paper
• Benefits for teachers who fully utilize

Incentivized