Blackbaud Online Express vs. Bonterra Network for Good

For 100% tax-deductible donations, I 9.5/10 recommend Blackbaud Online Express. The only thing is that it does not charge debit cards automatically, so I have to do it myself. Using Blackbaud Online Express forms for events gets more complicated. The way events work in Raiser's Edge in general is already complicated, so maybe it's more on Raiser's Edge than it is Blackbaud Online Express.

Incentivized

We have a small team leading our international nonprofit. Bonterra Network for Good allows us to keep track of our donations quickly and easily, including private donors, larger donor-advised funds, foundations and grants, and easily designate the donation to different campaigns or sub-categories within our organization. The platform syncs well with Quickbooks and we rarely have issues. The issues we do have are always around pulling reports. The platform does not make it easy to pull a quick report, even with suggested filters provided.

Incentivized

• Online donation forms are easy to create and place within our existing website. The donations received are easily transferred into our Raiser's Edge database.
• Creating email communications for our constituents is very simple to achieve in Online Express and the statistics provided are very helpful to see what our constituents are clicking on.

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

• It does have some "quirks." It can be a little tricky to process the batch until you have done it a few times.
• I had a problem finding a constituent yesterday - he was purchasing a program ad for an event - that I knew was in the database. It turned out that he had been marked inactive, and so apparently wasn't included in the search results.

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 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

There is no perfect all-in-one product that works for every organization. We enjoyed using Network for Good. I am giving it a 9 because the cost was out of our range, and the peer-to-peer options (at the time) were limited. We were not able to make it work for our peer-to-peer event. We also weren't thrilled with the online forms. However, the donation pages, donor profiles, and communication tools were excellent.

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

Customer service for all of Blackbaud's products has really lacked over the years. They are starting to get better in the last year but it can very frustrating. The online knowledge base community is the best resource for information. At times it can take hours for a customer sect even rep to help with questions or problems which is not at all ideal in this industry.

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

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 Online Express is mainly used strictly because of its integration with Raiser's Edge. If a client uses Salesforce for constituent/lead management, other products can offer more flexibility in designing donation forms, email templates, etc. However, they all have their own negatives in Salesforce integration -- that is a whole other can of worms. While the Raiser's Edge integration of Online Express isn't perfect, it is relatively painless compared to the competition's Salesforce integration. Also, for NFP's, Blackbaud's NFP focused business model is a plus.

Incentivized

We used Little Green Light for several years at a previous employer. LGL did not have the extensive integration capabilities or the level of sophistication that BGF has in terms of email, video, donor campaign pages, and exceptional customer support. For these reasons, we chose to go with BGF instead of LGL.

Incentivized

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

• Regardless of project or initiative, all fund-raising efforts are managed in one place for the entire organization.
• Donor management is concise, thorough, and systematic - no individual or organization is overlooked.
• Snapshot reporting of successful grant applications and fund-raising are readily available.

Incentivized

• Minimized the resources necessary to run an online presence. For instance, one moderately tech-savvy person can handle it.
• Provides a pathway to increase the number of events the organization can manage.
• By being part of a larger group of non-profits that utilize Network For The Good, we receive additional assistance and ideas from related organizations.

Incentivized