Blackbaud Online Express vs. Flipcause

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

If you are doing this for fun, and don't actually need the money that you raise through Flipcause, they're great, but if you need the funds to, say, run payroll or pay rent, do not even THINK of using them. You will spend a lot of time tearing your hair out, and sending yet another email begging them to transfer funds

• 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

• Flipcause has a great user interface for donors.
• Flipcause sends customizable donation receipts.
• Flipcause easily integrates with our website.
• Flipcause has great customer service.

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

• You have to contact them multiple times to get them to give you your money.
• It generally takes at least a month to get funds from them to you.
• They take a really long time to respond to support emails, if they respond at all.

Website design is great and easy to use

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

Flipcause has amazingly responsive customer support staff and "Success Teams." When you sign up, your Success Manager makes sure you have all the information and support needed to get up and running quickly and easily. Your Success Team will happily provide support on an on-going basis as needed, although we have not needed much support due to the easy-to-use interface

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 previously used Network for Good to process online donations and to sell event tickets, but Flipcause has proven much better at meeting our needs. I prefer the Flipcause interface and functionality, especially for event registrations. We have also used PayPal and PayPal Here to collect donations online and in person. While these are trusted and recognizable for our donors, they are only useful for collecting donations and do not have easily customizable donation receipts.

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

• Diminished trust from employees because of payroll delays.
• Unable to plan ahead because we have no idea when we will get our funds.
• Excessive time spent chasing funds, rather than fulfilling our mission.
• Excessive time spent researching new platforms, and changing all our infrastructure because we've finally decided we can't stay with them any longer.