Blackbaud Online Express vs. Greater Giving

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

Greater Giving is the perfect platform for small/medium organizations looking for a solution to manage their fundraising and other events during the year. It is very easy to use, and new team members are quickly trained and up and running on the platform in no time. For organizations of our size, having the option of having a live person assist during big events is invaluable.

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

• Credit card swiping at registration is important to us. It allows our attendees to have the option to make a contribution during our special appeal, purchase silent auction items, etc... without having to make a payment each time.
• The day-of-event registration is so easy. As long as our host has provided us the name of the attendee registration is a breeze.
• The ability to send out post-event tax receipts

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

• [I feel the] auction system is not as sophisticated as other systems
• Staff support structure
• Doesn't come out with updates very quickly [in my experience]

Incentivized

Great for beginners. Easy to get up and running quickly. I did worry a bit about my end-users accidentally changing or deleting data.

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

You are assigned a rep from the beginning and they are with you from start to finish PLUS are 100% available to you on your Day of Giving.

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

The RNL Scalefunder platform is more suited toward Giving Days and digital types of events. I have found the Greater Giving platform can deliver on that but also gives us great support for in person fundraising, ticket sales, auction tracking and gala events which we do more of throughout the year.

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

• The reporting improved our abilities to provide accurate information more timely to the finance department - a plus when completing the annual 990 or other information for our auditors.
• We saw an increase in collecting on pledges when we switched from a "text-to-give" platform (from another provider) to incorporating all event elements into Greater Giving. We were able to capture over 95% of gifts within 48 hours of the event compared to less than half that amount in previous years.
• The reports generated by Greater Giving are better received by our board of directors - easier to digest and provide meaningful analytics

Incentivized