Blackbaud Target Analytics vs. Bonterra Guided Fundraising

ResearchPoint is well suited for Prospect Research, especially if the user has Raiser's Edge as their main database given its integration capabilities with qualified data; however, it is not necessary. I used the Target Analytics product that came before ResearchPoint (The Researcher's Edge) as a stand-alone prospect research database for about a year. For small shops that do not have a prospect researcher or prospect research team, it could even be used by gift officers looking for new prospects or for wealth data on their known prospects. Once systems are in place, the content is fairly intuitive and easy to navigate. The product is really a one-stop-shop, find prospects, wealth screen them, verify the data (the product saves you time by verifying a lot for you already), sync your findings to The Raiser's Edge, and if you'd like, export or print a professional-looking profile to a .pdf for your president or gift officer.

Incentivized

Specifically, the customer service is one of the best of any online service we have used. The staff is respectful and speedy, and I have never had any occasion to be disappointed in their help. The silent auction tool we have used for the past two online silent auctions has been excellent. We are about to use the new service. I've been working on setting it up, and so far, so good. We would really like to track our volunteers in Network for Good somehow. Not to do recruitment or volunteer forms, as we don't use public recruitment of volunteers for our use. However, volunteer hours are very important as we do fundraising and grantwriting, as they show our excellent relationship with the community. I'd like to be able to track the volunteer hours... especially if they are also donors. I sure would appreciate a REAL text-to-give, where it's not 10 numbers to text-to-give but just 6 or so. We have tried using this and the feedback we have gotten is "This isn't so easy." To be able to say: "Text MITTENS to 123456" is a lot cleaner than "Text MITTENS to 888-888-8888." Granted this is a small thing, but this is what people ask about.

Incentivized

• Address Updates - starting at the basics, the Target Analytics products allow you create a firm foundation for the data in your system.
• Data Hygiene - taking it a step further is creating and updating data on an individualized basis - such as DeceasedRecord Finder, and Email Finder.
• Data Modeling - Once your data has been appended it can be modeled for increased donor interaction, stewardship, and solicitation.

• Top-notch customer service! The Network For Good team is responsive, genuinely courteous, and knowledgeable about the product.
• Communication options are available for all donor preferences, from good old-fashioned direct mail to email, text, and video. And all are easy to use!
• Creating forms for surveys and other data capturing is very easy, as is construction of reports on donors and donations for management use.
• Love the format options and drag-and-drop functionality -- including embedding videos -- for newsletters and email engagements.

Incentivized

• Confirmed relationships needs to be a field that can be synced to The Raiser's Edge
• Philanthropic giving, when synced to the Prospect tab, needs to be able to be sorted by dollar value (like in Excel); this is a change that would need to happen in The Raiser's Edge
• With increasing competition from other wealth screening vendors, it would be useful if data sources were updated more frequently (i.e. real estate and giving).

Incentivized

• Individual contact listing being required before the company or business causes some business to be dropped if the individual leaves the business
• when you have a donor who donated both as a business and as an individual sometimes one or the other does not come up in the listing when you search for an amount for the year
• FaceBook donations being identified by at least who did the fundraiser, not the donors. I do a birthday fundraiser every year for Caring Carroll and there is no indication that it came from me. The money comes in but we do not know where it came from who held the fundraiser.
• The fact that the FaceBook donations go into our Network for Good database before we even have the money is confusing.

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

It's very easy to use and customizable.

Incentivized

While there is always room for improvement, I have always had good luck with TA support. There are so many ways to get help! Sometimes I can answer my own question by just accessing the vast Knowledgebase directory. I have been able to get quick answers by initiating a live Chat without having to navigate the call center voice mail options, which can be a little overwhelming. Sometimes my question or problem is more involved and I'll submit a case online. Between email conversations or a phone call, the representatives I've worked with have always been super helpful, never condescending, and they often follow up days later to make sure everything is working well

Incentivized

Bonterra customer service is slow and terrible. They take forever to address the actual issue, constantly making incorrect assumptions about the issue. I have spent more than 45 minutes on hold, just to speak with a customer service representative when the chat function was unable to provide assistance with my issue.

Incentivized

NFG is great and the process was smooth. thank you.

Incentivized

Currently there are several prospect research software companies on the market, such as WealthEngine. In my opinion, Target Analytics with the ability of integration between Raiser's Edge and ResearchPoint creates a greater value for an organization.

For us, Bonterra Guided Fundraising offered the best overall bang for the buck. There were cheaper options that didn't over the features we needed and more expensive options that we felt didn't offer features as good as the ones we were seeing at Bonterra. For an overall option that did more of what we wanted to do, Bonterra was the best choice for us.

• Address Appends - we are saving tons of money on returned mail, NCOA updates, and ensuring donors are receiving timely correspondence.
• Data Appends - ensured that we know who we have in our database and how we need to reach each household. Not only through updating records of deceased constituents but knowing the correct email addresses and phones to reach out and share our mission.
• Prospect Research - allows us to learn more about potential donors, existing donors, and how to create increased donor-centric interactions and solicitations.

• We signed up with Network for Good in the fall of 2022 & had a last minute end of year giving campaign using videos we made in Network for Good & emailing them. We also used giving pages & listed a variety of giving amounts that a donor could select.
• We experienced at least a 20% increase in giving.
• Increase in our communication with donors because there are tools in Network for Good that make it easy.
• Our organization looks more professional with the giving pages & it accommodates ways to give.