Bloomerang vs. Raiser's Edge

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Bloomerang is a cloud-based donor management platform that is designed to help nonprofit organizations to reach, engage and retain the advocates they depend on to achieve their vision for a better world. The vendor says their donor management application is rooted in principles of philanthropy; simple to use and focused on empowering an organization’s team to achieve remarkable results through enhanced donor loyalty. The vendor’s value proposition is that Bloomerang is…
$79
per month
Raiser's Edge
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
N/AN/A
Pricing
BloomerangRaiser's Edge
Editions & Modules
Standard
$119
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BloomerangRaiser's Edge
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll Plans include: Unlimited users, free email & chat support, free access to Bloomerang Academy, unlimited standard online giving pages & forms, donor engagement scoring, wealth screening, sustainability scorecard, email marketing, nightly address verification & deceased suppression updates, and 1 scholarship to Fundraising Standard (40 pts toward CFRE certification, $599 value)
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BloomerangRaiser's Edge
Considered Both Products
Bloomerang
Chose Bloomerang
We left DonorPerfect for Bloomerang. I had come from an organization that used Raisers Edge and there was no way I was going to stay with DP. RE is great for larger organizations with staff dedicated to the database, but we were a much smaller organization and needed to have …
Chose Bloomerang
It is hard to compare the two because RE is very large and very expensive but bloomerang gives the consumer what they need for a quality price.
Chose Bloomerang
Bloomerang offers a cost effective donor database solution for small nonprofits. If offers all the basic tools to track donations, segment databases, and become a one stop for development operational pieces. The fact that it is cloud based and can be accessed from anywhere …
Chose Bloomerang
Bloomerang is very user friendly and easy to navigate. All databases have their quirks and I think for a small organization that doesn't need advanced reporting or integration with their business office or admissions department, this is perfect.
Chose Bloomerang
We were using Raisers Edge and decided before renewing our contract for another few years that we should see what else was available. We evaluated 10-15 donor management systems and found Bloomerang to be easy to use for donation entry and acknowledgement, communications and …
Chose Bloomerang
For what you get from Bloomerang you would need to pay much more for a comparable package from Blackbaud.
Chose Bloomerang
We love Bloomerang's flexibility to add fields and its focus on retention. Compared to what we previously used (Raiser's Edge), it easy to use. We decided to go with Bloomerang because although it gives you so much flexibility, it also ensures your data is organized. Their …
Chose Bloomerang
While I enjoy all of the features with Raisers Edge, we had a much smaller donor database than would have been economically feasible for that product.

Ultimately, Bloomerang had all of the features we needed at a great price. The final determining factor with purchasing …
Chose Bloomerang
I personally have used Raisers Edge and Sage FR Fundraising 50.

Raiser's Edge is a bit too expensive for our purposes. Sage/Abila was not creating an updated system and thus we quickly realized that we were working with an obsolete system. As an old network based system FR 50 …
Chose Bloomerang
Ease of use, great customer service, lack of unwieldy complexity (a la Raisers Edge), excellent live and recorded training.

I have obtained eTapestry in 3 other organizations, and I am adept at using that data base, but I found Bloomerang easier to use and with greater …
Chose Bloomerang
Bloomerang's customer service is the best of any donor software I've ever used or tested. Bloomerang is much more easily customized for our specific needs, and the staff works hard to help us use the product in the most impactful way possible. Bloomerang's partnership with …
Raiser's Edge
Chose Raiser's Edge
Raiser's Edge is probably the highest functioning database that I've used and it has many positive qualities. I think overall it is a very useful and accurate product, though it could use several updates that other, newer CMS and databases have already instituted.
Chose Raiser's Edge
It provides a complete package without any needs missing. We are able to do everything we need to do within one database.
Chose Raiser's Edge
Raisers Edge was the system used when I started at the organization. We recently explored other software solutions to allow the entire institution (gift shop, cafe, guest services, hospitality, education) to use the same database, but none of the alternatives had the same kind …
Chose Raiser's Edge
I was not a part of the decision to go with Raiser's Edge at either of the organizations I've worked with. However, I'd recommend looking into Little Green Light, Bloomerang, and Salesforce in addition to Raiser's Edge. I know many organizations that are happy with those …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
BloomerangRaiser's Edge
Small Businesses
Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud
Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud
Score 8.3 out of 10
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud
Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud
Score 8.3 out of 10
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM
Score 7.5 out of 10
Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM
Score 7.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BloomerangRaiser's Edge
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(99 ratings)
7.0
(82 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(3 ratings)
6.2
(27 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(4 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(3 ratings)
7.6
(19 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
5.9
(5 ratings)
User Testimonials
BloomerangRaiser's Edge
Likelihood to Recommend
Bloomerang
If you are a small organization just getting started, Bloomerang can be a good fit. It is simple and straightforward for development staff who maybe aren’t super savvy with data management or analysis in spreadsheets. In the sales demo they will try to upsell a lot of extras that are ultimately not necessary unless your stuff is very unfamiliar with database software. The base price of the software is something like $300 per year, as long as you mix all of the training and phone support add-ons they initially present you with.
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Blackbaud
Raisers Edge is outstanding for storing and reporting on constituent data and communications. There are many options for creating methods of tracking by different information included and also for creating personalized tracking methods.
Raisers Edge is not very well suited for an organization that also has a gift shop and visitors center. Allowing membership admission and item sales is not practical.
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Pros
Bloomerang
  • Reporting: Once I understood the logic behind Bloomerang's reporting tools, I could not believe I'd ever worked a different way. Some of our funders request very complicated reports and getting the relevant data out of Bloomerang is SO much easier than it was with our previous CRM tools.
  • Website integration: I love the tracking functionality that Bloomerang offers, as well as how easy it is to integrate event ticket, volunteer, and other forms into our existing website.
  • Intuitive design: I've introduced total novices to Bloomerang and been very impressed with how quickly they've been able to figure out all the top level navigation as well as deeper functionality.
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Blackbaud
  • Raiser's Edge is good in allowing detailed categorizations for donations - Funds/Campaigns/Appeals/Packages
  • Raiser's Edge has good query functioning and is helpful in pulling lists and segments of constituents and donations
  • The variety of detail across sections (Gifts/Bios/Actions) is helpful for recording and archiving constituent information
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Cons
Bloomerang
  • Some of the searches did not bring up the expected results. It would be good to see the logic be a little more "fuzzy".
  • More pre-set reports would be helpful for small organizations who do not understand the logic behind how to get the results they are seeking.
  • An ability to just page through donor records would be nice. Sometimes you just want to browse the data to get inspired.
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Blackbaud
  • Data posting to Financial Edge (FE) is limited and complicated to understand (took us time to adjust). The posting report does not have enough info: Appeal, campaign and who posted to FE. In genereral, RE/FE integration is not explained by Blackbaud properly, we had to figure out everything on the go.
  • Volunteer module is a bit cumbersome; some fields have duplicate fields in the event module; the identical information ends up being recorded in two different places.
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Likelihood to Renew
Bloomerang
#1 - I am very happy with the product and support so far.
#2 - With significant data migration costs, I wouldn't even consider another option for at least 3 years no matter how much better it might be.
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Blackbaud
There are many CRM tools on the market however Raisers Edge especially with NXT offers everything you need in one database. It’s a little pricey however Blackbaud support is super helpful and they offer so many tools and add ins.
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Usability
Bloomerang
I have found no difficulty in using any of its features. However, I have been using constituent managementt databases for 10+ years, so I am accustomed to them, and to a great degree, there are a lot of similarities among the various platforms.
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Blackbaud
it does lots of things well (prospect tracking and event management), some things FANTASTIC (gift records and donations and relationships). It is rigid enough for the database administrator to maintain good clean data, but flexible enought for customization across organizations so specific data can be kept as needed for YOUR specific organization needs.
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Reliability and Availability
Bloomerang
No answers on this topic
Blackbaud
Since the software is expensive to use, only so many people are able to active users at once. There are times when I may have to wait or ask another user to log out so that I may log in.
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Support Rating
Bloomerang
Any time i had a problem or question it has been easy to find an answer or tutorial. When I cannot find an answer, it is easy to email or live chat with support and they resolve my problems very quickly.
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Blackbaud
For most users, only chat support is available. There is a phone number, but it is very labor-intensive to get someone on the phone, and the chat does not include an easy way to screen share. Those sessions need to be scheduled in advance and almost begged for; the chat line always has a long wait time, and sometimes it seems their support personnel is chatting with more than one client at a time.
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Implementation Rating
Bloomerang
No answers on this topic
Blackbaud
It's critically important to consider where you are taking your fundraising efforts and strategy, and to collaborate closely with other departments who will also use RE. I would strongly recommend that you investigate best practices -both from Blackbaud (theory) and with other organizations (practice) - to create a user manual and guide for RE within your organization
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Alternatives Considered
Bloomerang
We left DonorPerfect for Bloomerang. I had come from an organization that used Raisers Edge and there was no way I was going to stay with DP. RE is great for larger organizations with staff dedicated to the database, but we were a much smaller organization and needed to have something we could all use easily. We demoed Salsa and Neon and liked them both, but Bloomerang had better integration features and seemed to be the most user-friendly.
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Blackbaud
Salesforce has a more modern feel and I felt that it was easier to perform functions beyond the basics, such as running reports for analysis, on Salesforce. But The Raisers Edge already existed at my company and given that I only needed it for basic functions and did not need much training to do those, I decided to use The Raisers Edge.
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Return on Investment
Bloomerang
  • Because my organization has been using Bloomerang for only one year, we haven't yet studied what impact it has had on our ROI. We have, however, noted that we are able to more efficiently and more rapidly communicate with constituents now than we were able to before we had Bloomerang. We can quickly and efficiently generate acknowledgements and tax receipts - and do so - better than we ever did before.
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Blackbaud
  • It takes longer than necessary to do things so that makes it cost more staff time to complete the work we need. One example is with online gifts since you can't import these into a batch we have to manually add all of the online gifts which is time consuming.
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ScreenShots

Bloomerang Screenshots

Screenshot of DashboardScreenshot of Letters & MailingsScreenshot of Constituent TimelineScreenshot of Report TemplatesScreenshot of Email AnalyticsScreenshot of Email Editor