Bloomerang CRM vs. Tiltify Catalyst

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.

Incentivized

I mean, I love having any and all non-profits use Tiltify! From a fundraising standpoint —having all my favorite orgs easily accessible for fundraising across my platforms is SO NICE. That said, I've also worked with orgs that are just getting into the space, and they really struggled with getting set up due to a lack of resources. Yes, I can walk them through everything and encourage the use of all of Tiltify's features, but there isn't a readily available/accessible source to learn what's available to them and how it works.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Fundraiser & donor data collection.
• Customizable pages & features per event.
• Toggle-able options for non-profits to use based on their core audience and what makes the most sense for them.

• 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.

Incentivized

• (1) How Tos for the charity, please! Donors/fundraisers have them available, which we LOVE, but not having a "How Set Up An Event" or "How To Use Your Reporting" for the non-profits, I feel, is a bit of an oversight, as, you know, they're users too!
• (2) Event Page Design: Under the Fundraiser Rewards section, there is a tiny corner of pixels that pokes out from behind the "Top 100" or "Raise $200.00" labels, and it BOTHERS ME TO NO END. I understand the labels over the rewards images have curved corners, and the rewards have the hard 90-degree corners, which is why it happened. It's just like when someone goes to erase what's on a whiteboard but leaves a single line in the middle. My current solution has been to just cut that corner off my rewards images prior to upload —anyways, super tiny and just a pet peeve.
• (3) Event Page Design: You've given us so many customization options, and I'm not taking those for granted. I would love the option to change the color of the buttons, just as we can change the color of each individual section.
• (4) Branding, Social Links: Two things. "Twitter" is still on there (I know it's annoying, but "X"). Would love a "Bluesky" option.
• (5) Event Options, Lifetime donor rewards: Is there something we could get for Lifetime Fundraiser rewards?
• (6) Reports: When I download the Donations report is has the Date & Time of donation in a single column. I don't know how other people use this report, but I usually have to download the donations, create a new column, delineate the data for date/time, then pivot table from there. Plus, the "time" data we receive is delivered in a way that's borderline unusable. Example: 2023-12-31 07:46:07.667963Z -- *I* know to read this as December 31, 2023 @ 7:46:07 AM , but do we *really* need the ".667963Z" ? All it does is mess up any automated data analysis.
• (7) Repots: Could we get a disclaimer at the top of the page that says if you don't toggle the UTC, the reports pulled will be from the time zone of the user pulling them? It took *way* too long to figure out why the report pulled by my colleague in Pacific time was different than the report pulled in Central time.

#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.

Incentivized

Data and settings are very customizable to fit the needs of our organization. We are able to not only keep track of donations, but also other interactions we may have with a constituent. Support is extremely helpful when issues arise.

Incentivized

Again, as someone who has been on this platform for a very long time, I find it easy to use. Where I find myself mostly having issues: Navigation. I have built out 40+ events & campaigns over the years (both on the fundraiser & charity side) and still find myself getting lost in the language hierarchy and difference between Setup/Event detail/Brand & marketing/Options (like those all feel semantically the same??).

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.

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.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized