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Blackbaud Luminate Online vs. Salsa Labs (discontinued)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Blackbaud Luminate Online

    Score6.7 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Luminate Online aims to help non-profits engage more effectively with supporters and raise more money by enabling integrated campaigns for digital, social and mobile channels. According to the vendor, Luminate Online helps non-profits: Better understand online supporters Make the right ask at the right time Launch creative fundraising campaigns Automated campaigns stimulate engagement and action through targeted welcome messages with personalized…N/A

    Salsa Labs (discontinued)

    Score8 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Salsa was a donor and constituent management system. Salsa Labs was acquired by EveryAction in 2021 and joined with Bonterra. The Salsa CRM product is no longer available for sale.N/A
    Pricing
    Blackbaud Luminate OnlineSalsa Labs (discontinued)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Blackbaud Luminate OnlineSalsa Labs (discontinued)
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredOptional
    Additional DetailsLuminate Online is priced based on the number of email addresses on file, modules used and service plan. Our peer to peer offering, TeamRaiser, has a transactional, shared success pricing model.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Blackbaud Luminate OnlineSalsa Labs (discontinued)
    Considered Both Products
    Blackbaud
    Chose Blackbaud Luminate Online
    [I feel] Luminate has a less evolved feature set and a significantly more closed ecosystem, limiting the uses cases dramatically.
    Incentivized
    Chose Blackbaud Luminate Online
    We have recently evaluated other products because we are considering leaving Luminate. The other products offer all the features of Luminate and more at lower costs.
    Incentivized
    Chose Blackbaud Luminate Online
    I have looked at several, I was pretty impressed with what iDonate had going.
    Incentivized
    Chose Blackbaud Luminate Online
    Salsa, Salesforce, Exact Target, MailChimp.
    Incentivized
    Chose Blackbaud Luminate Online
    When it comes to meeting all of the needs for a non-profit to effectively fundraise – email, web, merchant services, advocacy, eCommerce, CRM – the Blackbaud ecosystem is the only one that can do everything in one place, and do so reasonably well.
    A stronger solution may be to …
    Incentivized
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    57%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    80%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    50%
    Delivers good value for the price
    3 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    71%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    60%
    Happy with the feature set
    3 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    Blackbaud Luminate OnlineSalsa Labs (discontinued)
    Small Businesses
    Bonterra Network for Good
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Agentforce 360 for Nonprofits
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    GiveSmart by Momentive
    Score7.5 out of 10
    DonorPerfect
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Kindsight iWave
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Ellucian CRM Advance
    Score5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Blackbaud Luminate OnlineSalsa Labs (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    3.7
    (87 ratings)
    7.0
    (11 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (21 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    2.1
    (28 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.2
    (9 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.0
    (32 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.3
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    3.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.6
    (9 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.8
    (11 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Blackbaud Luminate OnlineSalsa Labs (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Blackbaud
    Blackbaud Luminate Online is an excellent solution for online giving, providing a wealth of tools for producing donation forms. It also is outstanding for peer-to-peer fundraising, such as event-based efforts like walks, cycling tours, and so forth. The Email module is outstanding if you need an internal solution for communicating with your donors and supporters. It provides a wealth of tools for crafting emails, and for reporting on the results.
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    Salsa Engage provides a robust interface to Salesforce--our primary CRM--allowing non-intervention synchronization to categorize supporters into groups for email communication. As we are only six months into our implementation, we have not found areas where it's not appropriate to use beyond nit-picky synchronization delays and smart group updates.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Blackbaud
    • House Donor Information. Easy report pulling. Queries and lists.
    • I like how everything is housed on one platform. Webpages, emails and donor profiles. User friendly.
    • It works nicely with other blackbaud products such as Raiser's Edge. Easy importing and exporting options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Autoresponders and automated emails have been really cool and simple to use, that tool in itself has added a lot of value and has been a powerful way to keep supporters engaged.
    • Donor management is one thing that Salsa CRM gets really technical with. There is so much information that you can have on each donor.
    • I like the forms and how easy they are to embed on the website, like email sign up forms or donation forms. I can make them look seamless as they sit on the website and gather information and donations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Blackbaud
    • Reporting needs some work, this is being worked on in their new BETA program.
    • The eCommerce module needs some work. It would be great to have more ability to customize parts of it without having to rewrite the code.
    • The Events module could use some improvements as well.
    • The Personal Fundraising module needs a lot of work. It really cannot work as needed right now. We started using TeamRaiser to handle this, but it could be great.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • When we started with Salsa, not every option was available online, some were desktop specific. As it has been some time since I worked with Salsa these have probably been resolved.
    • The ability to communicate between Salsa CRM and other Salsa software options. Sometimes the crossover was not as efficient as was needed.
    • Tagging and setting up rules for particular donors was somewhat confusing - meaning, therefore, that the amount of training needed to implement the software was somewhat intensive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Blackbaud
    We’ve decided to leave Luminate and are moving to a system that better caters to our and our users needs. Luminate has proven difficult to use and has limited abilities when it comes to data management, events, and peer-to-peer functionality. Reporting is also very complicated and requires a great deal of time to utilize properly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    It suits all of our needs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Blackbaud
    You have to be very tech savvy to use Luminate to its fullest potential. You can get buy with the training, but there is a steep learning curve and you almost need 6 months to 1 year of in-person training to really be able to anything substantial. The online training lessons are not going to cut it while learning this program.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    You do not have to be a tech-savvy person to be able to use the CRM. Reporting is easy to do.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Blackbaud
    It's a very rare occurrence if the system isn't available when I want it. I can easily log in from home after hours if need be, and the security is enforced, but simple when you're legit! They are very good about sending email reminders and updates when system maintenance will be performed, and it's always during middle of the night hours when you likely wouldn't be using it anyways
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Blackbaud
    Pages load fast and 98% of the reports do run in a matter of secons/minutes. There is this one report I have that can take hours to run, but this is due to the amount of transactions being requested for one of our biggest online fundraising events (Transaction report)
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Blackbaud
    Support staff are usually incredibly helpful and responsive. There are several ways to contact them (chat, logging a ticket, phone) which makes it easy to get help when you need it. Once in a while I get a support staff member who isn't quite as helpful, which is why I gave it a 9 instead of a 10, but that is rare and if I follow up with someone else, I get what I need.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    Support response has been swift and knowledgable, though not always the answer I've wanted. One huge design flaw is if I add a new Salesforce field to sync, Salsa Engage will not sync it unless it has changed since the last sync, requiring me to fake an update for an entire database or re-sync the whole enchilada. Better to recognize it's a new Salesforce field and perform the sync en masse.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Blackbaud
    Initial training was great and the instructor was very patient and helpful during the set up process. Blackbaud has a variety on online self-paced classes that supplement the training you receive. The only downfall is after training is complete. I've found the support for Luminate to be a tad lackluster. We often encounter issues that aren't on Luminate's development road map and have had a series of cases be opened.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Blackbaud
    When I used the training, I had actually been using Luminate Online but figured it might help me learn to use the tools more effectively. And it did. The sessions were helpful and even as a current user I felt like I learned how to use the tools more effectively.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Blackbaud
    Implementation of Luminate itself was rather smooth, but the process involved for TeamRaiser was very difficult. Even after implementation we relied on support to help with various aspects of TeamRaiser from page design to reporting and front end user issues. The support offered for issues with Luminate was very good, but again TeamRaiser support was lacking.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Blackbaud
    The only other product I have used for this type of fundraising work is NetCommunity and it hasn't been as scalable or versatile. It doesn't really offer the peer to peer fundraising of Luminate or the constituent management, web page development and considered donation forms. NetCommunity didn't even come close which is why we replaced it with Luminate.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    Salsa Engage is one of the easier products to set up and use, but with that comes limitations. If you want something simple, this works, but if you have more complex needs, then you'd be better off investing in another system that requires more set up work, but provides more customization and robust reporting opportunities.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Blackbaud
    Luminate Online is a great scalable product as it provides various price points dependent on your quantity of email addresses. This allows both small and large organizations to utilize the product, which has strong email capabilities. It also means smaller organizations aren't forced to pay astronomical fees in order to have access to a quality product.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Blackbaud
    • We've increased our online giving +200% although this is due in part to our focus on the channel and not entirely on the product.
    • We've been able to increase employee efficiency by selecting email lists per message within Luminate Online. With our prior solution we needed to request data be pulled from our database for event email.
    • We've really done a great job of growing our online tribute and memorial giving through the use of custom links and the pre-populated information has really helped with the back end processing.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    • Has helped increase our donor retention as we are able to track all communications with donors ensuring that they remain connected.
    • The improved emailing (with fewer bounce rate) has helped increase our website and donation page visibility.
    • We've sold more tickets to our fundraising events with an improved event management system.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Blackbaud Luminate Online Screenshots

    Screenshot of Email Overview DashboardScreenshot of Luminate allows you to enable multiple types of giving - from recurring to matching and everything between.Screenshot of Luminate enables you to reach out to supporters in multiple waysScreenshot of Luminate Peer to Peer fundraising with DIY events, also enables your supporters to fundraising on their behalf.

    Salsa Labs (discontinued) Screenshots

    Screenshot of the development dashboard.Screenshot of a donor detail report showing donation history.Screenshot of donor cultivation for major giftsScreenshot of mail merge and direct mail fundraisingScreenshot of a donor profile with unlimited custom fields