Blackbaud
I use it to look up data on constituents I work with and keep others in the loop by recording my interactions with constituents. It is …
Overview
What is Blackbaud CRM?
Designed for large, complex organizations as well as federated and international nonprofits.
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What is Blackbaud CRM?
Designed for large, complex organizations as well as federated and international nonprofits.
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Alternatives Pricing
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Kindful aims to help nonprofit organizations across the world fundraise more effectively. Kindful includes fundraising tools, reporting, and analytics all in one CRM. Kindful was acquired by Bloomerang in January, 2021. It is now a Bloomerang product.
What is Causeview?
Causeview aims to make donor management simple. This solution is built on the Salesforce.com platform and according to the vendor, this provides users with best in class fundraising, events, volunteers and payment processing tools on top of the world’s most popular CRM.
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Blackbaud CRM?
Blackbaud CRM for enterprise-scale Nonprofits, Higher Education, and Healthcare organizations combines data management and automation with the ability to scale, adapt, and integrate across applications to retain and grow supporter value​. Its out-of-the-box capabilities enable enterprise-level advancement organizations to work more effectively with large, multidimensional datasets, including:
- A holistic view of constituents to manage interactions with them based on whether they are Individuals, Households, Groups, or Corporations and maintain visibility into corporate hierarchy. 
- Sophisticated donor management capabilities such as Stewardship Plans, Fund Management, Recognition Programs, Naming Opportunities, and Donor Challenges to increase donor engagement.
- Market segmentation to support complex multi-channel outreach programs.
- Research and Analytics powered by Blackbaud’s native prospect research tool, ResearchPoint, including data modeling and benchmarking.
- Mobile and web access to empower on the go fundraisers with constituent information through their mobile devices.
- Direct
data access to cloud environments via read-only, read-write, and self-service
developer portal to speed development cycle while maintaining control and
optimizing security and compliance.
Blackbaud CRM Features
- Supported: A single source of truth with a holistic view of constituents whether they are Individuals, Households, Groups, or Corporations
- Supported: Moves management and stewardship capabilities to expand and nurture major donors
- Supported: Segmentation support for multi-channel campaigns
- Supported: Planned Giving, Matching Gift Management, and Online Giving to support specialized fundraising needs
- Supported: Automated receipting and acknowledgement, end-to-end credit card processing and robust accounting functionality streamline gift and revenue management
- Supported: Ability to tap into Blackbaud's philanthropic data set and data modeling
- Supported: Integration with business intelligence and data analytics solutions.
- Supported: Microsoft integrations to automate key visualizations, workflows and build low-code/no-code apps
- Supported: Open, industry-standard REST APIs to extend and customize the core CRM solution.
- Supported: Wide selection of partner apps in Blackbaud Marketplace.
- Supported: Extensible revenue data model to manage process of tracking, crediting and recognizing donors based on the gifts they make
- Supported: Embedded data hygiene management including duplication management and address validation
Blackbaud CRM Competitors
Blackbaud CRM Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | Mobile Web |
| Supported Countries | Global - US, Canada, EMEA, Asia-Pacific |
Frequently Asked Questions
Designed for large, complex organizations as well as federated and international nonprofits.
Salesforce Sales Cloud, Bloomerang, and Ellucian CRM Advance are common alternatives for Blackbaud CRM.
Reviewers rate Implementation Rating highest, with a score of 8.2.
The most common users of Blackbaud CRM are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings
(112)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
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January 16, 2024
Blackbaud
I use it to look up data on constituents I work with and keep others in the loop by recording my interactions with constituents. It is helpful to have one place to look for all information about a constituent.
- Allows me to link my email interactions directly into the system
- Has areas to store all information about a person
- Easy to pull just the information I need
January 04, 2024
BB e-CRM - Investigated, selected, installed and rewarded!
We use BBCRM to track all gifts by Alumni, Donors and friends to the University. This includes actual cash gifts, pledges, matching gifts, planned gifts etc. We populate the system with in depth bio, personal and financial data and then use the system to sort and highlight potential prospects. The system is available to all staff at the University although access to certain data is restricted by use case. Currently we have about 500 active users across campus. The system is available 24/7 and is reachable via any internet connection through a series of secure firewalls and MFA. It is also available on IOS devices.
- Accessing in-depth data for a single constituent is easily done and customizable by user working with "tiles" on the home screen
- Generating lists of possible prospects with specific similarities can be done with a few clicks and then stored for more research later
- well designed relationship options allow for a a look at specific constituents and how they might relate to other constituents in the system leading to more effective prospecting
- Screens can be easily customized by user or user group eliminating irrelevant data and presenting only truly relevant information
- Tighter integration with other BB products like Award Management would be nice
- Better emailing and event modules within BBIS would allow us to do more within CRM and not have to support extra software
- More and better API will allow users to build more sophisticated interface to external products
I work in stewardship, so I use the CRM to maintain fund records, update stewardship plans for donors, and track engagement.
- Easily add update info
- Historical record keeping
- Easy access to reporting and query features
- add comments/notes directly to stewardees
February 06, 2020
Blackbaud CRM has solved all of our needs!
At Florida State University, we currently use Blackbaud CRM across the entire organization. About 7 years ago, we switched from another platform that was very outdated and hard to use. Blackbaud CRM allowed us to add more details about the many constituents we serve, including current students, alumni, and friends of the university. We can track interactions, event attendance, giving history, and even keep notes within each constituent profile. It has helped us immensely as we all work with the same populations in different capacities.
- It is incredibly user-friendly! From the first time I opened a constituent profile, I could easily navigate between tabs and find the information I need in a timely fashion without confusion.
- It allows personalization! Depending on what information is most relevant to me, I can organize the widgets that are shown first. I typically look at the same few pieces of information on every profile, so I don't have to dig for it!
- I love the "Recently Accessed" feature to the left of the main page. It helps me navigate to the last few records I've looked at. However, if I'm doing a fuzzy search for "John Smith" and I click on the wrong one, it'd be great if that search was added to my "recently accessed" list, instead of just the record I clicked on. This would allow me to keep up with which names in the search I've already looked at.
- Query View! I have recently started using queries and they are so helpful. However, they are very difficult to learn and hard to tailor to exactly what I need. The main issue, as a higher education institution, is that a lot of our constituents have multiple pieces of information for categories. For example, if I want to pull a list of alumni who graduated with a degree in Marketing, some alumni may be missing if their primary degree is not Marketing - and some alumni may be repeated.
Blackbaud CRM would be a great tool for larger organizations or higher education institutions with a high quantity of constituents. It is great for organizing a lot of information in a single record. While it would be great for any organization, it may be under-utilized for smaller businesses that don't have repeat customers or constant information streams.
January 06, 2020
Blackbaud for your non-profit
My organization made the switch from an older, more basic database, to Blackbaud during the Summer of 2017. I was in charge of the process and the reason we made the jump was that the other database was too simple, didn't have enough functionality, or even multi-user access. Since making the transfer, the organization added more and more functionalities.
- Accurate collection of contact information.
- Multi-user access.
- Payment options.
- Forms.
February 27, 2019
CRM - A platform for growth and accountability
Blackbaud CRM is "the" software for large and complex nonprofits such as universities, hospitals, and national organizations. It is a full-featured CRM that manages everything from mailing lists to planned giving to grant management with deep reporting potential. The major contribution to a well-managed department of philanthropy is transparent accountability for fundraisers, processes and donor communication. That said, it is not a quick, easy or cheap implementation. You get what you pay for, and I believe this is a great product.
- Managing a large development/fundraising team's goals and outcomes
- Working hand-in-glove with various types of fundraising activities: research, on-line, direct mail, events, grants, and planned giving
- Layers of security that enable user groups to get what they need and nothing more
- Reporting! Reporting! Reporting!
- The marriage of event registration (on-line) and CRM needs some work.
- Challenges to adapt to organization culture surrounding things like "naming conventions", specialized reporting needs, some bugs in roll-up reporting on couples or families.
- Tribute giving tracking/reporting is awkward.
- Better shared language of function between BBCRM and other BB products like Netcommunity and Raiser's Edge. Can cause some errors in the implementation process.
- Netcommunity functionality pushing data to CRM is messy and fraught with challenges.
January 25, 2019
A highly flexible CRM solution for growing organizations
Blackbaud CRM was used to help manage funding and outreach efforts with a client that was a medium-sized non-profit organization. It provided a wealth of features and was sometimes a bit overly complex. Organizations that are looking to grow both financially and with its membership base will find a great deal to like about the product.
- Blackbaud CRM works really well with large member bases and outreach efforts.
- The program offers great CRM fundraising features for in-depth marketing campaigns.
- Blackbaud CRM can also be utilized and integrated alongside other Blackbaud products. This can make the product highly desirable for pre-existing Blackbaud product customers.
- The product is fairly complex and powerful. The implementation process can be difficult if not adequately prepared for in advance.
- The product really requires a dedicated staff to support it as an ongoing effort. It's not something can be left alone after installing.
- Training costs can be higher than other, less powerful CRM packages.
April 24, 2017
Such a Difference: Blackbaud's Help Desk
We are pretty much a Blackbaud shop, using Blackbaud products for finance, development, and student management. The push to go with Blackbaud has been mainly to build as seamless an interaction as possible between the needs of those three departments. We are soon going to implement the next version of the finance and fund development software, and are currently implementing the worlds-of-difference replacement Blackbaud is developing for their student management solutions.
- Help desk. Can't praise that enough. As the main in-house resource for figuring out all things Blackbaud, when something "interesting" occurs their online chat is both responsive, helpful, and delightfully prompt.
- Reaching out to customers to get their input. Particularly in the past 5 years, Blackbaud has vastly improved their interest in listening to their customers.
- The interface is overly complex - intimidating for the new user. That said, they are working on improving that with the next generation. It will be interesting to see what abilities will go by the wayside in an effort to simplify.
- Setting up user access is complex, and not complex enough in some cases.
April 19, 2016
My Review.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Blackbaud CRM is being used to track and inform our advancement and alumni activities for our department.
- Blackboard provides great training for their products which is important when introducing new team members to the necessary software.
- Blackbaud CRM allows easy web access to our database which is important when out in the field for real time updates.
- Blackbaud CRM improves team time management by allowing the inclusion of important and efficient reminders.
- I have no feedback in this area at this time.
March 04, 2016
Blackbaud CRM - Ready To Use Right Out Of The Box
I was implementing and training Blackbaud users at a non-profit client of mine. It was used as a donation and fundraising tracking system for a community college foundation. The system was very powerful, especially against the background of the client's former software infrastructure which consisted of an Access database combined with QuickBooks.
- Very flexible configuration options.
- Excellent reporting options.
- Tight accounting system integration.
- Learning curve steeper than other competing products.
- More expensive alternative to other systems.
- Social media functionality not there yet.
February 19, 2016
After 2 years of BB CRM, here's what I think!
It is used in several departments within the organization, serving multiple purposes. It addresses the business problem of housing donor and prospect data.
- I like how user-friendly and intuitive BB CRM is. A new user can learn quickly, which is a useful strength in our department.
- I like the customization of the features. What I want my layout to look like can be different than my colleagues.
- I also think Blackbaud is great at allowing you to get only want you want out of it. With such a large database, the ability to drill down to specific data records is super helpful.
- Querying for data is a complex process- one that requires much time and practice to get good at it.
- We have issues with our system during the import process- duplicate records are not handled well by the system.
- We're only just learning about export definitions, but once we know more, it seems to be a much better way to organize data output than query.
January 15, 2016
CRM after using and implementing for multiple organizations
Blackbaud CRM is being used by participating Federations (separate organizations) as their sub ledger for fund raising and overall constituent management. It provides the ability to have a comprehensive view of constituents and is customizable to meet additional needs.
- The user interface is user friendly, intuitive and customizable through security. Reduces the change management obstacle in training.
- The application is both configurable and customizable. This presents significant benefits in addressing unanticipated needs, once the proper resources, and training are established. Examples are creating custom reports, adding functionality, interfacing with other applications / platforms.
- Support and application enhancements. Blackbaud support is effective in addressing out of the box functionality and overall supporting customizations as well. Blackbaud's knowledge base and community provide several resources that can be leveraged in support and enhancing the application.
- As an enterprise application, I would like to see additional application administration functionality incorporated as part of the application. A specific example is providing additional functionality to address database maintenance.
- Additional report development tools to allow users (non technical) to create dynamic reports. Currently you can use MS Report Builder and leverage an adhoc query but believe this can be enhanced further.
- Surface the Financial Transaction Model to the application further. This would allow users to see revenue changes overtime better when reconciling revenue.
June 30, 2014
A Fundraiser's View of the CRM suite
Our organization used it as the database for donors. We used it across the organization, but primarily by fundraising and marketing staff. It addresses the problem of storing and retrieving information about donors and prospects, and then using that information for historical perspective, as well as sorting for mail lists, invitations to events, etc.
- Plenty of space to add detailed notes
- Easy for different members of the staff to see the same information
- Can be used well by trained staff to pull reports for management
- Not always easy to use when trying to find a new function that one was not previously familiar with
- No ability to use via iPhone or other mobile device
- Not easy for remote users who are not inside the secure company network to print reports - too many steps to go through the VPN, etc.
June 25, 2014
My Review and what it do...
I was using a specially developed version for helping the Salvation Army deploy emails and landing pages for various corps.
- Constituent Management - It's a great database to store donor information
- Email Deployment - Since joining with Convio there are a lot more functionalities
- Landing Page Provisioning - It's a great place to keep all assets in one place
- The main area for improvement is with access for agencies. Seeing that Salvation Army utilized many agencies it was hard to make sure that assets stayed unique to one place.
June 25, 2014
More than just a donor database
We use eTapestry as our donor database and as our moves management system for the entire organization. This includes the development department and well as marketing, mission services and our commercial services department, which has more sales functions. The main problem that it helps to address is lack of organized communication. With one search of the database, anyone can tell all of the activity that has been done with a constituent throughout the entire organization.
- Customization of fields is really awesome - you can do basically anything you can think of
- Report pulling is super useful and you can analyze any information that is in the database
- Mobile/remote access is particularly useful in our organization
- Reports can be tricky to get correct
- Mass imports are hard to get correct - you often have to refer back to the fields, which means you have to start over completely
- Sometimes, the system just runs super slow