Blackbaud NetCommunity Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 3.9 out of 10

Score

3.9 out of 10

Reviews

23 Reviews

NetCommunity For Now...

Rating: 2 out of 10

Incentivized

December 29, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use BBNC to host our donation pages, for event registrations and for blast e-mail communications. The integration with Raiser's Edge and the gift queue and to load communication lists from queries helps to limit the number of products we need and keep tight integration.

Pros

To have some web design for our giving pages within our departmental control has been helpful.
The integration between Query and BBNC for loading communication lists works very well.
Customer support for this product, via chat, has always been great.

Cons

When we have carding attacks on our payment gateway it is always a struggle to get all the players to work together and determine how to get us back up and running. ReCAPTCHA at the highest level is not supported, for example.
From experience, the product has not been stable in the last couple years and all signs have been pointing towards a sunsetting of this product for years.

Likelihood to Recommend

Personally, I would not recommend this product for new customers given there is a clear path now from Blackbaud for clients to get OFF of BBNC.

Darcy Turner

Senior Director of Advancement Services at University of New Haven (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

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Blackbaud NetCommunity helped us raise more funds!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

December 12, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have utilized Blackbaud NetCommunity for email communications with our constituents including e-newsletters, appeals, and special announcements. We also used Blackbaud NetCommunity for setting up donation pages on our website to collect gifts from our constituents. The forms allowed us to easily create donation pages that were secure and easy to use by our constituents.

Pros

Ease of donation forms online--secure donation pages are very important to our constituents.
Broadcast emails to our constituents

Cons

Better capabilities of creating forms within our website's design

Likelihood to Recommend

Blackbaud NetCommunity is a simple and straightforward fundraising platform and can be easily implemented. The program allows for email communications, sign-ups, and online donation forms. It is great for segmenting specific messages to different constituents. We had several different e-newsletters and constituents could sign up for specific ones. In addition, we could change the messaging in the emails to specific groups.

Linda Behrman

Director of Membership in Marketing at The Peregrine Fund (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

View profile

Solid

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 17, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Blackbaud to support all initiatives in the foundation. Whether it's online or through traditional media, Blackbaud has the software to support our needs.

Pros

Ease of use
Large community
Certificates available

Cons

Online forms could integrate better with CMS (other than iframe)
Better API to sync with other CRMs
Lower price

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for collecting online donations.

Sean Pomory

Digital Media Specialist in Marketing at Chesapeake Regional Healthcare (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Blackbaud NetCommunity: Better Results in Fundraising

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

July 16, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's being used across our Advancement division, particularly by our Advancement Services team and Communications department. It allows us to create mass communications for our constituencies. We're also able to do event-based fundraising via our event invitations and event registration forms. We're looking into the potential of e-cards as well as updating our event modules for better functioning and more modern registration pages.

Pros

Mass communications to constituents via integration with Raiser's Edge.
Analytics to track online transactions, open rates, opt-outs, bouncebacks.
Relatively easy to use interface.

Cons

Server is sluggish at times.
Issues with analytcs not always loading properly.
HTML coding changing communications after sending.

Likelihood to Recommend

Blackbaud NetCommunity is helpful for reaching mass populations via email communications and tracking analytics to record ROI on communications. It's particularly helpful for companies or institutions who are tasked with fundraising. The program shines with Raiser's Edge integration for event registration, attendee tracking, and mailing opt-outs. The program could use a facelift in its interface.

Verified User

Employee in Marketing (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

7 years of experience

NetCommunity - Integration is Key

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

March 3, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

NetCommunity is being used by the one group within the University to send emails. We are not currently using the community section of BBNC, although we did several years ago. We use NetCommunity with our constituent management software (Raiser's Edge) and the software programs are integrated so it streamlines data maintenance and ensures that we respect constituent communication preferences.

Pros

NetCommunity integrates with Raiser's Edge well.
It is fairly simple to construct an email.

Cons

NetCommunity has very simple analytics. It would be great to be able to see more in depth information on how constituents are reacting to the email they receive.
Though it is simple to construct an email, making a complex design can be challenging due to the limitations of the design tool.
Although A/B testing is available within NetCommunity, it is not easy to set up.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you have Raiser's Edge, NetCommunity is beneficial because of the data integration. If you do not have Raiser's Edge, you might be better off choosing a different provider, as many of the newer services, like MailChimp, are more intuitive and user-friendly.

Lily Barger

Business Systems Analyst in Information Technology at University of California, Riverside (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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Perspective from a Newbie!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 13, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have worked with NetCommunity for a number of years and feel that it is well designed...If you are a Raiser's Edge user, NetCommunity is the way to go.

Pros

Email marketing efforts are more targeted and now have a higher response rate. This equates to increased fundraising dollars.
A/B split testing has allowed us to further tailor content that is preferred by our audience. This targeting allows us to be more successful in gaining conversions, event registrations, etc.

Cons

For mass volumes of data, the Raiser's Edge plug-in can become tedious to manage.

Likelihood to Recommend

The migration of data from another software was very easy. All we needed to do was map the existing fields and we were able to create custom fields to accommodate specific needs of the clients.The dashboards and reports are excellent tools for management to make decisions about fundraising efforts.The complete records for each constituent and the ability to connect constituents to one another and to corporate donors enable my clients to reach out in specific campaigns that are tailored to move a group of donors.

Brandon Dix

Sales Executive in Sales at Workfront (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

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Blackbaud NetCommunity is not the most user-friendly, however integrates with Blackbaud products

Rating: 7 out of 10

December 12, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am a Blackbaud site admin for my organization. I work for the Foundation of American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry so we use Blackbaud NetCommunity in our Foundation for our website donation page. We have a Blackbaud hosted WordPress site that I also manage and our donation forms are available through NetCommunity for our give now page.

Pros

NetCommunity allows you to update your donation form and mobile donation page.
You are able to create emails and newsletters.
It allows you to find solutions to campaign and marketing needs.

Cons

Not very user-friendly. It took me some time to figure out how to update our donation form and to make our mobile donation form match our desktop version.
The templates could be a lot more user-friendly for the end user. I feel there are way too many tabs for the donors to go through to make a donation which may steer them away from donating.
Some donors have had error messages when making donations however this could be the case with every website as issues do arise sometimes.

Likelihood to Recommend

NetCommunity is perfect for any fundraising donation, email, communication need. NetCommunity is a great tool for a small business/foundation. It integrates with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge so if you are looking to have all your email, relationship, marketing tools in-house then stick with Blackbaud NetCommunity and all products related.

Michelle Hidalgo

Development and Marketing Manager at Healthy Smiles, Healthy Children: Foundation of American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

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Completely Satisfied

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 23, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Blackbaud NetCommunity (BBNC) for foundation-related event registrations and online contributions. It allows us to create varied means by which the donor or other constituents can become an active participant in the worthwhile endeavors of our organization.

Pros

Handles all donations and event registrations well.
I appreciate the ability NetCommunity has to link with The Raiser's Edge. Makes data entry very easy and efficient in handling donations and event registrations.
My first experience with NetCommunity was approximately 5 years ago. I have not received formal training and had to learn things on my own (with help from support and documentation). It was easy to learn and I gladly use it still to this day.

Cons

I believe added flexibility and customization would be beneficial. Perhaps, the ability is there, but I have not yet tapped into it's potential. For example, it would be nice to add more than just a logo on the registration page.
Not sure of what else there is. It has served it's purpose for me quite well.

Likelihood to Recommend

I believe it is well suited for online donations, memberships, event registrations, and email communications. It does quite well in what I've needed it to do. It would be nice to have added customization in event registrations, but perhaps I have not asked the correct questions that would get me to that point.

Verified User

Manager (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

My co-worker, NetCommunity

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

April 12, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use Blackbaud NetCommunity (BBNC) for our agency's website platform, email, donations and event ticket sales.

Pros

BBNC transfers the data from the website (donations and ticket sales) directly into Raiser's Edge seamlessly.
The building of the site is very user-friendly and easy to use.

Cons

BBNC could improve on the look and feel of the event module pages - very plain.
BBNC could improve on the functionality of the event module pages and donation pages.

Likelihood to Recommend

BBNC is an all in one system allowing the administrator to go to the website, log in the back end and make immediate changes versus having to go to a different system to make the changes.

Nathan B. Smith

Director of Development & Marketing at RAIN, Inc. (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

7 years of experience

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basic but useful

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

April 6, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use NC in 3 ways:

1) it hosts our donation forms

2) we create event registration forms (only ticketed events)

3) we send out e-blasts from NC

NC Spark is used primarily by the fundraising and marketing departments but it services the whole organization.

Pros

Donation forms can be set up for each specific campaign and linked to specific funds and appeals in Raiser's Edge
Event registrations/ticket sales are also lined directly to the event records in Raiser's Edge
NC pulls data needed for sending out e-blasts directly from Raiser's Edge which makes it possible not to have to recreate email lists all the time because you can send it using Raiser's Edge queries. We also like the tracking feature where we know how many emails were opened and resulted in donations

Cons

The E-Card functionality is not perfect. We had difficulty sending out e-cards with multiple recipients as all the selected recipients ended up getting emails with the first name of the first recipient used for all of them in the addressee sections. Blackbaud has been unable to fix it for us so we are forced to continue using the limited Ecards function
It is not mobile friendly
It needs to have multiple unsubscribe levels - right now it only gives an option to unsubscribe but we would like to add different levels of subscription
The emails look different in preview vs the final version

Likelihood to Recommend

It is pretty user friendly and easy to use. Each donation form can be linked to an event in Raiser's Edge which is pretty handy. It allows to quickly set up event pages which links to RE easily too.

It is not suitable for peer-to-peer fundraising

Lena Trubnikova

Operations Director in Finance and Accounting at Autism Speaks Canada (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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basic but useful

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

April 6, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use NC in 3 ways:

1) it hosts our donation forms

2) we create event registration forms (only ticketed events)

3) we send out e-blasts from NC

NC Spark is used primarily by the fundraising and marketing departments but it services the whole organization.

Pros

Donation forms can be set up for each specific campaign and linked to specific funds and appeals in Raiser's Edge
Event registrations/ticket sales are also lined directly to the event records in Raiser's Edge
NC pulls data needed for sending out e-blasts directly from Raiser's Edge which makes it possible not to have to recreate email lists all the time because you can send it using Raiser's Edge queries. We also like the tracking feature where we know how many emails were opened and resulted in donations

Cons

The E-Card functionality is not perfect. We had difficulty sending out e-cards with multiple recipients as all the selected recipients ended up getting emails with the first name of the first recipient used for all of them in the addressee sections. Blackbaud has been unable to fix it for us so we are forced to continue using the limited Ecards function
It is not mobile friendly
It needs to have multiple unsubscribe levels - right now it only gives an option to unsubscribe but we would like to add different levels of subscription
The emails look different in preview vs the final version

Likelihood to Recommend

It is pretty user friendly and easy to use. Each donation form can be linked to an event in Raiser's Edge which is pretty handy. It allows to quickly set up event pages which links to RE easily too.

It is not suitable for peer-to-peer fundraising

Lena Trubnikova

Operations Director in Finance and Accounting at Autism Speaks Canada (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile