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Bloomerang

Bloomerang

Overview

What is Bloomerang?

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…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Bloomerang is widely used across organizations to effectively track and manage various aspects of donor and constituent information, …
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Solid choice

8 out of 10
March 01, 2019
Incentivized
Our development and finance teams use Bloomerang to manage all donor relationships and track all donation and pledge transactions. We used …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Pricing

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Standard

$119

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://bloomerang.co/pricing-plans

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $79 per month
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Product Demos

Plants vs Zombies 2 Toys Action Figure Catapult Zombie - Demo ...

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Plants vs Zombies 2 Toys Action Figure Bloomerang - Demo and ...

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Product Details

What is Bloomerang?

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 designed to deliver maximum results, maximum utilization by the organization’s team and maximum flexibility with no need for additional technology spending on their part.

Additionally, the vendor says their solution, plugs in the latest technologies and delivers them with a clean, modern interface - thus giving organizations a cloud-based system that is their “go-to” for better fundraising.

Bloomerang Screenshots

Screenshot of DashboardScreenshot of Letters & MailingsScreenshot of Constituent TimelineScreenshot of Report TemplatesScreenshot of Email AnalyticsScreenshot of Email EditorScreenshot of Communications AuditScreenshot of Constituent SummaryScreenshot of Constituent ProfileScreenshot of Twitter Listening HubScreenshot of Task ListScreenshot of Constituent Relationships

Bloomerang Video

About Bloomerang

Bloomerang Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS
Supported CountriesUnited States
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

Bloomerang starts at $79.

Blackbaud eTapestry, DonorPerfect, and Neon CRM are common alternatives for Bloomerang.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of Bloomerang are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

Bloomerang Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)90%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)5%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)5%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(160)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Bloomerang is widely used across organizations to effectively track and manage various aspects of donor and constituent information, communications, and fundraising efforts. With its user-friendly cloud-based system, users have the flexibility to access and manage their donor CRM system from anywhere. This ease of access allows for efficient tracking and management of individual donors, corporate, foundation, and government grants, event attendees, newsletter subscribers, website visitors, and more.

One of the key benefits of Bloomerang is its capability to streamline the development process. Users can easily enter gifts, create gift acknowledgments, manage donor interactions, and generate comprehensive reports. This platform offers tremendous functionality at a reasonable cost. It allows users to create and manage custom fields without requiring external support or consultants. This customization feature enables organizations to tailor the system to their specific needs.

Organizations rely on Bloomerang to address various challenges they face in donor management. The platform simplifies tasks such as segmenting donors, tracking donor retention rates, managing event attendance, and collecting online donations. It also provides robust reporting and communication features that help organizations identify weak spots in donor retention and track the results of direct mail campaigns. Overall, Bloomerang solves the problem of ease of use for multiple employees while providing simplicity, customization options, powerful reporting capabilities, and effective communication tools.

Intuitive and User-Friendly Interface: Users consistently praise Bloomerang for its intuitive and user-friendly interface, with many stating that it makes the software easy to navigate and perform tasks quickly. This sentiment is shared by a majority of reviewers, who appreciate the simplicity and efficiency that the interface provides.

Helpful Chat Support Function: The chat function in Bloomerang's support system receives high appreciation from users, as it allows for easy and immediate assistance. Several reviewers have mentioned how valuable it is to be able to connect with customer support through live chat, enabling them to resolve their queries or issues promptly.

Comprehensive Donor Relationship Tracking: Users highly value Bloomerang's donor relationship tracking feature, particularly the timeline view which offers a comprehensive overview of each constituent's interactions. Many users find this functionality extremely helpful in managing and nurturing their relationships with donors effectively.

Confusing User Interface: Some users have found the user interface of Bloomerang to be confusing, which has made it challenging for them to efficiently manage tasks. They have expressed difficulties in navigating the system and understanding how to perform certain actions.

Steep Learning Curve: Several reviewers mentioned that it took them a significant amount of time to learn how to use Bloomerang effectively. They had to rely on watching instructional videos and reading blog posts in order to grasp the functionalities of the software.

Limited Customization Options: Users desire more flexibility and customization options within Bloomerang. Specifically, they would like greater control over customizing online forms according to their specific needs. Additionally, they express a need for more automated report generation features that cater to different purposes and requirements.

Based on user reviews, users commonly recommend the following for Bloomerang:

Consider specific features and needs. Thoroughly evaluate the specific features and needs of your organization before choosing Bloomerang. Explore different donor databases to find the best fit for your individual needs and comfort levels with cloud-based CRM or donor databases.

Try it out and utilize support. Give Bloomerang a try and experience its ease of use. Take advantage of the strong support provided by reaching out to staff with any questions. Make use of the helpful resources available on the website.

Keep database organized and avoid duplicates. To keep costs down when using Bloomerang, it is advised to keep your database organized and avoid duplicates. Clean and accurate data is emphasized for effective use of the software.

Overall, users recommend Bloomerang for smaller nonprofits as it seems to be an ideal fit for their donor management needs. They highlight its ease of use, strong support, and cost-effectiveness. However, they also suggest considering specific requirements and thoroughly vetting information before switching to Bloomerang for an easier conversion process.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(51-75 of 99)
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it as our CRM for donor and prospect management. As a smaller non-profit, I am the main user, and my CEO and COO have access to it, but do not use it daily. Bloomerang makes it easy to run reports, manage tasks and quick snapshots. It's very easy to use.
  • User-Friendly
  • GREAT, friendly technical support
  • Organizing and tracking funds, campaigns, appeals
  • Although it allows customization of fields, it would be easier if they had more templates.
It's much more affordable and easier to use than Raiser's Edge (RE). It's great for smaller non-profits, but I see the value for any size to use. I wish there could be more customization on the online forms so you could personalize more than just your logo.
Patti Combs | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is used by all members of our nonprofit team. We use it for all donor database systems from donation entry, acknowledgments, and reporting and tracking to fundraising event participation. It is so super simple to use that all members of our team train and get updated training with the online scheduled webinars to accessing the library of cataloged webinars. I also use the past webinars as refreshers or for more in-depth learning.
  • Our staff can immediately send donation acknowledgement letters super efficiently while also preparing donation deposit forms uploading addresses, etc.
  • I can continue to build reports and to add categories when a board member has asked to have a specific event or type of funding tracked.
  • Volunteers are easier to track with skill sets and calendaring availability and documents pertaining to each volunteer is saved in one place so all team members may access them as needed.
  • Personalizing individual acknowledgement letters is a real need when I am using a template for a donation but also want to add a side note.
  • Wish I could personalize one or two separate letters out of an entire batch when all don't need to be personalized.
  • Wish I could reorganize the new person/organization entry fields so I don't have to scroll down through all the fields to get to the ones that I use most frequently. I'd move fields around so I could put the more frequently used fields at the top of the entry and the more obtuse fields towards the bottom so I could scroll down only when I need to... Would make new entries go a lot faster.
Well suited to work with data entry volunteers that are not real computer savvy - super simple and clear.
June 02, 2017

Bloomerang Review

Scarlett Cmiel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's a database. We use it to track our data within the whole organization. It does not address any specific problems other than allowing us to keep track of our data...duh!
  • Reporting function is fabulous
  • Interaction feature is very slow and we have frequent glitches.
  • Formatting is from back in the stone ages for letters and newsletters. We were told this could replace Constant Contact and unless we want our newsletter to look like it was typed on an old manual typewriter, we need to keep Constant Contact which is an additional expense we were told by our sales rep we would be able to get rid of.
  • Need to expand formatting to include the ability for being able to group by more than one column.
  • Need to be able to create multiple interactions and/or copy interactions.
It's a database. If you want to track your data it is good.
June 02, 2017

We love Bloomerang!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used by our non-profit to manage donor information and volunteers. It provides detailed reports, accuracy in providing tax letters and an up to date clear list of supporters.
  • The software is intuitive.
  • The reports are easy to produce and modify to fit the search requirements.
  • Online support is fast and provides clear guidance.
  • Multiple year pledge tracking.
  • The drop down menu near names on the left so it is is easier click.
It is perfectly suited for our small non-profit. We rely on the data tracking and ability to create reports.
June 02, 2017

Bloomerang Review

Marilee Meriweather Walker | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use this platform to track and log all constituent donations for our annual fund and our capital campaign. Bloomerang has special features that allow us to run reports on certain donor groups and also send out email blasts. We use Bloomerang almost everyday.
  • User-friendly
  • Great support team
  • Track donor retention
  • Email blasts
  • Reports were difficult to work at times
  • Printing tax thank you letters difficult to work at times
If your organization is raising funds for a specific campaign, bloomerang is your best bet. Very easy to log all donations and track donor retention.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Bloomerang to track donor information. It is integrated with our accounting software, Aplos. We are a small organization, so it used only by the development director and myself (executive director). FYI ... I currently serve as executive director in a volunteer part-time capacity; it is not on my LinkedIn profile.
  • The interface is intuitive and easy to use.
  • It offers a good solution to the always difficult challenge of how to deal with multiple people in a household.
  • Reporting is very flexible.
  • The integration with Aplos needs work. It's not clear to me why names of donors are not transferred from Bloomerang to the Aplos donors list.
  • Every contribution recorded in Bloomerang seems to get transferred to Aplos as a Stripe contribution. Aplos tech support is trying to figure out if I can instruct Aplos or Bloomerang on how to report a source of a contribution rather than have all contributions be listed as Stripe contributions.
I would think it would be good for any small not for profit. My only hesitation about it is the integration with Aplos.
Alyssa Treff | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is currently only being used in one department. However it integrates with other software that may allow it to be utilized by multiple departments in the future. It is a donor database system that we use to manage our contribution and constituent records. Our old software was out of date and didn't have the ease of use that a cloud based system offers. Now we do not have to wait to be at our desks to answer even the smallest questions about an individual or their donation history. Additionally it allows us to keep track of interactions and contact with our VIPs.
  • Because of Bloomerang I can get up to date retention and attrition information without having to pull out a calculator or produce 10 reports to compile the information.
  • I am a fan of how intuitive the search function is. Many of our constituents are international and have unique name spellings. Bloomerang is able to understand my intention even if I misplace a vowel. Our old system was case sensitive and this caused some search issues at critical moments.
  • The reports once set up and saved are constantly dynamic. I can set up a report to show all the donations in the last week and because of the dynamic system it will do this no matter the week, i.e. I do not need to put in the week dates every time I need to pull the information.
  • The timeline is one of my favorite functions. I can easily get a glance of all the interactions between our organization and the constituent.
  • Donor Search is an amazing feature to have access to. We are able to pull up important prospecting information with ease.
  • I wish there was a mass change/update function available. In the post conversion time there are things that need to be cleaned up and this takes up a chunk of man hours.
  • The acknowledgement letters are a bit complicated at the onset. I do like that they recently updated to allow you to change it in the system. In future I hope they allow you to download the merged letters in a Word doc and not just a PDF.
Bloomerang is a very useful system if your organization likes to track as much as possible about an individual. It is also extremely user-friendly which is an advantage if your staff is not particularly tech savvy or if they are, it allows them to learn very quickly. I do think it a bit too big of a system for small nonprofits.
May 31, 2017

Bloomerang Review

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is being used by the development team to keep track of our donors.
  • Easy to use. Everything is in a convenient and relatively obvious location, making it quick and simple to use.
  • Malleable. If the things that a company needs are not available the program is flexible enough that any company can track the information they need or make a company specific report.
  • Provides support. The live chat and the tutorial pages are very helpful for quick questions. This allows users to return to work quickly.
  • A calendar feature for the tasks for people who are more visual.
  • An easier way to track foundation and grants under the donations tab rather than the notes section.
  • It would be helpful to have the ability to run a report and group transactions by month and year rather than the full date.
Bloomerang is well suited to nonprofit development but not designed for nonprofit volunteer data.
Mark Slocum | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is our primary database and we use partner companies for additional services. Love the complete integration!
  • Lots of intuitive built in reporting
  • Integrates with our website
  • Customer service has been exceptional
  • Nothing yet. Most everything has been thought of and is somewhere in the queue. We would like the ability to add our corporate fonts - but that isn't an issue.
Bloomerang works well with partner companies eliminating the need for duplicate entries. A great time saver and leads to more accuracy.
Tammy Anderson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Bloomerang to manage our donor development and fundraising department. Currently we are only using it in that department but see how we could eventually expand that to other areas. Bloomerang is a fun product to use and it helps keep our information organized. It also gives us a snapshot of where we are at on our goals.
  • This might not seem important to some, but the way Bloomerang looks is very important to me. It is visually pleasing and fun to use!
  • It is easy to use!
  • I love the educational opportunities with webinars and help information.
  • I wish there was little stickers I could choose from to pin at the top of a donor's page. It might indicate they are a former board member, or other things that I want to see without going further into their page.
I have used a few other donor systems over my career. All of them were so complicated. It felt like I needed to get a Ph.D.in order to figure out how to run reports. Bloomerang is easy to use and I can retrieve the information I need without feeling overwhelmed.
Robert Lundy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a small non-profit, we needed a database that was easy to use and yet still capable of handling our thousands of contacts. Bloomerang has been fantastic. It's enabled us to look at data in a new way that is understandable, useful and relevant to our needs. With so much data to sort through and with a limited staff (no full-time fundraiser), it can be hard filtering out the unimportant or irrelevant data when it comes to constituents. Bloomerang has helped see what we need to focus on and where we need to spend our efforts (retention and segmentation).
  • Dashboard: gives a great overview of where you are to date and what tasks you have planned. It helps me stay on top of my contacts.
  • Donor timeline: I love looking at this to get a quick overview of a constituent's giving record and relationship with us.
  • Ease of use: The ability to quickly and easily update records is so nice. Its frustrating to spend as much time uploading and sorting as you spend analyzing data. Bloom has reduced the amount of time I used to spend creating just the right report to find what I needed. Now, Its almost intuitive.
  • Email and letter editors are lacking. They are basically just a simplified text platform.
Great for smaller non-profits but maybe not as robust as a big organization would like.
May 30, 2017

Bloomerang rocks!

Robin Halsted | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is currently being used by our organization for two purposes. The first is donor management. Bloomerang enables simple communication and donor tracking in a way that helps us to organize and identify our friends and supporters. For donor information, we couldn't be happier with our experience ... Bloomerang is easy to use. Second, we are currently utilizing Bloomerang to handle our membership base. This has been a bit of a challenge because it is not set up for membership, but rather donor relations. However, the staff of Bloomerang has been attentive and helpful in directing our management of members as well, though we still have some bugs to iron out.
  • Adding and receipting gifts. The process is clean, simple and direct.
  • Tracking donor involvement. The information shown on the landing page for the individual contains all the information needed at a quick glance.
  • Step by step guidance available 24/7 within the Bloomerang site. There are always new tasks and projects and this portion of the database has been very helpful in covering each step so that our database is at optimum efficiency.
  • Live Chat. For our start-up non-profit, the live chat has been helpful in trouble-shooting and answering questions that we either missed or were unclear. They are friendly, prompt and willing to tackle any issue.
  • Adding family members. It is simple to add an individual and set up a household account. However, when adding a new family member to that account, all the information must be completely added again. For example, with husband and wife, an option to copy information would be time-saving and helpful because all the address and connection information are the same.
  • For online forms, I would like to have the option to have calculations available. For example, we currently have memberships that are potential donors, but not current donors. For these memberships, we would like to offer discounts at various times or have additional packaging available with added fees, but this is not possible. All calculations must be done in advance and offered in a way that appears somewhat messy and confusing to the viewer. (I understand Bloomerang is designed primarily for donors, but this could be an easy fix.)
  • More design options within the email/reports sections so that our newsletters and communications have a bit more finesse.
Bloomerang is well suited for donor communications, reporting and relationship building. It is less appropriate for communications or for uses that are member-related. Overall, it is a great product.
Vickie Lootens | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is used as our donor database and is used in our Development and Marketing departments. The only problem we've encountered is that you cannot customize a current pledge in the system.
  • Bloomerang is extremely user-friendly. The timeline is easy to read and allows for a quick glance of your touches without clicking on each individual contact.
  • Bloomerang's customer service is exceptional. Whenever we have a question, we can chat right online and they will provide a very detailed step by step instructions. They really hold your hand through anything.
  • We switched from eTapestry to Bloomerang which is saving us thousands of dollars without giving up what we need.
  • The biggest recommendation is adding a feature to customize current pledges so that the pledges can merge together.
  • If a couple donates, it will only show the donation on the primary person's profile. For reporting purposes, it would be nice to show both names.
  • During the conversation, customized pledges did not convert correctly which lead to a lot of clean up on our end.
Bloomerang is fantastic and listens to their customers' needs. We requested to have the ability to attach documents, and within weeks, we were able to attach documents. Reporting is easy and efficient. Saves up time for sure.
May 26, 2017

Bloomerang Review

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Bloomerang to manage donors across two organizations. It is in the process of being used across the whole organization to manage our donor database and to provide reporting for our development officer.
  • Dashboard clearly shows present time
  • All activity is able to be integrated for reporting -- from giving to volunteer to interactions made with individuals from the organization.
  • Defining criteria for specific mailings and reports is quite complex.
  • There is not a way to show involvement by household and so we have to softcredit each member in order to show involvement.
  • It is not possible to record individuals who are part of an organization making pledges on a monthly basis. We have to go back in and change all entrys in an import individually to have them account for the payment after the import has been made.
  • It is next to impossible to integrate two organizations in a way that is easy to use with one database
  • This is not a good database program to integrate with accounting
If the colleague is looking for database management only for their organization I would highly recommend Bloomerang, and I have done so. We are learning, for our purposes that this is probably not going to work for us in the long term. We need a much more integrated program to be efficient.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is our donor software for the entire organization. It addresses the capture of donor data and event sponsorship/registration while providing donor communication tools (letters and emails) and reports regarding donor retention, et. al. and dashboards to manage individual fundraising campaigns. We also use the credit card feature (Stripe partnership with Bloomerang) for easy payment processing.
  • Very intuitive system to use--functionality is a strength. Customer support through ongoing webinars about different functions of the software have been particularly helpful.
  • Like the letter writing template that checks for use of reader-level language that will make our appeals more effective.
  • Like the drag and drop donor/event registration email communication templates that are easy to use. We were able to boost attendance and revenue at a recent fundraising event because of a strategy that made use of the email communication feature.
  • Still getting the hang of the reporting function, but much easier to use than our former software. Like the link to Donor Search but haven't used it a lot yet.
  • May be a missing piece of knowledge on my side, but printing mailing labels has been a challenge to have all the fields where I want them to be. I seem to have to enter all of my basic data into the "individuals" tab instead of "organizations" to make this work (even if I would like the data to be in "organizations").
  • Publishing emails/event registration to our website has a bit of a challenge--it's not an intuitive process. But Bloomerang customer support was able to assist our IT technician to help provide a solution.
  • It's my first year using the system and I am still learning about many aspects. The custom conversion from our former system had a number of bugs in it that I am still weeding out--that has been time consuming.
We purchased Bloomerang because it offers a variety of features that we felt would help us increase our base of individual support, make it easier to register event attendees and provide tools for more effective donor communication. While we are still learning how to use the various features the system provides, we are happy with our purchase.
Melissa Gibson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is used by development staff specifically for donor management and analytics. The organizations I've worked with have had very little information about their donors, their giving habits, and no systemized way to organize or contact them.
  • Ease of use - highly intuitive platform
  • In depth analytics - users are able to generate reports with very little difficulty
  • For mid-sized non-profits, affordability is an issue. The organizations I've worked with were able to get substantial discounts through TechSoup, but there are others that would love to use the platform that aren't able to afford it.
Bloomerang is lovely for growing organizations that are looking to learn more about their donors with a software that's able to grow with the organization. It's also great for organizations with a TON of constituents that need easy ways to pare down the data.
Kaila Rome | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Bloomerang as a donor database as well as a volunteer management tool. We also use it as our mass communication tool through emails, letters and newsletters. All full-time staff and a few volunteers use the system.
  • It allows you to customize your screens so you only see what you'd like to see. For example, each constituent profile is exactly the information that we chose to show up.
  • It is easy to track gifts by dates or totals or appeals or any way you'd like. The reporting functions work well when you understand the filter features.
  • Sending and tracking emails is something that works really well. The tracking tool is excellent for us to clean up the database and ensure the folks who we want to get our emails are and update addresses on bounced emails.
  • The email template options are too limited. We cannot upload large enough photos and the text fields are really glitchy at times. The formatting just does not work as well as we'd hoped. It's pretty limited to a few fonts and a few sizes only.
  • I wish the reports would automatically filter out deceased donors and soft credit gifts instead of manually doing that every time we build a report.
  • Inability to edit thank you letters on the spot is a big issue. The fact that all letters are batched into a pdf file is a big pain. There are sometimes changes in those letters that I'd like to make for a few donors but you cannot edit any letters individually. I wish they would download as a word document so we can make the individual edits.
  • Sometimes there are also glitches in reports where no results show up at all and it's tricky to figure out what to change to get a report. I think that I am filtering for all the things I want to see, then it shows zero results and I go back and unfilter something and it gives me results I need to manually filter.
  • I wish the dashboard would show more instant graphs such as appeals for the year or gifts compared to last year, just some quick report images that are visually easy to see how your progress is.
It has replaced MailChimp for our mass email and newsletter program so we don't need to keep constituent's emails or info in 2 places, that's been helpful. You can't customize the emails as easily as in MailChimp however. It is really user-friendly so pretty much anyone can figure out how to use it. We recently synced with Aplos too so it's helped our accounting be more accurate as well.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I did not make the decision to get Bloomerang myself. It was a decision made by the executive director and myself with input from the board. I am the board chair. It's a small arts organization. I am employed at a large nonprofit in the human services sector, and we use Raisers Edge. All that is background because the answer choices on the last page were not exactly indicative of my true answers. At the arts organization, we did not have any constituent management database. I researched the field of offerings, and Bloomerang seemed ideal for our small nonprofit. Besides, their HQ is just down the street. We liked the simplicity of the interface, the training, the price, and the features of Bloomerang, without the complexities that other databases have. Our first task in using Bloomerang was to undergo as much training as we could and start entering our constituents into it. The assistance from the company was outstanding as was the online help and the user groups' various advice on matters that we were challenged with. The database is used by myself, the executive director, a volunteer, and our program manager. We do not yet use Bloomerang for most reporting and mailings though. We are very small and still learning the system.
  • Well designed interface (system graphics).
  • Easy to understand their tutorials.
  • Quite comprehensive for our purposes as a small organization.
  • For the purpose of our small arts organization, I do not see any need to improve it. I did arrange for a demonstration when my employer (large human services organization) was looking for a new constituent management database. We previewed Bloomerang, but it wasn't robust enough for our needs (20K+ records).
I think it is well suited for a small to mid-sized nonprofit.
May 26, 2017

Bloomerang works!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use this to manage information on our volunteers and donors. Letters and emails can easily be automated and run through this system.
  • It keeps your Donor Retention front and center
  • Its design is very intuitive
  • It makes running reports simple
  • It would be good if you could better restrict access to donor information from assigned users.
  • Very easy to use system that has a great visual representation.
  • A constituent's history of giving, volunteering, communications made, events attended all show up on a visual timeline.
Gwendolyn Tunnicliffe | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am the main user of Bloomerang, though a few other employees sporadically use it. It's used as our donor database and ticketing software. This way, we have a complete profile of how individuals interact with our company.
  • The live chat is invaluable. I use it every time I'm doing something new on Bloomerang to troubleshoot. They're very friendly, clear, and helpful. I like that they look at your account with you to solve problems together.
  • It's user-friendly. The design is intuitive, clear, and modern.
  • The help videos and tutorials are really useful. When you switch to Bloomerang, they set you up for success by providing all the resources you need to get started.
  • I would love a duplicate report. It's time consuming to manually search when I upload a batch.
I like that I feel I'm using the database to its full potential. It works well for smaller organizations - I've never felt too overwhelmed by the capabilities. I use pretty much all of the functions. The homepage visuals also changed the way that I think about our progress. Its function is to focus on retention rate and engagement, rather than just dollars earned. This gives me a fuller picture of how my constituents are engaged with my organization.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is used as the donor database system that tracks giving and donor communication and cultivation.
  • Bloomerang's desktop page that provides snapshots of campaigns is very easy to understand and intuitive. I like how the layout and icons are easy to adopt. Overall, the system is easy to use because of the layout/design.
  • It's very important that donor relationships are cultivated and maintained. Bloomerang allows us to do this more efficiently through the Timeline, letters and soft credits. All these factors allow us to build a better profile of the donor.
  • Access to the site on a mobile device is well done. There is little lag and it works just like the desktop instead of re-learning a mobile version.
  • As a small nonprofit, we can't afford to have a separate wealth search engine, but the Donor Search within Bloomerang made it accessible to us.
  • The reporting is very malleable. It allows us to customize a report by every way imaginable.
  • I love the desktop snapshot feature, but the campaigns on their can't be customized to reflect only donations or pledge payments, versus donations and pledges. I wish their was a greater ability to customize the desktop.
  • I cannot connect PayPal to Bloomerang so I have to input things individually. I do have Stripe but there are some things on the website like event tickets that aren't connected to Stripe.
  • We do peer-to-peer fundraising. We currently put the person fundraising as the donor with a pledge. But, they receive donations from other people and we can't find a way to credit that pledge from someone else donation. Peer-to-peer fundraising isn't new and there should be a way to do this within Bloomerang.
  • The letters are great, but I wish instead of a PDF it would export it as a Word or GoogleDoc making it easier to adjust text after running.
  • Event management - We need to not only be able to register people for events and process their payment, but we need to be able to track event expenses and like letters, create unique tickets for events.
Bloomerang is well suited for our small nonprofit. We have an annual budget of $700/K with the goal of growing to $1M in the next two years. Bloomerang allows us to get a better and more complete profile of our donors through tracking cultivation and maintaining relationships. Currently 50% of our budget is from grants, so Bloomerang allows us to track those as well. But, 30% of our revenue comes from special events. Bloomerang isn't capable of handling registration, processing tickets and creating unique QR/barcodes for tickets.
May 24, 2017

Bloomerang 2017

Greg Munson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The development department uses Bloomerang to track our donors.
  • It is easy to query
  • Information is easy to read
  • We can do E-blasts and donor searches
  • Not allowing donations or notes to be listed/written under the household
  • Some of the queries are useful, but some need help with defining and refining the results - can't think of specific things, but there are areas where we can do a search one way or narrow down in one area, but not another.
  • The design of the e-blasts are not often easy to use - being able to modify an existing template would be better and design is a challenge with importing graphics that cannot be searched for.
I think overall, it is useful. It is still a young program, so it will improve in time.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is used by our development department. It successfully keeps all of our contacts in one internet-based database.
  • Flexibility
  • Reporting
  • Ease of Use
  • Expense
  • Tracking donations to an individual who fundraises from both the donor and the fundraiser
  • Importing from an old database
If someone has never used a database or wants to use an online database, it is an ideal fit. It is easy to use and makes reporting easy.

I would not typically use it for volunteer tracking. There is that option, but as an organization with extensive volunteers it could get expensive (because you pay based on the number of entries) as well as it's much better suited to development.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bloomerang is currently being used by the development department to record donations, conduct donor wealth screenings, run reports, and generate letters. The marketing department utilizes Bloomerang to create email blasts and newsletters.
  • Creating reports on Bloomerang has become a helpful tool as it is very user-friendly and allows our development department to track donations and grants.
  • We enjoy Bloomerang's webinars that provide clear step by step instructions that allow our department to utilize advanced reporting, grant tracking, data cleansing, etc. As Bloomerang is advancing we are too! We are learning so many new skills from Bloomerang that are extremely beneficial.
  • Whenever we need assistance, Bloomerang is so quick to respond via email, chat online, and help and video support!
Bloomerang is extremely user-friendly! When I first started my position we were using a database that was frustrating to use because of the limitations of certain functions. After transferring to Bloomerang you immediately see the difference of how easy it is to use and the homepage comes in handy because it focuses on tracking your goals.
sarah Otis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our use of Bloomerang has been within the last year. I was hired in to manage the development and alumni relations of a Midwest school system and so was given several options of software and support to manage our data and alumni donor base. This system allows us to manage from the ground up our development business. We have already used it to reach alumni that have not had contact with our school in over 60 or so years. It has helped us grow our connection/relationship business (cultivation) and can see it moving us to new heights in development. I needed a simple tool...intuitive and with A LOT of support - I found all of this in Bloomerang.
  • SUPPORT for online help or through e-mail and also their resource library/videos- great and patient folks.
  • UPDATES - Many helpful blogs, written guidance links etc.
  • Merging of existing data fields with database (rosters, alumni groups etc.).
  • Reports - love that I can customize these to my needs and pull so much from one source.
  • Supports DONORSEARCH- integration is an important time saver and worth the dollars.
  • EFT - a function that is "being developed" for automatic payment of pledges.
  • I would suggest that 6 month check in. I know that I can always find help...but hey - don't wait for me to tell you how it's going.
  • I don't find the newsletter set up particularly easy to use - maybe it's me (importing photos etc.).
  • For novices- great
  • For those willing to start simply and to grow - great.
  • For start-ups - great
  • For those with large integration pools- great
I have no experience around where it would not be appropriate.
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