Simple product but not user-friendly
Our organization uses Blackbaud eTapestry to keep track of donor and volunteer information. This includes all hours someone has …
Starting at $115 per month Usage based per constituent record
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What is Blackbaud eTapestry?
Blackbaud eTapestry is a donor management solution that helps growing nonprofits build a stable foundation for success, beat fundraising goals, and catalyze growth. eTapestry boasts more than 6,000 nonprofits and institutions as users, who manage and track fundraising performance, engage…
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Pricing
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee optional
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $115 per month Usage based per constituent record
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is Blackbaud eTapestry?
Blackbaud eTapestry is a donor management solution that helps growing nonprofits build a stable foundation for success, beat fundraising goals, and catalyze growth. eTapestry boasts more than 6,000 nonprofits and institutions as users, who manage and track fundraising performance, engage new supporters, and maximize existing donor relationships with the software.
Blackbaud eTapestry Screenshots
Blackbaud eTapestry Videos
Blackbaud eTapestry Fundraising Software
Introduction to Blackbaud eTapestry Complete
Blackbaud eTapestry Integrations
- Mailchimp
- Constant Contact
- Microsoft Outlook
Blackbaud eTapestry Competitors
Blackbaud eTapestry Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
| Supported Countries | United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia |
Blackbaud eTapestry Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
Blackbaud eTapestry starts at $115.
Reviewers rate Availability highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of Blackbaud eTapestry are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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(157)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-5 of 5)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
November 27, 2022
A helpful resource for your whole team!
We use this product regularly to manage our prospect and donor relationships. All reports are pulled from here to gain relevant and updated information. If we didn't have this system for our whole team to keep track of individuals, we wouldn't be as strong. There are a variety of different products within Blackbaud eTapestry, and we use a good number of them.
- Provides information
- Allows ease of reporting
- Gives a variety of information
- Some things are a little clunky to get through
- The database is a bit antiquated
- Price is always a factor we consider
- New fundraising opportunities discovered
- Time saved researching
- Good information repository
We use this suite of products in our entire division. It helps us with reports and donor management, and it is very helpful on a day-to-day basis. I enjoy the ease of use as well as the product offerings available. I would recommend using this in your development office.
10
We are the office of University Advancement. In our office, we have our Advancement Services folks primarily using this, but also our frontline fundraisers, annual giving, alumni, and other staff within the system using this product. It has been very useful for our team, and all of our new people learn it when they start.
1
- Research
- Reporting
- Communication Noting
- Searching for people
- Creating unique reports for our needs
- Additional reporting
- Additional research
No
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Prior Experience with the Product
We are always very price-conscious, but we need a product that would work for us and fit our needs. So usability is a very important factor.
N/A, I think we did our research well.
- Don't know
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled
New systems are difficult but open communication is important.
- Learning the system
- Online Training
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
No, we did not.
No
When we were experiencing issues with reporting, the support team assisted us.
- Reporting
No
- NA
No other besides the RE systems.
- API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
N/A, not involved in that portion.
No
- Ease of use
- Service
- Continued offerings
- Faster speeds
No
No
September 30, 2022
eTapestry - The Platform your Mid-Sized NPO Needs
Blackbaud eTapestry is the backbone of our data services. From managing donor and membership records, to maintaining accurate records and notes, eTapestry is a great product for small to mid-sized non-profit organizations. While we do not currently have eTapestry connected with any products other than Constant Contact, the ability to import information makes for an easy adjustment. We rely on this product heavily for reporting purposes and is critical to our success as an organization.
- Import gifts and information to donor record.
- Quickly report on various segments.
- Communicate effectively with our support base.
- The addition of second most recent gift as a data field, as after running an import the gift just imported is now the last gift, would be a nice addition.
- The ability to import information into personas for quick updates during gift import would be a nice improvement.
- It would also be nice if the ability to send a communication to an externally imported list of just emails, rather than querying on donor records.
- The ability to have more record space without the need to purchase additional records. This will eventually cause us to outgrow eTap.
- Ease of use
- Speed of use
- Ability to quickly query and report
- I would say eTapestry has had a positive impact on our ROI.
I have used Raisers Edge at a former workplace. I absolutely loved Raisers Edge, however, that organization was much larger and needed a platform with the ability to maintain a very large donor count. While more complicated to use than eTap, and far more powerful, I feel eTapestry is a much easier platform to manage, learn, and master.
4
Blackbaud eTapestry is only accessed by Philanthropy and Membership managers and above. We do this to limit the number of individuals that can access sensitive donor and member data. This is not done out of mistrust of employees but as an additional precaution to better manage any risk with regards to our database.
4
All users are in support of eTapestry on an on-going basis and our Manager of Philanthropy Services is the gatekeeper of this platform. As all assigned users can access the database, the MPS is the expert of the platform and provides the more detailed requests of data. As a smaller organization we feel it is important to limit the number of hands in the cookie jar.
- Track gifts
- Maintain accurate records
- Generate accurate mailings and communications
- Track donor touch points
- Report on campaign performance
- Communicate with donors and members electronically
- Creation of specialized reports specific to leadership needs
- Control of our donor base within the organization
- Detailed segmentation of solicitation and appeal lists
- Use of forms
- Processing of gifts
- Closer tracking of monthly donors
No
- Product Usability
As a smaller non-profit organization we don't need an expensive database that has functions outside of our needs, but at the same time we need to take the management of our data seriously. Blackbaud is an industry leader and eTapestry is one of the more common products available; its use across our profession make for an easy decision.
If I had to choose a new platform for our donor database I would definitely look into the number of records that can be maintained. As we approach our limit on the number of records I find myself looking at more cloud based platform that are available as they tend to not have a limit on the database size.
- Don't know
- Not sure
- Implemented before I began here
- I didn't hear of any difficulties
I did not.
No
Yes. Under a previous director there was a request for data that just seemed too complicated for the queries and reporting capabilities of eTapestry. While it did take about a week to resolve, their support team was able to give me almost exact instructions for creating the queries I needed to generate the needed data.
- Running queries
- Pulling reports
- Setting dashboards
- Imports can be tricky
- Query conditions can be tricky
- Pulling reports can be tricky
Yes
It's ok, at best, and good for some quick, basic info. You can't do much besides look when viewing eTapestry on a mobile device. You cant run queries or reports, cant see anything too detailed, but again, if you need to look up a donor really fast the mobile function is alright.
September 21, 2022
You can make it work
We are a theological school. We use it to keep track of students and their requirements in the program--what they have completed, field placements, personnel working with them each year, etc. We also use it to keep track of our graduates and our donors. In the area of Development, I use it for donor mailing lists, segmentation, merging information into communications, mass emails, recording donations, and for finding information.
- The technicians available to help on chat do quite a good job.
- The basic training videos are a good introduction
- Once you know how, constructing a query or report is relatively easy
- When I started using eTapestry, you had to pay for courses to learn how to do more complicated things in the database. These courses were fairly expensive and our small organization couldn't afford that. I had to figure a lot out on my own or using the tech folks in chat or the odd free thing. Not sure if the courses are still costly or not.
- It is not particularly user friendly--for example, you would think the drag and drop email template would be pretty straightforward but it is not! And there aren't built in instructions to help as you try to use things.
- Figuring out how to organize queries and reports and communications in folders in order to find things again has been challenging. It is possible to search on keywords, which is very helpful. But finding something in a list of queries that is not alphabetical isn't particularly easy.
- It helps us keep track of our data and find it again later.
- I like the home page where you can have campaign information readily available.
- The chat feature and manual have been very useful to me.
7
Administration, Program, Development, Accounting
1
Patience, curiosity, willingness to try stuff, good at finding work arounds
- Recording data on student progress
- Recording donations
- Constructing lists for communications
- sending mass emails
- Updating grad, student, and donor information
- I think the student records are an unusual way to use the database
Yes
The original database, had been designed and built by a volunteer--it was apparently very versatile and flexible when first introduced, but over time, staff were less knowledgeable about how to use it and the original volunteer was no longer involved to do training. They found it difficult to get the information they needed. I am not sure if a range of databases were looked at when contemplating replacing ours. In the end, a consultant recommended eTapestry (but then was not able to use it herself well enough to do any training!!)
- Price
- Prior Experience with the Product
I was not involved in the decision.
It would be really great if I could talk to other eTapestry users now. That would be a real plus in being able to use it optimally and sort out some of the glitches I experience (or at least find out if they are common ones or fixable). In selecting another database, I think talking to other organizations that are about our size and constituency, about their experiences and recommendations, would be great. Reading reviews only goes so far. I would also think that knowing about the training package available would be important since the one for eTapestry seemed inadequate to me.
- Don't know
- for me--learning how to use it
no--cost
No
I remember one time had a tech give me instructions to do something. I went away to try it and it didn't work. I went back to the chat and worked with someone else trying multiple things, even sending screen shots, etc. Eventually it was resolved thanks to their persistence.
- a basic query
- data entry
- writing a mass email
- sending a mass email
- a basic report
- a multi-step query
- uploading data to the database
- drag and drop documents
September 16, 2022
eTapestry Works Like a Champ!
We use eTapestry to track our donors, corporate sponsors, funders, and the donations we receive from these groups. I run reports for our executive team to show campaign results, board contributions, grants received, grant status, and donor trends. We also use it for our DIY forms to process online donations to our organization. We also use the Blackbaud Merchants Services and receive a Disbursement Report as to the number and amounts of donations made by credit card.
- Enables smaller organizations to have a comprehensive database that easily runs queries and reports.
- Allows organizations to accept credit cards at a lower merchant rate without having to use additional platforms such as Paypal or Stripe.
- Donors can be tagged to identify their interests or roles with the organization: ex. Board member, volunteer, golfer, auction donor, event sponsor, etc.
- Tracking incoming grant processes: award letter received, reports due, sign contract.
- Integrating eTapestry Communications with Canva would be nice.
- Training classes that don't start at 5am on the West Coast.
- Gift reports: no longer have to do them manually on spreadsheets.
- Tracking board pledges is easier.
- Queries and creating reports are easy and Blackbaud has Live Chat for when users get stuck.
- We use gift reports as our deposit receipts. This used to be done manually on excel spreadsheets which caused double, sometimes triple, data entry. This has not cut the reporting/deposit process in half to allow me to help in other areas of the office.
- Tracking the pledges of our annual board contributions is easier and more accurate. Year-end receipts for our directors' donations can be easily run and mail merged.
- Switching to Blackbaud's merchant services has saved us money.
I actually like using Raiser's Edge better and have used it at other organizations. But this package is very expensive. These are for the $10M and up organizations. eTapestry is a very adequate tool for smaller organizations due to its price point. It has many of the same features as RE. You can query just about any data field. Reports are easy to run. You can do mass emails to constituents. RE has a few more bells and whistles like Event Tracking, Table Assignments, Tribute/Honor gift tracking, Grant Tracking, and Peer-to-Peer fundraising.
9
Executive Director, Director of Programs, Director of Public Art, Marketing Manager, Office & Development Manager, Development Associate, Teaching Artist, (2) Public Art Associates.
2
The Office & Development Manager maintains eTapestry. She has worked with Raiser's Edge and eTapestry with other organizations and has approximately 5 years of experience with Blackbaud products. She is the one who did the research of 4 different companies and presented the information, making her recommendation to purchase eTapestry. The Executive Director has intermediate skills with databases and serves as back up when the Office & Development Manager is out of the office.
- Keeping an accurate log of all our constituents, their contact information and their donations
- Tracking board contributions.
- Reports on giving trends and campaign results
- DIY forms giving us the ability to receive donations via credit cards
- The ability to communicate with our constituents through mass emails
- Tracking of incoming grants. We log award letters as pledges so we can see what is coming in. Deadlines on applications and final reports are logged as calendar items in the journal. Reports have been set up to see what we have coming up in the next 60 days.
- Gift queries and reports have been created to serve as deposit records for our accountant.
- Ticketing for events.
- Newsletters
Yes
Keela - a very simple CRM software platform. We replaced it because it was very difficult to pull queries and reports. All reports were canned. Could not query on every field.
- Price
- Product Usability
- Prior Experience with the Product
The Office & Development Manager had 4 years of experience with eTapestry and 4 years of experience with Raisers Edge. She was able to hit the ground running once we purchased it. She was the main liaison with Blackbaud to do the migration.
We wouldn't. We chose 4 companies to look at. We did product demos of each one. Met with each of their sales, tech and migration reps. Did side by side comparisons. Looked at pricing and how it pertained to our budget. The biggest factor in our decision is that we had an experienced user of Blackbaud products that could do the migration, use the product on day one and train others to use it as well.
- Implemented in-house
Yes
It was two years ago, but I'll try to remember. Blackbaud sent us an Implementation Workbook to prepare us for the migration. It had lists of training videos to watch prior to the actual implementation. It explained the forms Blackbaud asked us to fill in (Excel spreadsheets with headers) with our donor information. We downloaded everything from our old CRM and put the information into the forms Blackbaud sent us. They uploaded it into eTapestry. We were then given a list of tests to do with the new system to make sure our information was appearing as we needed it. I remember it being a smooth process and it was done within the given time frame.
Change management was minimal
The only thing we needed to change was a couple of processes with our subcontracted accountant. Mostly just reports we sent to her would look different.
- We could not migrate our email communications and newsletter templates.
We did not. Budget constraints, but the Live Chat has been sufficient so far.
No
Blackbaud provides exceptional support every time I call/chat with them. If they can't resolve my issue right away, they call back or email in a timely manner. I've never had to call to follow up. They always beat me to the punch.
- "Can you tell me how much I've donated this year?" Easy to pull up information when I'm on the phone.
- "How much have we received from our board members?" Once dynamic queries/reports are created, it is just a couple of clicks to get information.
- Auto receipts for credit card donations saves so much time from doing acknowledgements.
- Compound queries are still a little difficult for me but Live Chat is a huge help.
Yes, but I don't use it
August 15, 2014
The Good, Bad, and Ugly
eTapestry was being used only by the Development department. It housed all of our donor contact information, in addition to, donations, volunteer hours, pledges, and monthly gifts. Aside from individual donors, it housed organization gifts as well and grants.
- Capture donor information
- Track donations
- Track if an individual is a donor and/or volunteer.
- End user customizations of fields/page layouts
- More detailed reporting
- Fund/Source code capabilities.
- Ability to track donor information in one place instead of using spreadsheets or ACT
- Better customer service, in that we were able to see if one was a donor and/or volunteer to thank them for both
- Negative - user friendliness of the reporting and page layout customizing
- Luminate CRM and Analytics,Luminate TeamRaiser,Salesforce.com,PIDI (Public Interest Data Inc)
eTapestry is better than PIDI, but not as good as Salesforce or the Luminate products for this particular organization. PIDI is less customizable and the reporting is worse than eTapestry that it is not really supported. Salesforce is open source platform and can be easily customized. Luminate is also all around good with customizing and reporting.
3
Staff members that use eTapestry are primarily in Development department. Adding donations, adding volunteers/hours, pulling thank you letters are the three functions of Development that used eTapestry.
1
The database administrator is the only person in-house to support eTapestry. When they cannot fix the problem they contact support for additional help to resolve any issues.
- Tracking donor information
- Seeing if a donor is a volunteer as well
- Tracking volunteer hours
- Pulling acknowledgements fairly easy with customizations
No
- Price
- Vendor Reputation
- Existing Relationship with the Vendor
The most important factor was price. As a nonprofit, you need to stay within budget and allocate majority of your resources to the mission. The organization did not have any grants to help cover the cost.
I would evaluate additional products and not go with one product because of particular employees biased opinion due to the owner of the product.
- Don't know
- Timeliness
- Cost
- Time management for small development department
- Online training
- In-person training
- Self-taught
Yes, the product had lots of documentation and tutorials to help learn the system. It is not too difficult to understand, except for reporting. I would definitely recommend creating a SOP for your best business practices.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
No
No
I was unable to pull an extensive report. eTapestry allows you to link multiple reports together and then subtract out the ones that overflow. I could not get the report to pull what I needed so support had to go in to the system and create it for me so that it would be accurate.
- Adding accounts
- Adding donations
- Acknowledgements
- Reports
- Customizing fields
- Customizing page layouts
- none
Did not integrate with any other systems.
- Constant Contact
Not sure.
None.
Never used integration.
Don't recall.
Be sure to review contracts and make sure that product does exactly what you need it to for the next 3-5+ years.
Yes
Yes, the upgraded release was just fine and fixed a few bug issues.
- Faster turnaround when processing donations
- Relationship association with donors
- Not sure.
No
No