Luminate Online is good, not great, but gets the job done.
Updated April 22, 2015
Luminate Online is good, not great, but gets the job done.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Convio application version 14.6.1 (42091)
Modules Used
- Luminate Online Marketing
- Luminate Email Marketing
- Custom Data Sync
- Online Fundraising
- Personal Fundraising
Overall Satisfaction with Luminate Online
We purchased Convio Luminate Online and the Convio Go! Program about 2 years before it was acquired by Blackbaud. It is currently only used by the Philanthropy department to support fundraising, alumni relations and some donor and event communications, however it may potentially be used more broadly down the road. This was our first external online giving solution and it replaced Constant Contact for our email marketing. We have seen tremendous growth in online giving through the use of this product.
Pros
- The Go! Program was a big time commitment but definitely increased our bandwidth and expertise with the product. If you are going to being using Luminate Online and have no prior experience with it, I highly recommend the Go! program.
- The ability to set up custom URLs, pre-populated giving links, embed appeals codes and pre-select allocations has been really great for us, particularly with our tribute program.
- The email marketing tool is OK, but the ability to sync data between Luminate Online and our offline database has really expanded our ability to segment and use "fresh" data.
Cons
- The WYSIWYG designer and whole email set up is a bit lackluster. There are no set email templates where you can point and click to build your email. You really need some help or some HTML background to get anything that looks good.
- The whole interface is a bit clunky. Some aspects live in seemingly incongruous areas of the platform such as reports. There are multiple types of reports that can be run from various sections and they each have slightly different functionality.
I looked primarily at iModules as an alternative and thought both were similar. While Blackbaud (then Convio) was a bit more expensive it had a bit more functionality with the constituent database that we needed, but I don't know that one is clearly better than the other.
Using Luminate Online
15 - Various teams from the office of Philanthropy -- Annual Giving, Gift and Record Services, Events, Donor Communications, Stewardship, Alumni Relations
- Making online gifts
- Sending email messages and appeals
- Allowing online event registration
- We've really grown our memorial giving via the URL shortcut tool
- More leveraged use of the interest flags and personal giving pages
- We've increased our online giving +200% although this is due in part to our focus on the channel and not entirely on the product.
- We've been able to increase employee efficiency by selecting email lists per message within Luminate Online. With our prior solution we needed to request data be pulled from our database for event email.
- We've really done a great job of growing our online tribute and memorial giving through the use of custom links and the pre-populated information has really helped with the back end processing.
Evaluating Luminate Online and Competitors
Yes - Constant Contact (email marketing) and and in-house online giving solution. CLO replaced both for us so that we could use constituent data for email messages and have it synced with our online giving platform.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Vendor Reputation
- Third-party Reviews
Product features were obviously the most important factor. If it couldn't do what we needed done we wouldn't have bought it.
I would have talked once more iModules to see how they stacked up in some other aspects, but I suspect I would have ended up in the same place.
Luminate Online Implementation
- Vendor implemented
- Implemented in-house
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - While the implementation was not broken into phases for the product, we did break our use of various functions into phases which made it a much more manageable process.
- Building the custom data sync --- just a complex undertaking
- Setting up designated giving
- Setting up paid even registration with designated giving
- Setting up the Personal fundraising module
Luminate Online Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support cares about my success | None |
No - Unnecessary.
Yes - We have had a few technical bugs. The response has been satisfactory but not everything has been completely resolved due to technical issues that I don't fully understand. Nonetheless, Support was pretty responsive and helpful in addressing them and communicating with us.
Nearly every time I've used the support chat function I've had really great, prompt responses and appropriate follow through. I've been very impressed by this.
Using Luminate Online
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Technical support not required Feel confident using | Unnecessarily complex Not well integrated Inconsistent Lots to learn |
- Constituent management
- URL Shortcuts
- Email design (WYSIWYG)
- Personal Fundraising
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