A Fundraiser's View of the CRM suite
June 30, 2014

A Fundraiser's View of the CRM suite

Jeff Swan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud CRM

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.
  • Not much different than other CRM's that did not offer mobile device access
  • My sense is that it was not the primary tool that the fundraisers used to access their donor's contact info - I suspect it was easier to access a local hard-drive stored spreadsheet or Outlook contacts program.
They were about the same, with the same pros and cons.
I will use whatever the organization selects, along with other programs from Microsoft Office.
How easy is it for remote home-office staff to use? How is access on mobile devices? How easy is it for remote home-office users to translate the data into an email list or printed mail list? How easy is it for remote home-office staff to move straight from the Blackbaud database into Outlook to draft and send an email, and then have that recorded automatically in the database?