Item: Blackbaud Luminate Online
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

DFCI Philanthropy uses Blackbaud Luminate Online for our online fundraising efforts, including but not limited to directed and unrestricted giving, event registration, and peer-to-peer fundraising via the TeamRaiser module. We are also able to utilize features such as the Survey module to gather information regarding our current and potential supporters. Blackbaud Luminate Online also allows us to provide web-based content for many of the DFCI initiatives.

Pros and Cons

Peer-to-peer fundraising via the TeamRaiser module is simple and easy to personalize for every participant.
Online giving can be done via the Donation Form module with a robust feature set allowing for branding and styling specific to your organization.
The Constituent 360 modules allows us to gather detailed information about our visitors. This module also has a variety of tools for exchanging this data with other systems such as a CRM.

The modules within Blackbaud Luminate Online could be more uniform and robust for back-end users.
The API and Web Services features for Blackbaud Luminate Online are easy to use but could be more extensive so that more data is accessible to customers for tasks such as ad-hoc reporting.
Access to view (and possibly edit) templates used in producing the Blackbaud Luminate Onlinecontent would be a wonderful addition.

Return on Investment

Blackbaud Luminate Online has allowed us to increase our online fundraising every year since our adoption of the platform in 2019 (2020's Covid impact not withstanding, of course).

Alternatives Considered

Classy

I haven't used Classy directly, but comparing the platform from public information leads me to believe it is comparable to Blackbaud Luminate Online. It isn't possible to determine what future development efforts Classy has planned, which is important when we consider how Blackbaud Luminate Online is discussing improvements. This is relevant as AI begins having impacts on all companies.

Key Insights

Do you think Blackbaud Luminate Online delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Blackbaud Luminate Online's feature set?

Yes

Did Blackbaud Luminate Online live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Blackbaud Luminate Online go as expected?

Would you buy Blackbaud Luminate Online again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Drupal, WordPress

Likelihood to Recommend

Blackbaud Luminate Online is an excellent solution for online giving, providing a wealth of tools for producing donation forms. It also is outstanding for peer-to-peer fundraising, such as event-based efforts like walks, cycling tours, and so forth. The Email module is outstanding if you need an internal solution for communicating with your donors and supporters. It provides a wealth of tools for crafting emails, and for reporting on the results.

Support Rating

The Support team is outstanding for Blackbaud Luminate Online! As with any software platform, first-line tech support is often constrained in their ability to actual change anything within the platform. However, Blackbaud Luminate Online team is excellent in providing immediate answers to basic questions, researching and communicating additional information where appropriate, and serving as advocates for customers with their internal colleagues.