Item: Bonterra EveryAction
Rating: 7
Author: Tony Fleming

Overall Satisfaction with EveryAction

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use EveryAction to receive donations and membership dues, send targeted email blasts, process letters to officials on action priorities, and track supporters' interests.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Provide comprehensive view of supporters' engagement
Offers a welcoming user-friendly interface
Acknowledges problems through email

Cons

Does not provide an API for website integration
Give overly technical error messages confusing to non-tech users
Fails to prioritize or respond to significant technical problems

Return on Investment

Unified engagement
Has yet to save significant staff time due to unexpected problems encountered
Has been responsive on minor problems

Ask lots of stupid questions. We expected much more in terms of eliminating duplicates from various databases that we were migrating from. They did not do any. In terms of a negotiated non-API type of integration with our database, they neglected to inform our developers of a limitation on which records the workaround could access and have refused to work with us to develop a workable solution.

Reliability and Availability

They usually respond quickly (~24 hours) to emails to their help desk, but they do not offer live chat support. Their help documentation is also written for developers, not the ordinary user.

Performance

We are pleased that we can use all of these features to engage supporters through one CRM, but we have yet to be able to effectively do so six months later as we are continuing to work through unresolved problems encountered during the implementation.

Key Insights

Do you think Bonterra EveryAction delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Bonterra EveryAction's feature set?

Yes

Did Bonterra EveryAction live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Bonterra EveryAction go as expected?

Would you buy Bonterra EveryAction again?

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce.com, Salsa CRM and Salsa Engage

We went with EveryAction as they offered a more user-friendly interface and assured us they could meet the unique needs our business model requires.

Other Software Used

Microsoft Excel, Google Workspace (formerly G Suite)

Likelihood to Recommend

EveryAction oversold [itself] to us in terms of its capabilities to meet clearly defined needs in early discussions and during implementation. While we still feel we need to move to a singular, comprehensive CRM (we were using separate donor tracking and email marketing tools) and EveryAction will eventually get them, they are not ready for prime time for our unique needs of offering "member-only" content to members and organizations subscribers. We've had to implement several workarounds that hamper some of our marketing efforts to organizations (versus people) and cannot effectively generate tax letters with accurate amounts. These were explicit needs defined by us which they assured us they could meet. Not so.

Using EveryAction

Users and Roles

5 - Member and donor support, email marketing, event planning

Support Headcount Required

1 - Data management, HTML, graphic design

Business Processes Supported

Membership and donations
Email marketing
Fundraising

Innovative Uses

Send donation acknowledgement letters much faster
Resolve subscription inconsistencies with various agencies

Future Planned Uses

Increase fundraising with targeted asks
Monitor grant applications and reports
Engage more personally and more often with supporters

Likelihood to Renew

The concerns that have yet to be resolved are significant and will influence our decision to renew, but the heavy lift of migrating again within three years may make the decision inevitable.

Evaluating EveryAction and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - We replaced MailChimp, CiviCRM, and Action Network with EveryAction as a comprehensive CRM.

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation

We needed a singular CRM that offered a non-tech user-friendly interface.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

We might have delayed another year in order to give EveryAction time to improve their membership and donor tools and to roll out an API tool.

EveryAction Implementation

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Yes - We exported a number of spreadsheets from various databases and sent them to EveryAction. They reviewed with us how various data would be mapped and translated to their system then uploaded each individual spreadsheet. They then worked with our developers to implement a system that was intended to facilitate member-only access to select parts of our website.

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled

Implementation Issues

Failure to explain or complete how deduplication would take place and by whom
Failure to inform our developers about limitation on access to contact data for member-only access
Time wasted on member-access issue that ate up our new client training hours

EveryAction Support

Support Rating

Their help team is readily available by email but not by live chat.

Bonterra EveryAction Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	Difficult to get immediate help

Premium Support

n/a

Bug Resolution

Yes - We have reported a number of small bugs (often related to search or uploading problems). Anything dealing with the information architecture gets dismissed and we're told it's not something that can be fixed. But often if a search query can be set up better or conditional coding can be better defined, they are very helpful.

Exceptional Examples of Bonterra EveryAction Support

They attempted to work with our developers to implement API-like access for member-only content on our website but missed the mark for neglecting to inform us that there were limitations on the type of contact we could offer such access.

Using EveryAction

Usability

If you don't have organizational members or member-only content on your website, it will work brilliantly for you.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Convenient	Requires technical support Feel nervous using