Luminate keeps you connected on the go
September 23, 2016

Luminate keeps you connected on the go

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Luminate Online

Overall Satisfaction with Luminate Online

My staff (4) and I use Luminate to track of donations to our small nonprofit and document interactions we have with donors, activists, and community leaders. It allows us to create a shared 'awareness' of the organization's relationships in real time, accessible on a mobile phone in the field.
  • The mobile app is very helpful, allowing me to make and even document (voice to text) phone calls to donors and ministry friends even while driving.
  • The geopointe add on gives a geographic sight picture of our activity - whether it's income sources by city or recent speaking events - that helps us visualize how we are reaching our constituents.
  • When properly constructed, the dashboard feature allows me to see at one glance the vital statistics I need to keep my finger on the pulse of mission critical metrics.
  • As much as I love the mobile app, it has far too many unnecessary fields, which makes scrolling through it to find an email or phone number or address takes more time than it should, which is important when out in the field
  • Far, far too often, I try to make reports cross referencing multiple categories (tables?) and am told it 'can't be done'. For example, just trying to find out which people came to our annual fundraiser last year but haven't bought tickets for this year's event (so we can send them a reminder) is apparently impossible. There are usually workarounds, but these are very time consuming and frustrating
  • We also use Luminate for our email to constituents, but the capturing of open rates and click throughs and responses does not appear to be synced with the CRM. This is dissapointing. I we have the ability to capture useful data, we should be doing so and making it easily accessible.
We used a proprietary program for our CRM that was over a decade old. For email contact, we used VoterVoice, which was easier to use and less expensive, BUT it did not allow for integration with a CRM and it did not create truly unique contact files. (In other words, people would often have multiple 'accounts' and deduping was not easy. Deducing in Luminate is VERY easy and a huge help.
You really need to have a Luminate expert on staff to make it worth the expense. We have invested a great deal of time and money into training, but regularly rely on experts at an affiliated organization to help us use the product. For small organizations without this luxury, it would probably be too expensive and complicated to be worth it.