Likelihood to Recommend It works well enough for fundraising purposes and donor tracking. I think it would be less appropriate for instances or industries where you don't need so many data points on someone. You are able to attach a lot of information to a record so if you don't need that info (simply need contact info for example) you might want a simpler system
Read full review For 100% tax-deductible donations, I 9.5/10 recommend Blackbaud Online Express. The only thing is that it does not charge debit cards automatically, so I have to do it myself. Using Blackbaud Online Express forms for events gets more complicated. The way events work in
Raiser's Edge in general is already complicated, so maybe it's more on
Raiser's Edge than it is Blackbaud Online Express.
Read full review Pros Accessing in-depth data for a single constituent is easily done and customizable by user working with "tiles" on the home screen Generating lists of possible prospects with specific similarities can be done with a few clicks and then stored for more research later well designed relationship options allow for a a look at specific constituents and how they might relate to other constituents in the system leading to more effective prospecting Screens can be easily customized by user or user group eliminating irrelevant data and presenting only truly relevant information Read full review Online donation forms are easy to create and place within our existing website. The donations received are easily transferred into our Raiser's Edge database. Creating email communications for our constituents is very simple to achieve in Online Express and the statistics provided are very helpful to see what our constituents are clicking on. Read full review Cons Certain aspects of Blackbaud are oddly non-customizable. Blackbaud updates/support is slow and often ineffective - our organization switched to Microsoft 365, which is apparently incompatible with Blackbaud. Help/support recommended clunky workarounds that don't actually work, rather than proactively enhancing compatibility There should be a flag in constituent search to show which people in the results list are deceased. Query isn't very user friendly. It should be simple to locate the information that you want to pull, and add parameters to that information. Instead you have to write multiple queries to set parameters, then write a query that looks at those other queries. It's time-consuming and easy to make mistakes, and the knowledge/proficiency is difficult to explain or transfer to new staff. Blackbaud generally just feels like its technology is outdated. It wasn't built for the needs of a modern organization, and its developers have failed to make the necessary improvements over time to stay competitive. Read full review It does have some "quirks." It can be a little tricky to process the batch until you have done it a few times. I had a problem finding a constituent yesterday - he was purchasing a program ad for an event - that I knew was in the database. It turned out that he had been marked inactive, and so apparently wasn't included in the search results. Read full review Likelihood to Renew We've covered a lot, but mostly because we are happy with the system overall. There are a few kinks, and sometimes it takes a minute to figure out the right wording to pull a report or the best way to code a new category that we want to track. But Blackbaud is always there to help us, and once things are figured out - they are super simple to replicate. It wouldn't be worth it to switch to a new system and lose of all our information and time put in to mastering the system
Read full review Support Rating Read full review Customer service for all of Blackbaud's products has really lacked over the years. They are starting to get better in the last year but it can very frustrating. The online knowledge base community is the best resource for information. At times it can take hours for a customer sect even rep to help with questions or problems which is not at all ideal in this industry.
Read full review Implementation Rating Most of our issues were self-inflicted and related to BB's work. We did not "staff up" correctly, our data to be converted was not in great shape and we set some unreasonable goals. With BBs help we were able to clean our data and prep it for conversion and we adjusted the goals to be more achievable with the timeline we were given. We found the BB staff to be responsive and focused, especially when working on-site with us.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Blackbaud CRM is more robust and has better functionality. It is necessary for a bigger fundraising shop. Blackbaud
Raiser's Edge and NXT worked well in smaller organizations with fewer users and fewer donors/prospects. RE was more affordable than CRM was for the smaller organization.
Read full review Blackbaud Online Express is mainly used strictly because of its integration with Raiser's Edge. If a client uses Salesforce for constituent/lead management, other products can offer more flexibility in designing donation forms, email templates, etc. However, they all have their own negatives in Salesforce integration -- that is a whole other can of worms. While the Raiser's Edge integration of Online Express isn't perfect, it is relatively painless compared to the competition's Salesforce integration. Also, for NFP's, Blackbaud's NFP focused business model is a plus.
Read full review Return on Investment Change is always expensive and painful, but CRM is worth the time and effort. One immediate benefit is improved transparency internally, especially for internal accounting, controls, and compliance departments. Cloud hosting helps cut cost and demand on organization staff. Improves access and meets compliance on every level. Ability to make global changes to recording donor phone communication makes it a one-stop resource for a well-run development team. Read full review Regardless of project or initiative, all fund-raising efforts are managed in one place for the entire organization. Donor management is concise, thorough, and systematic - no individual or organization is overlooked. Snapshot reporting of successful grant applications and fund-raising are readily available. Read full review ScreenShots