Aplos vs. Bloomerang CRM

Aplos integrates with Bloomerang. It brings donations in as either individual or organization, but there is no name or account number associated with the transaction. When reconciling over 500 transactions each month, many at the same amount, it can be tedious to be sure I am reconciling the right transaction. Having the donor name associated with each transaction would be very helpful

Incentivized

I can't speak to Bloomerang's functionality for a very large organization, but for a small-to-midsize non-profit, I don't know what else you'd need! Need to register volunteers, or sell tickets, or generate e- or print communications, or pull donor data? Bloomerang does it. Bloomerang is my third CRM tool in my current organization and it is vastly superior in almost every way to the others that came before.

Incentivized

• Reporting by Fund
• Ability to split transactions by fund
• Custom reports

Incentivized

• Website integration for online donations is awesome! It makes it so much easier to raise money online. We've tripled the amount of money we raise online, mainly because of this and the ability to send emails through the system.
• Emails are tracked directly in a donor's record, so we can see instantly their engagement with our content.
• Integration with DonorSearch is awesome and seems to be improving often.
• They listen to their customers' needs. If enough customers request a feature, they'll get it for us. We feel like the development of this software is always happening and it's a partnership, rather than a transaction.

Incentivized

• In my experience, report filters don't always work like they should.
• Recent updates have made entering transactions more complicated for me, instead of easier.
• No ability to delete or deactivate contacts so your list will always grow and you pay based on the number of contacts.
• In my experience, needs better interface options with other software

Incentivized

• Some of the searches did not bring up the expected results. It would be good to see the logic be a little more "fuzzy".
• More pre-set reports would be helpful for small organizations who do not understand the logic behind how to get the results they are seeking.
• An ability to just page through donor records would be nice. Sometimes you just want to browse the data to get inspired.

Incentivized

#1 - I am very happy with the product and support so far.
#2 - With significant data migration costs, I wouldn't even consider another option for at least 3 years no matter how much better it might be.

Incentivized

In my opinion, recent improvements have made working in Aplos more cumbersome, instead of easier. The new look seems less professional than the old look to me. I think there should be more options to have a default setting when starting some tasks, like opening a register.

Incentivized

Data and settings are very customizable to fit the needs of our organization. We are able to not only keep track of donations, but also other interactions we may have with a constituent. Support is extremely helpful when issues arise.

Incentivized

In my experience, Aplos support used to be awesome...very quick responses and open to suggestions. I could even see my suggestions implemented from time to time. Now I get an answer, but it's usually 'that's how it is' and no solution. 'Improvements' are not improvements to me.

Incentivized

Any time i had a problem or question it has been easy to find an answer or tutorial. When I cannot find an answer, it is easy to email or live chat with support and they resolve my problems very quickly.

I think Aplos has better fund management.

Incentivized

Salesforce is infinitely customizable, but Bloomerang is pretty straightforward and works out of the box. It is simple enough that folks who are not familiar with the robust features of something like Salesforce can hit the ground running. Even as it is simple it is powerful as far as showing visuals that can help fundraising staff more clearly understand where the organization is and what donors they can next target for upcoming campaigns.

Incentivized

• Easy so see what's in each fund at a glance
• Fixed asset management was not easy for me

Incentivized

• Because my organization has been using Bloomerang for only one year, we haven't yet studied what impact it has had on our ROI. We have, however, noted that we are able to more efficiently and more rapidly communicate with constituents now than we were able to before we had Bloomerang. We can quickly and efficiently generate acknowledgements and tax receipts - and do so - better than we ever did before.

Incentivized