TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRM vs. Bonterra Salsa

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRM

    Score7.6 out of 10
    N/ADesigned for large, complex organizations as well as federated and international nonprofits.N/A

    Bonterra Salsa

    Score6 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Bonterra Salsa is a donor and constituent management system that helps nonprofits build donor profiles, track every interaction, cultivate major gifts, and report on all development activities. The platform includes mobile-ready digital marketing tools for email, social, and online donation forms. Additional features include donor cultivation, donation processing of all gift types, direct mail, built in word processing, mail merge, powerful query tool, event/auction…N/A
    Pricing
    Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRMBonterra Salsa
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRMBonterra Salsa
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRMBonterra Salsa
    Considered Both Products
    Blackbaud
    No answer on this topic
    Bonterra
    Chose Bonterra Salsa
    Salsa CRM is more flexible than Abila Fundraising 50. It is cloud based so that unlike locally installed Abila Fundraising 50 you can use it at the events and all donations at events are automatically entered. With Abila Fundraising 50 there was a clunky interface with Sage …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRMBonterra Salsa
    Small Businesses
    Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    DonorPerfect
    Score7.5 out of 10
    DonorPerfect
    Score7.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Ellucian CRM Advance
    Score7.6 out of 10
    Ellucian CRM Advance
    Score7.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRMBonterra Salsa
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (36 ratings)
    3.0
    (8 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.1
    (8 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.9
    (7 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.8
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Blackbaud Enterprise Fundraising CRMBonterra Salsa
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Blackbaud
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Bonterra
    Well suited for sending mass emails or emails to certain groups, sending automated emails, collecting donations, and peer-to-peer communication. They have a good support team. I'm still figuring out how to best manage supporters, it's not as intuitive as I would like. I used to just manage all donor information on Google Sheets, and I still prefer Google Sheets.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Blackbaud
    • 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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Bonterra
    • User-Friendly. As a user, it is an intuitive product. When you are working, it is easy to navigate.
    • Fundraising Pages: Salsa Engage allows you to easily and quickly make fundraising pages that can be pushed out to your community of donors.
    • CRM: Easy to manage the constituents. When someone signs up for our fundraising pages, the software captures the demographics and either matches up to the existing donor or creates a new constituent.
    • Salsa CRM listens to their customers and works well with the user base. Most ideas are listened to and can see that requests are pushed out in updates.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Blackbaud
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Bonterra
    • When we started with Salsa, not every option was available online, some were desktop specific. As it has been some time since I worked with Salsa these have probably been resolved.
    • The ability to communicate between Salsa CRM and other Salsa software options. Sometimes the crossover was not as efficient as was needed.
    • Tagging and setting up rules for particular donors was somewhat confusing - meaning, therefore, that the amount of training needed to implement the software was somewhat intensive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Blackbaud
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Bonterra
    It suits all of our needs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Blackbaud
    No answers on this topic
    Bonterra
    You do not have to be a tech-savvy person to be able to use the CRM. Reporting is easy to do.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Blackbaud
    I have not personally had to reach out to Blackbaud CRM Support, because we have a central office that manages the Blackbaud CRM relationship. However, any time I've reached out to our support team, there is nothing they can't figure out by utilizing the support they receive from Blackbaud CRM. I've not had any issues that have gone unresolved, and they can always get things done in a timely fashion.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Bonterra
    Their tech support is very good and I am very pleased with it. They speak in non-techie lingo for my non-techie staff just as easily as they speak techie to me (a techie). I appreciate their quick turn around in time to answer our questions and the follow up to make sure their answer(s) helped.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Blackbaud
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Bonterra
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Blackbaud
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Bonterra
    I have reviewed Salsa Engage and perhaps after our transition has taken place it might be a viable option versus using Constant Contact for internal and external correspondence.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Blackbaud
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Bonterra
    • Has helped increase our donor retention as we are able to track all communications with donors ensuring that they remain connected.
    • The improved emailing (with fewer bounce rate) has helped increase our website and donation page visibility.
    • We've sold more tickets to our fundraising events with an improved event management system.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Bonterra Salsa Screenshots

    Screenshot of the development dashboard.Screenshot of a donor detail report showing donation history.Screenshot of donor cultivation for major giftsScreenshot of mail merge and direct mail fundraisingScreenshot of a donor profile with unlimited custom fields