Blackbaud FIMS vs. Blackbaud Grantmaking

It is a very robust system and with the various modules you can accomplish much of what is needed for traditional transaction US-based grantmaking. If you have more complicated grantmaking, deal with foreign currencies or want to have tighter alignment of finance and budget numbers, GIFTS may not meet your needs. Additionally, some of their core projects have limited accessibility in terms of various mobile devices or access from outside the organization's network.

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As I mentioned, cost is prohibitive for us. Because it is highly customizable, it is very powerful, but if you are looking for an intuitive, easy to use solution right "out of the box" solution because you have few staff and no IT dept. this may not be the best fit (unless they develop some lower cost / less customizable options?). That being said, we have managed to implement successfully with no IT. I completed the implementation, code the application and online reporting forms (using HTML) and use Blueprint to customize what we need, but it has been a big learning curve and an investment of time to manage the back end of the program. I will say that training new general users is pretty straight forward so their ability to search for information they need and quickly is greatly enhanced. The automatic customized reports and reminders are pretty great, and the overall integrity of our processes and data are greatly improved. Sometimes we wonder if it is overly complex and if there is a way e could "hide" more of the aspects that are not relevant to us, or that we are not using, so we can have a cleaner interface.

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• Simple layout
• Duplication reports
• Lots of fields for organization-specific information

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• We like to create our own numbering system and Blackbaud Grantmaking allows us that flexibility. When we were having issues with items being in numerical order the tech support was amazing.
• Creating your own forms is very important for us. We have several different donors and we have a grant application form and a report form for each one. They are easy to create as well as update and access.
• Alternative ways to hunt for information. I can access a grant by the organization name, project name, grant number or even the name of the person who submitted the grant application. This is critical in a case where the program officer has a nickname for the grant (you can include that as well in the profile) and can't remember anything else.

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• While GIFTS Classic is the most barren interfaces of all MicroEdge products, there are some simple capabilities I wish GIFTS could still perform such as better email integration from outlook to a GIFTS request, more efficient requirement reminders, and a wider use of Microsoft Office and other external product integration (GuideStar).
• It's disappointing that you have to purchase an additional "Customizer Module" or "Budget Module" in order to access basic functions of a GMS. This seems like a basic system function that MicroEdge takes advantage of, unfortunately.
• The online application module (IGAM) is still quite antiquated and you have to be knowledgeable of basic HTML in order to really customize your organization's online application. More flexibility and design functions would be greatly appreciated with the online application function, especially since this is a public document and represents your organization.

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• Application linking process is time consuming
• System enhancement ideas must be submitted to a community portal and other users must take the initiative to vote on their favorite ideas instead of vendor programmers collecting received ideas and doing the work themselves.
• Lack of conditional logic in online application
• Communication with other Blackbaud products notably Employee Volunteering and Engagement (fka AngelPoints)

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As long as there is continued development in the product allowing us to create efficiencies, streamline operations, deliver on our reporting requirements and the usability for internal and external partners remains strong we would have no reason to look elsewhere from a systems perspective. If costs changed substantially we'd have to look at different options to meet our cost savings objectives.

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There is room for improvement and the development of the software seem slow. As customers, we hear a lot about what's in development and promises of new features rolling out. However, it feels like those developments take a really long time to show up in they system for my day-to-day use.

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I typically receive a response to an inquiry within an hour or two, if not sooner. Most tech support people are knowledgeable about our problems, and if not, they will escalate to the proper person.

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When it was microwaves they were a lot more Hands-On assistance, but since merging they have better tracking of the issues.

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Preparing and cleaning up your data prior to implementation, will make the process much smoother and easier. Garbage in, garbage out.

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It is really a matter of priority. I can see situations where GIFTS Classic is a very strong option! Once an organization determines its priorities then it should definitely consider GIFTS to see how well it compares with mission critical functionality.

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At the time that I used GrantedGE, the product was in the development stages and there were a lot of bugs and issues with functionality. The customer service didn't have the bandwidth to quickly respond to issues. BlackBaud's customer service and history in the field are advantages

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• Reporting was difficult on GIFTS - often we had to place data into Excel by hand since we could not create simple customized reports. This increased time spent on tasks GIFTS was supposed to streamline.
• GIFTS did not alert us to duplicated organization records, so often it was difficult to reflect an organization's full grant history to our Board of Directors, leading to employees spending time searching through paper records to make sure all information was properly reported.
• GIFTS created duplicate contact records, meaning it was difficult to find out which contact was related to which organization and cluttered our data. This caused decreased processing and response time to "new" contacts who turned out to be previous contacts or contacts whose information was tied to previous organizations. Even when contact information was updated for a new organization, sometimes the program would revert to the first organization contact information, several times leading to checks cashed to incorrect organizations---the very worst consequence of using GIFTS to our organization. Thankfully, the money was recovered upon the few times that error occurred, but it led to me and other employees reading through out 800+ checks before issue to make sure the correct organization was in fact being rewarded.

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• It has increased our return on reaching our business objectives.
• It has moved us (or started to move us) to a better place in reporting and transparency.
• It has helped us transition from an act of corporate giving to a goal of social change.

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A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info