With Blackbaud Online Express' online fundraising & donation software, users can create unlimited donation forms and send and track email communications. Plus, this simple, smart, cloud-based tool is integrated with the Fundraising and CRM solution, Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®. Blackbaud Online Express enables users to create and send mobile-responsive emails. Reach constituents quickly with pre-designed, mobile-friendly email templates created specifically for…
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Fundraising Report Card
Score 9.4 out of 10
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MarketSmart in College Park offers the Fundraising Report Card, an analytics platform supporting nonprofits with feedback on the success of their fundraising efforts.
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.
Automatically matches the donor to a constituent in the database, if there is one, and gives you the opportunity to search if a match isn't found.
If gift is in honor or memory of someone, it matches the tribute in the database, if it already exists. If not, you are able to easily create a new one.
Transaction reports are easily accessible on the Blackbaud Merchant Services site.
It makes preparing fundraising reports super easy. I used to spend 6-8 hours preparing a board report and now it takes me 30 minutes... PLUS I can pull up the reports in real time during board meetings to allow board members to see the data presented in different ways or to answer questions on-the-spot.
It has metrics that I've never even thought to prepare - including some that always felt too complicated to prepare. Lifetime Donor Value, Donor Retention Rates, Lapsed Donors, Acquired Donors, Reactivated Donors - all broken down by giving segments.
I can customize Giving Segments. I work at a small non-profit - a major gift for us is different than a major gift for a larger organization. I can break up my data in the segments that make sense for my organization [and select colors that match our branding... you've never seen a happier Marketing Chair on your Board of Directors than when you give them a report that is properly branded for the organization. It's a small thing, but it doesn't take any extra work on my part.]
Access via Blackbaud's web portal, and to Citrix, is clumsy and slow.
User creation and management is also clumsy, slow, and error-prone.
Integration with Raiser's Edge is a pro, but it also can make using Online Express more complicated than necessary for users just looking for a simple email marketing tool.
The only difficulty I have with Fundraising Report Card is that the integration with our CRM [Kindful] doesn't keep track of the unique ID that is exported to Fundraising Report Card [to maintain confidentiality]. So it takes a bit more work to identify which donor[s] fall into a category. For example, Fundraising Report Card will tell me that 3 major donors lapsed in the previous quarter - and I can export the Donor ID's from Fundraising Report Card, but those ID's don't mean anything in my CRM, so I can't directly see who those donors are to follow up. This is an issue with the integration specifically with Kindful.
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.
Blackbaud's Online Express is MUCH easier to use than NetCommunity. Having the ability to "drop" donation forms directly into our existing website is a big improvement over NetCommunity's web pages. Only wish Online Express offered the ability to track constituents sign up for different email communications rather than just one option.
While I don't think I can entirely quantify the ROI for Fundraising Report Card, it made it possible for us to make better decisions and set better goals. Before we had this tool, we either spent way to much time analyzing data in spreadsheets [trying desperately not to make mistakes] OR more often, made strategic decisions without the facts to back us up. Our fundraising efforts are much smarter than before, and we KNOW where are areas of concern lie.
We don't have to guess whether or not our strategies are working. We know.
