CharityEngine vs. DonorPerfect

CharityEngine has the POTENTIAL to be a good CRM, but both unresponsiveness to the more complex problems go unresolved for months at a time. Employee turnover is huge, which is likely because upper management is doing nothing to solve the internal problems. I would NOT recommend this CRM at this point. While CharityEngine does allow reasonably robust storage and querying of data if you plan to send emails through your CRM, look elsewhere. CharityEngine's framework is clunky and counter-intuitive, in addition to frequently just not working at all.

Incentivized

I love that I can integrate with Donor Search to learn about a person's past giving history to learn more about their interests. DonorPerfect also lets us upload a photo of our donors so we can easily identify them when they visit us or Attend a function. I wish the photo upload offered a larger image and multiple images, some donors send me pics of their visits and pets and it would be great to also store those right in their DP account.

• Allows users to create unique queries to generate targeted data.
• Allows the entry of addresses from all around the world, not just US addresses.

Incentivized

• Reports are clean and fairly simple to pull, as long as you're trained in how to use the filters. Especially coming from experience using a database where we had to write codes to pull reports, Donor perfect's report system is incredibly simple.
• DonorPerfect is SO user-friendly and simple to find the information you need. I believe anyone can easily learn how to use it.
• It's so simple to customize your DonorPerfect system. Screen Designer is one of my favorite parts. I have no background in databases, but I can create fields, calculations, set alerts for our philanthropy officers when certain gifts come in, and customize how the screens look. You can make so many adjustments in your DonorPerfect system to meet the needs of your organization.
• The staff listen to your needs! The community allows you to make a suggestion for how DonorPerfect can be improved. If your idea gets enough votes, they make it happen. The support team is also probably the best I've ever seen. Each person is so knowledgeable, personable, and helpful.

Incentivized

• DonorPerfect lacks good reporting functionality. Our staff often have to export data to CSV or use other reporting tools so we end up with a lot of data outside
• DonorPerfect doesn't really do a good job of tracking the full donor relationship. It needs to have better CRM functionality. Our donor relations staff often resort to third party tools to track these things.
• DonorPerfect has an API for integrations but it is very poorly implemented and slow.
• We have a lot of security concerns about DonorPerfect. These stem from our experiences using their API and observing how it is implemented, but also through our conversations directly with the company. They refused to provide security compliance details during a routine vendor risk audit from a reputable security audit vendor that we engaged to evaluate all of our vendors.

Incentivized

It is by far the most cost-effective

Incentivized

There are a lot of frustrating things about the general usage of CharityEngine. It syncs with a nine-digit zip code database, but doesn't automatically populate exportable fields with this data - it must be manually requested for each record. Buttons that allow a user to quickly move to a specific area of the data in a customer record frequently stop working after updates; are found by users and reported, and then take a month or longer to be fixed. A clunky and counter-intuitive "creative" database frequently fails completely and is always slow.

Incentivized

The software is very easy to use and to figure out. Someone using it for the first time would be able to navigate through it easily.

Incentivized

It's always up when we need it. There are some errors that happen and are not reproducible and cannot be resolved. But [they are] very few and none that cause disruption for the organization.

Incentivized

DonorPerfect is as reliable as your internet connection. It is a cloud based application and therefore you cannot pinpoint where the bottleneck is should you have one. But for the most part the app runs quickly.

Incentivized

Support is so easy. We use chat most often - as we can get someone quickly. The support folks know the product and get answers quickly. If they need to escalate an issue, they do so quickly. The training is great and easily accessible. You can take classes over and over until you completely understand concepts

I was able to utilize the support team to train me in areas where I could not figure out how to use the application.

Incentivized

didn't get all of our questions answered in the first go 'round

Incentivized

DonorPerfect provides an extremely easy to use importing tool and the support team was awesome. You don't have to do it in house; for a reasonable fee you can get it done by them.

Incentivized

Although DonorSnap was less expensive, it did not provide the same ease of use. I purchased DonorSnap because of the price and very quickly realized I made a mistake. We used it less than 6 months before I converted to DonorPerfect. Not all donor management systems are the same... you get what you pay for!

Incentivized

[There have been] only two outages since we have started using it and they were extremely information proactive. This should scale easily based on your internet connection.

Incentivized

• CharityEngine has allowed our organization to grow in the past few years, but it has not kept up with industry trends and avoids making changes and updates requested by users.
• Our overall business objectives cannot be met with CharityEngine alone. We must export data and use other applications to generate the data we need.

Incentivized

• I can't imagine doing my job on a daily basis without DonorPerfect, so the ROI is tremendous for me and my organization. Not only does it store our records and data succinctly, it is a one-stop shop for staying organized and on-task with the personal Dashboard feature, recording data (no matter how obscure), and generating reports.
• DonorPerfect is a huge time-saver for me, as it allows me to schedule tasks for myself and set specific reminders related to donors that populate on my daily Dashboard. I don't have to leave DonorPerfect, open up a calendar program, and duplicate my entry of data or tasks or reminders. I can do it all within each donor's record without leaving DonorPerfect or having to navigate elsewhere on my PC.