Fundraising is hard, and donor retention rates will likely always be a source for stress. Enter: donor management systems to track and streamline relationship building and communications. We often hear from nonprofits struggling to find a donor management system that works how they’d like and at an affordable price point.
After researching and working with clients using a variety of different donor management tools, we’re just going to come out and say it — we like Bloomerang donor management software.
But what about the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack, you say? Although it’s free for many nonprofits and ultimately is a great tool, the set up and management pieces are incredibly technical. We’ll give it an honorary mention here, but Bloomerang donor management checked more boxes for us in the end.
Our Criteria
We landed on Bloomerang after digging into the following questions:
- Does it integrate with the form tool on your website? Bloomerang is able to integrate with Gravity Forms and a variety of other popular form builders.
- Can it collect and store information gathered on my website? It’s very likely. The types of information that can be pulled into the Bloomerang system from your forms is highly customizable.
- Is it affordable for nonprofits? Yes, but the price fluctuates based on the number of records you need. It’s free for up to 250 records and rises incrementally up to $499 per month for 40,000 records.
- Does it integrate with my payment processor? Yes, if you use Stripe (our recommended payment processor) or Moolah.
- Is it easy to use for non-technical types? Yes, but, like any new tool you take on, it takes some getting used to.
- Do they offer customer support? Yes, and they’ve been very helpful in our experience.
- Are they consistently improving software and adding new features? Yes, they add new features fairly consistently.
- Can I track other valuable conversions outside of donations, such as email sign-ups or event registrations? Bloomerang is super conversion friendly. They offer custom, individualized conversions, plus help with implementation if you need it.
Compare Donor Management Systems
We compared Bloomerang to two other popular options for nonprofits, Salesforce and Little Green Light.
Bloomerang | Salesforce | Little green light | |
---|---|---|---|
Form Integrations | Variety of popular form builders | Variety of popular form builders | Integrates with Wufoo forms, other form integrations possible with a developer’s help |
Customizable Information Collection | Highly customizable | Custom field options | Custom field options |
Pricing | First 250 records are free, then $99/month for 1,000 and incrementally increases up to $499/month for 40,000 | Free for 10 subscriptions with nonprofit discounts on additional subscriptions, products and services | $39/month for up to 2,500 constituents and incrementally increases up to $69/month for 20,000 constituents |
Payment Processor Integrations | Integrates with Stripe and Moolah | Lots of integration options | Integrates with Stripe, PayPal and ProPay |
Usability | Easy to use | Difficult to set up and to use | Easy to use |
Customer Service | Helpful customer service | Helpful customer service | Helpful customer service, but hours are limited |
Consistent Improvements | Yes, all the time | Interface is fairly outdated | Yes, fairly consistently |
Tracks Multiple Conversion Types | Offers custom, individualized conversions | Yes, but may complicate the initial set-up | Yes, supports multiple conversion types |
Other Selling Points | Interactive dashboard with retention rates, suggestions and incoming funds | Highly optimizable for the tech-savvy fundraiser | Nonprofit discount available through TechSoup |
Bloomerang for Nonprofits
Bloomerang donor management software is an excellent choice for nonprofits focused on individual fundraising. Like most donor management systems, it allows you to track donors, donations and communications. Unlike many other donor management systems, the tool and its features are fairly intuitive and easy to use without much training.
Have you used Bloomerang as your nonprofit’s donor management system? Had a good experience with another tool? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
I am a huge fan of Bloomerang and have taken it to 4 non profits I have been with! I agree totally with your assessments and comparisons!
That’s great to hear, Sherri. Gotta love that dashboard!
What a great article! the comparison is fair enough, and I completely agree with your recommendation. I had a previous experiment with Kindful, but it was not good. So, I guess I am going to try Bloomerang.
Thanks for sharing, Mohamed! I’m looking forward to hearing what you think about Bloomerang. What did you dislike about Kindful?