Why Always Home Has Zero Regrets About Switching to Bloomerang
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
Always Home is a Connecticut-based nonprofit dedicated to preventing family homelessness. For over 25 years, they have worked tirelessly to keep families housed, while empowering parents to create lasting stability for their children. Previously using Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge for donor management, they faced significant challenges, including difficulty accessing reliable data, time-consuming reporting, and cumbersome workflows. Bloomerang’s Giving Platform provided a seamless and user-friendly solution. With features like donor engagement insights, NCOA updates, and powerful event management tools, Bloomerang has helped Always Home achieve a 55% donor retention rate. Their team is thrilled that Bloomerang has streamlined their fundraising efforts and enhanced donor connections without sacrificing time.
CHALLENGE
Why Always Home switched from Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge
For Always Home, working with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge often felt like an uphill battle. The team struggled with mistrust in their own data, delayed tasks like pulling mailing lists, and disconnected donor interactions. “We feared this was causing a disconnect between our organization and our donors,” said Ashley Lane, Donor Relations Manager. “Even pulling a simple mailing list was a daunting task, and we didn’t want it to seem like we didn’t know our constituents, as making interactions personalized is at the heart of how we operate.”
The inefficiency was further compounded by Always Home’s lean structure, with just two employees managing fundraising and donor relations responsibilities. “It is hard to get anything done when hours are wasted trying to pull a simple report or send an email communication to donors,” said Lane. After years of navigating manual Excel processes and then battling with Raiser’s Edge, the team knew it was time for a change.
SOLUTION
Ease of use with the streamlined Bloomerang Giving Platform
When Always Home discovered Bloomerang’s Giving Platform, it was clear they’d found a solution that aligned with their mission to foster personalized donor relationships. “So many things drew us to Bloomerang’s integrated Giving Platform, but at the top of the list was how user-friendly it was,” Lane shared. “Even the look of the dashboard and donor profiles was so much cleaner and easier to figure out than Blackbaud.”
Bloomerang’s suite of integrated tools, including the NCOA feature, DonorSearch donor data enrichment, and engagement meters, empowered Always Home to analyze their donor base with ease. This allowed them to better understand giving patterns and gift potential, vital for ensuring lasting donor connections. “Bloomerang’s Giving Platform integrates our CRM and event management tools so that we’re not doing double the work moving all our data over after an event,” Lane commented. “Bloomerang is so much easier to use, which is especially important for our donors and event volunteers.”
Bloomerang’s integrated Giving Platform is saving Always Home not just time, but money too. “Bloomerang has also allowed a pretty significant cost savings compared to Blackbaud, without compromising on any of the features we needed and wanted,” said Lane. “We are saving thousands of dollars per year by being a Bloomerang customer.”
Lane also highlighted the exceptional onboarding experience. From the sales and data migration teams to chat support, Bloomerang was there every step of the way, whereas it was like “pulling teeth” with Raiser’s Edge. “The data migration process was incredibly easy, with someone always there to help us if we ran into issues. They were meticulous, and we were really happy with how smoothly this step went.” When the migration took place, they were right in the middle of a busy season, juggling their annual appeal and fundraising events. Despite the timing, the transition was seamless thanks to Bloomerang’s user-friendly design. “I was eager to get into the system to pull our appeal mailing list, and I did so without any formal training from Bloomerang,” said Lane. “It was that intuitive!”
RESULTS
Boosting donor engagement with Bloomerang’s superior reporting tools over Blackbaud
Switching to Bloomerang has transformed how Always Home operates. The efficiency and ease of Bloomerang’s Giving Platform have freed up valuable time for donor engagement efforts. “It’s solving the problem of time and complexity for us,” Lane said. “Setting up and pulling a report that would have taken me hours in Raiser’s Edge now takes me just a few minutes in Bloomerang. This ability has allowed me to fine-tune our data even further and create nice visuals and reports that can be shared with our staff, donors, board, etc.”
Bloomerang’s intuitive design isn’t just impactful for reporting. “We were initially drawn to the event management piece of the system because we had been on the hunt for a system that ‘did everything.’ To us, that meant providing a CRM as well as the event management tools.” Features like automated recurring donation prompts and Smart Amounts have also helped Always Home retain donors and improve engagement. Their streamlined dashboard even enables the Executive Director to send personalized thank-you emails directly to donors without adding administrative burdens.
“Raiser’s Edge made it hard for us to even imagine diving into donor engagement metrics,” said Lane. “I can say for certain that donor relations have improved with Bloomerang’s Giving Platform because we can track interactions and collect data for us and our donors with ease, freeing up so much time that we can better communicate with our donors.” These relationships have resulted in a 55% donor retention rate for Always Home since switching to Bloomerang.
“Our team is exponentially happier that everything is so simple now,” Lane noted. “Bloomerang’s Giving Platform has made it so much easier to trust the data we have in our system and use it to bring a personalized touch to the way we communicate with our donors.” Always Home has enhanced its ability to track engagement, identify high-impact supporters, and ensure that resources are allocated where they’re needed most. With Bloomerang, Always Home looks forward to continuing to strengthen donor relationships and prevent family homelessness in the communities they serve. “I have zero regrets about making the switch to this platform,” said Lane. “And I am so excited to continue learning about all the amazing tools they provide to help Always Home succeed in every aspect.”
"Words cannot even begin to describe how superior Bloomerang’s reporting features are to Blackbaud’s. Gone are the days of me wasting two hours to pull a monthly reconciliation report or online donations report. With Bloomerang, I can take care of these tasks in a matter of minutes. Our team is exponentially happier that everything is so simple now."
donor retention rate
