Compass - Nebraska
Compass was founded in 2007 with the purpose of challenging the church to meet the needs of children and youth in the foster care system. We provide programs and services that emphasize personal growth, foster healthy relationships, and promote connections to the community.
Challenge
Compass was looking for an affordable, intuitive, relationship-management donor database to replace their clunky and complex system. They wanted an all-in-one system with a knowledgeable customer support team that could give access to all the features they’d need at no extra cost.
“When we left our previous database system, it was at the end of the year (beginning of December), but I was so disappointed with the system that I was willing to have no system for a few months until we found the right one. The previous system was very ‘clunky’ on both sides to use. It was not friendly to donors and it was complex on the backend as well. We were told we could do things that we, later on, found out we could not do, or there would be an additional charge for it. The customer service was frustrating and not very helpful. I wanted a system that would mostly be a ‘one-stop shop.’ I needed to be able to manage my constituents and our relationship, send emails and/or letters, and segment people in the system,” said Savannah Lyon, Director of Engagement and Promotions at Compass. With the timing and opportunity for better functionality, Savannah was ready to make the switch.
Solution
After getting a recommendation for Bloomerang from a consultant she worked with, Savannah was excited to see how its feature set could meet her organization’s needs. “A consultant I was working with highly recommended Bloomerang to me. She let me see the back end from a client-side, and it really helped me to see the benefits.” Savannah was originally drawn to Bloomerang because of how user donor-focused, easy to use, and intuitive it is but has come to appreciate the friendly and knowledgeable customer support team that has been an invaluable resource for the staff at Compass. “I can onboard other teammates very easily without having to go through extensive training on the system. I can also reach out to customer service at any time. The customer service is simply the best. I also love that they archive conversations so that I can go back and look at the support session in the future if I have the same problem. There is no delay or waiting like some customer support chats. You have their full attention.”
In addition to its innovative features and dependability as a database, Savannah is happy to tout Bloomerang’s intuitiveness, built-in support, and ongoing learning opportunities as another reason to recommend it as a top donor management system for social services like theirs. “This is the third database system I have used in 6 years and it will be the last one. It’s just so much easier to use. The customer support and initial coaching I received was so helpful. You will be able to build better relationships and therefore secure more donations for your organization with Bloomerang.”
Results
Since implementing Bloomerang, Compass has alleviated several fundraising pain points around tracking their donor retention, segmenting and communicating with various constituent groups, and keeping better donor data. “Documenting relationships, much better-looking emails with Bloomerang’s built-in donor communications audit already enabled, segmenting donors, finding out who has the potential to give. The back side is so easy to use that I don’t dread going into it to find what I need.” Bloomerang’s features and capabilities will also grow with them as they grow their donor base and meet them where they are. “We live in an area where people love to write checks, but as younger donors get older, they will begin donating online much more regularly, so we needed something that would be easy to use. We couldn’t really even track our donor retention before, but now I see what it is on a daily basis.”
Not only have they seen an increase in productivity and efficiency in their development process, but Savannah and the team at Compass have also seen an improvement in the quality of their constituent communications through the mobile app, letter and email functionality, and access to updated, segmented, and clean donor data. “We can keep notes on our constituents and everyone can see them. This is so nice. That means I don’t have to create multiple steps or remember things. I also love the app. You can just document what you did and how you are going to follow up when you are out meeting with donors.”
All in all, it’s amazing what an insightful, intuitive, and fundraising-focused database can do for the growth of social services such as Compass. “I love Bloomerang!”