Bloomerang understands the unique fundraising challenges of faith-based organizations. Organizations from a variety of religious traditions and backgrounds have chosen Bloomerang’s donor database solution.
Below are just a few thoughts and success stories from organizations just like yours.
The St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center, the Catholic campus ministry at Minnesota State University, Mankato, supports the spiritual development of approximately 4,000 college students during a critical transitional time of their lives.
STMCNC implemented Bloomerang in mid-2014, instantly revitalizing Adam’s one-man development department.
“Our ministry is composed of four staff members and my focus is strictly development, meaning I am the only team member who uses Bloomerang. I use Bloomerang for all mailings, contact reports, transactions, end of year reports, receipts, thank you notes, and anything else associated with donor relations. The product interface is wonderfully easy to use, whether you work in it everyday or once a month.”
Adam loves the versatility that Bloomerang offers.“I was finally able to access our database while traveling. For example, our old software required me to print out past contact reports as well as contact information for when I went on visits. After our switch, I am now able to call benefactors without even dialing their phone number! The constituent thermometer makes it very easy to see how connected each benefactor is.”
“Not only is the product easy to use, customer service is fantastic. The Bloomerang Academy offers a free weekly webinar that touches on all aspects of development. Bloomerang caters to every need of the customer!”
Founded in 1882, Pacific Union College is a Seventh-day Adventist Christian college with a strong liberal arts tradition. Located in the heart of California’s Napa Valley, the college offers a fully accredited four-year program and emphasizes academic excellence, authentic spiritual experience, and service to local and worldwide communities.
Pacific Union College was looking for an easy-to-use web-based donor management system that could help them better organize and house data. “We needed to be able to easily grab data from other database products used within our institution, and easily export data from ours for import into the school’s financial system or for use in data-analysis and manipulation within our own department,” said Nic Miller, Database Manager at Pacific Union College.
After demoing several database platforms, they were drawn to Bloomerang’s “incredible client care” and focus on data-driven fundraising.
Pacific Union College had found an intuitive, agile platform with a nearly-flat learning curve that could help them better track their fundraising efforts during the year. “For small institutions that rely on volunteer networks or part-time staff to maintain their donor databases, these strengths are key to institutional success. You can purchase an expensive, technically-complex database product, but if no one know how to use it, it’s almost worse than having no database at all.”
Not only could Bloomerang help Pacific Union College consolidate data and alleviate fundraising pain points, but the customer care went beyond their expectations. “Moving a multi-thousand record database from one vendor to another is a challenging process for an institution, and the Bloomerang team made sure we were cued into the process every step of the way.”
Nic and his team finally had a system that could help them focus on what matters most: building better donor relationships. “Instead of worrying about the health of our data, we can focus on building better relationships with our donors, because keeping our records current now takes just a few clicks of the mouse.”
Nic and his team have benefited from the accessibility they now get from Bloomerang. “Our database no longer runs on local servers to which we must connect to through remote desktop software, and is only accessible on-premises. Our database is now securely accessible from anywhere in the world via our favorite browser (Chrome).” They’ve also benefited from Bloomerang’s ease of use and training options, and from the visualization they’ve gained into their fundraising efforts. “Team members can be trained to comfortably utilize Bloomerang’s core feature set in one 60-minute training session. We can now visually monitor the health of our fundraising efforts and see how each donor is responding to our campaigns and appeals.”
Since implementing Bloomerang, Pacific Union College has seen improvements in donor retention tracking. “For the first time, we can visually monitor our retention — no more guesswork. We are able to recognize where we’ve fallen short in our efforts, and use easy-to-run reports to build meaningful and targeted communication pieces.” They’ve also seem improvements in donor communications by using Bloomerang’s Timeline feature. “Bloomerang’s Timeline is a fantastic feature that allows us to visualize our interaction history with donors. Easy-to-use note and interaction entry, which is saved to the Timeline, allows us to maintain high-quality, meaningful information about our donors, which is invaluable when making phone calls as part of our recognition process. Bloomerang doesn’t rely on a single server to which we remotely connect, so we spend less of our day waiting for reports to run and records to load. This is a major plus for our power users.”
At the end of the day, one of the most important things Bloomerang does for Nic and his team is adapt to their unique fundraising needs in an uncomplicated way. “Bloomerang is a perfect fit for small institutions like our K-12 academies because of its simplicity. Even for larger institutions like PUC, Bloomerang offers the flexibility and customization to handle our more complex processes. Put more simply, Bloomerang adapts to the institution it serves, meeting both user and infrastructural needs.”
It’s amazing what a user-friendly, data-focused tool can do for the long-term growth of an organization such as Pacific Union College. “We <3 Bloomerang!”
“We don’t have the privilege of having someone who is just dedicated to doing the donor-management system for us. We needed flexibility, we needed ease of use, and the other thing that really was important to us was unlimited users. That’s something that we’ve really enjoyed and quite frankly, didn’t know that we would use a lot of, is the support that comes from using Bloomerang, or being a Bloomerang customer.”
Perry Hines, Director of Relationship Management – Shepherd Community Center
In print for more than 150 years, the Adventist Review is the flagship journal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Founded by James and Ellen White in 1849, the magazine is the one of the oldest religious publications in North America. The Review is published weekly and has a paid circulation of nearly 30,000.
The Online Edition features selected articles and news from the magazine and also offers some web-only features.
Adventist Review was looking for an intuitive donor management system that had greater capabilities to increase their donor base and giving. They decided it was time to make the switch from their homemade database. “We had a homemade database for managing our donors. It was hard to maintain and the designer was retiring and no one else was going to keep it up. We hoped to increase our donor base and giving and needed something with greater capabilities,” said Sharon Tennyson, New Believer Ministry Coordinator at Adventist Review.
After trying out some smaller database options, Sharon attended a Philanthropic Services Institute conference in Baltimore a couple years ago and met some of the Bloomerang team. She was impressed with what she saw and the rest (as they say) is history.
Adventist Review had found an intuitive system that could meet their needs and help them better focus on and increase their constituency base. Bloomerang could fit nicely into their gift development and donor retention processes, especially on the donor communication side. “I am able to design lovely thank you letters that are very professional and specific for the donation, i.e. if there is a gift subscription involved.” Segmenting and creating unique and custom donor communication pieces is a breeze now.
On top of Bloomerang’s functionality to enhance their fundraising efforts, Sharon and her team have also been impressed with the superb customer service they’ve received through online chat. “Your online ‘chat’ people have consistently been outstanding. I am certain some of my questions are dumb! No one ever makes me feel dumb either. Since we do just one annual appeal, I often forget how to pull up the database to send to the printer, etc and I always get good, pleasant help from support. Thank you.”
Sharon and her team have benefited from improved donor communications — and they still have room to improve even more! “Constituent communication is improved since we switched to Boomerang since it is easy to see donations, letters sent to donors and access their phone numbers. I bet I am not even using the software to its fullest yet.”
Along with improved donor communications, the team at Adventist Review has loved how easy Bloomerang is to use. Inputting donor data is actually enjoyable. “Bloomerang is so easy to work with I enjoy updating address changes and adding emails and phone numbers to the database, which helps if the address changes and something gets returned.”
At the end of the day, not only have Sharon and her team benefited from implementing Bloomerang, but they’ve encouraged other Adventist organizations to make the switch and see the same results they have. “I have offered positive words to other Adventist entities thinking of switching to Bloomerang. Since I work at the world headquarters of our church, many Adventist visitors come through and I have explained to them why I like using Bloomerang.”
It’s amazing what a user-friendly, donor-centric tool can do for the long-term growth of an organization such as Adventist Review.
The Jewish Fertility Foundation provides financial assistance, educational awareness, and emotional support to Atlanta Jewish families who have medical fertility challenges.
Jewish Fertility Foundation was looking for a powerful donor management system that could grow with them and help them get organized. “We grew fast as an organization and had to get organized with our donors and clients,” said Elana Frank, Executive Director and Founder at Jewish Fertility Foundation.
After doing some research for their first database and interviewing people who were using Bloomerang, Elana and her team knew they’d found an affordable solution that could grow with them.
The people at Bloomerang practice what they preach and are knowledgeable about the product and fundraising. Bloomerang takes customer needs into account when building out the product roadmap every year. That versatility plus the experienced customer support staff were another reason why Bloomerang appealed to Elana over other options. “If I can’t figure something out, the customer service chat feature is a lifesaver. If I need something that doesn’t yet exist I know that it will soon.”
Jewish Fertility Foundation has seen several fundraising pain points be alleviated since implementing Bloomerang. One such benefit is that the team now has a better understanding of “who gave what previously and when through which of our contacts.” Plus tracking their constituents and their needs and attributes through reporting is a breeze and has positively impacted their donor retention rate.
At the end of the day, Jewish Fertility Foundation has been able to fundraise more effectively and the results they’ve seen reflect that. “Before we started with Bloomerang we raised about $8,000 year one, year 2 we raised $38,000, and by year 3 we’re already at almost $180,000 and the year isn’t up.”
It’s amazing what a donor-centric tool built for fundraisers can do for the growth of an organization such as Jewish Fertility Foundation. “I sure wouldn’t be able to track donations, cultivation, and thank yous without Bloomerang.”
“Outreach uses the Bloomerang platform to really measure the engagement of an individual. So we’re able to see on that engagement meter where they are in their giving. We’re able to track that. We’re able to follow them. But really what it’s communicating is what’s making their heart sing. So we know when we send out a letter or a newsletter, what is their response. And so that’s a real nice feature for us to be able to see why they’re giving and how we can pursue that.”
Eric Howard, CEO – Outreach Indiana
The mission of the Washington State Jewish Historical Society is to promote interest in and knowledge of the life, history, and culture of the Jewish people and communities of the State of Washington.
The Society is dedicated to discovering, preserving, and disseminating the history of the Jews of Washington State. This unique history is shared through publications, exhibits, displays, speakers, and tours.
Washington State Jewish Historical Society was looking for a donor management system at the same time they were looking for a website provider. They wanted something that was easy to use, but could still track the critical data that they needed it to. They were introduced to Bloomerang through Firespring, and realized that their need for a donor management system could finally be met.
Washington State Jewish Historical Society had found a system that could help them easily track their donor retention and constituent data. Bloomerang has been an asset for their donor retention and gift development processes.
Lisa Kranseler, Executive Director at Washington State Jewish Historical Society was originally drawn to Bloomerang’s capabilities, ease of use, and knowledgeable staff. “The ease, the service, the whole system seemed great.”
Lisa and her team simply can’t do without a donor management system in place. They’ve gained insights about their constituents that they never had before. “Love the way we can track people we never had the opportunity to before.”
Since implementing Bloomerang, Washington State Jewish Historical Society has benefited from improvements to several fundraising pain-points that were previously an issue. They no longer have to stress over “tracking on excel spreadsheets, notebooks, or sticky notes even.”
At the end of the day, one of the most important things Bloomerang does for Lisa and her team is help them leverage their donor data to increase donations. They love “being able to look back at the progress and records for each individual.”
It’s amazing what a user-friendly, data-focused tool can do for the long-term growth of an organization such as Washington State Jewish Historical Society.
More Customer Testimonials
“Last donor management software you will ever use or need. We have used several different donor management software over the years. All of them had the same biggest issue, training my non-tech people on how to use a complex system. With Bloomerang I was able to import all of my settings in just a couple of hours. The ease of use on the system is second to none. Support has always been quick to respond and helpful.”
Clint Wilson, Executive Director, Teen Horizons Christian Outreach“We use Bloomerang for a variety of things: e-newsletters, email reminders, printing thank you notes, keeping track of donors, event planning, and online donations. It has completely changed how we conduct ourselves.”
Joe Kunkel, Executive Director, GRACE Ministries/Neighbor to Neighbor“Awesome customer service through the entire sales, conversion, and training processes! Thank you!”