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  • 1.  Feedback on Blackbaud's Luminate Online

    Posted 07-07-2022 05:28 PM

    Looking for entities, particularly, higher education, that uses Blackbaud's Luminate Online for gift forms, event registration and marketing/communication.

     

    If you use this product and are willing to share your feedback regarding your satisfaction (or not), I would greatly appreciate it.  Thanks so much, Shelby

     

    Shelby Gould

    Executive Director, Donor Relations and COO 
    University Advancement / TWU Foundation

    940.898.3861 | office

    903.920.2415 | mobile

     

    Horizontal TWU logo in maroon and black

     

    PO Box 425618 | Denton, TX  76204-5618

     



  • 2.  RE: Feedback on Blackbaud's Luminate Online

    Posted 07-21-2022 03:32 PM
    I'd also love to hear about this, as we're exploring new vendors for these same areas. 


    ------------------------------
    Abbey Soclof
    Associate Vice President, Advancement Operations
    Yeshiva University
    abbey.soclof@yu.edu
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Feedback on Blackbaud's Luminate Online

    Posted 07-22-2022 11:07 AM
    We've been using Luminate for years. When we realized our page was extremely outdated, wasn't user friendly, and didn't accept the many forms of payment that people want to use today, we asked them for a quote on what it would cost to upgrade our page. The price was outrageous, and it's unbelievable that these upgrades come at such a cost and aren't included in the product, and their PayPal won't process recurring gifts. Also, because we needed an event platform and peer to peer fundraising we were paying for two other applications to fill all of our needs. We've signed up with Classy and are in the process of setting this up now. I am really happy with this product and the company. Their look is modern, flexible, and easy to manage. They process all payment types, even Crypto, and the PayPal accepts recurring gifts. It also includes peer to peer fundraising and an event platform. I'm so happy we switched, we were very unhappy with Luminate.

    ------------------------------
    Sarah Fitzgerald
    Director of Development Operations
    YMCA of Greater Boston
    sfitzgerald@ymcaboston.org
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Feedback on Blackbaud's Luminate Online

    Posted 07-22-2022 03:08 PM
    Luminate is quite far behind in terms of features and sharing data with other systems, to the point that we have struck it from our list of products we feel we can recommend to our clients. Migrating out of Luminate has also been a challenge for several of our clients, and Blackbaud has been difficult to work with in migrating recurring gift tokens. I would encourage anyone to consider any of several other excellent vendors in the market. 


    Thank you,
    Isaac Shalev
    Data Strategy Expert
    Sage70, Inc.
    (917) 859-0151
    isaac@sage70.com

    Schedule a 30-minute consultation now:





    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Feedback on Blackbaud's Luminate Online

    Posted 07-25-2022 08:39 AM
    Thank you for the feedback. This is too bad to hear. We are also exploring SF Marketing Cloud, which seems like it will really hit the mark for email communications, but the online giving and event registration piece of the conversation with SalesForce isn't coming together as cleanly. So I'd love to hear what folks are using. 

    Thanks,
    Abbey

    ------------------------------
    Abbey Soclof
    Associate Vice President, Advancement Operations
    Yeshiva University
    abbey.soclof@yu.edu
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Feedback on Blackbaud's Luminate Online

    Posted 07-25-2022 12:28 PM
    There are many competitive options for online giving, including Classy, GiveButter, and more. 

    However, event registration and management is harder to encapsulate, as the requirements from users are more varied. There are products like Almabase, iModules, and Graduway, that offer events, fundraising, and online community services in a package, for alumni. There are fundraising-event-focused solutions like Greater Giving. And then there are event planning packages like CVent and PlanningPod and many others that are broader than fundraising events alone. A good needs assessment will have help guide you to the right product.


    Thank you,
    Isaac Shalev
    Data Strategy Expert
    Sage70, Inc.
    (917) 859-0151
    isaac@sage70.com

    Schedule a 30-minute consultation now:





    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Feedback on Blackbaud's Luminate Online

    Posted 07-25-2022 01:54 PM
    Abbey, way back before Blackbaud purchased Convio (which is now Luminate), we implemented it at NC State.  Its primary purpose for us back then (10+ years ago) was for online giving and email communication.

    However, Convio could not handle events and registrations to the extent we needed, so we turned to iModules (now Anthology) for that and an alumni portal.  At some point, after I left and after the Blackbaud acquisition, NC State discontinued Convio/Luminate in favor of iModules/Anthology for all of these services.

    In my travels, I increasingly run into Anthology for events and registrations, as well as online giving and alumni portals.

    Now might be a good time to evaluate all of your similar applications.  I continue to be a proponent of implementing the best systems to might your needs.  Isaac has mentioned several good ones.  However, if I have multiple needs (events, online giving, email communications, alumni portal) and I find a single system that does an above-average job addressing all of those needs, I will give that system a long, hard look.  There are economies of scale by using one platform over many platforms.

    John

    John H. Taylor
    Principal
    John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC
    2604 Sevier St.
    Durham, NC   27705
    919.816.5903 (cell/text)

    Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987





    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Feedback on Blackbaud's Luminate Online

    Posted 07-25-2022 01:59 PM
    Thanks John. 
    We currently use iModules, which we moved onto from Convio/Luminate in about 2016. We are increasingly unhappy for iModules for a number of reasons, chief among them being that 1) it isn't easy to learn and we have had trouble training folks across our department as well as MarComm on the system 2) the customer service has been increasingly poor, and they just aren't responsive to customer needs, including what seems like basic reporting needs and c) the project to build a connector between iModules and Ellucian CRM Advance was a huge fail, with us as the beta testers. So we'd really like to have a system(s) that allows us to absorb information back into our database of record. It looks like we will probably end up with multiple vendors, unfortunately.

    ------------------------------
    Abbey Soclof
    Associate Vice President, Advancement Operations
    Yeshiva University
    abbey.soclof@yu.edu
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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