Blackbaud eTapestry Reviews - Pros & Cons, Ratings & more

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eTapestry is a cloud based fundraising and donor management software for small and medium sized non-profit organizations

Blackbaud eTapestry

Web-based

I rarely write bad reviews but this product made my job miserable. Even as a nonprofit with limited funds, I chose to use another product just because I couldn't get eTapestry to do what I needed.

The auto reminders and calendaring are super helpful. The seamless integration with online giving was also a blessing.

The product is easy to use, intuitive, and very easy to manipulate into reporting what you need to know. The vendor offers so many amazing training courses and really set's you up for success.

There are preset reports and queries, but we have the ability to design our own reports and queries as well. Also, the customer support by phone, email, and chat is outstanding.

The support team at eTapestry is very helpful and having live chat is great. ETapestry has freed so much of our time and helping streamline our processes.

When you get it, you can be completely surprised because you have no idea of what they will be delivering because they did no layouts to have you approve.

The ability to have recurring donors processed automatically and securly is very important and Etapestry delivered this.

ETapestry is a great entry-level CRM tool that will help you familiarize with how the whole concept works. My organization used eTapestry for quite some time and it functioned really well.

I was shocked that after paying for training that they would do this.

You will be sorely disappointed and face ongoing threats of increased costs.

Flexibility of donor records is important and works well. Tagging donors in multiple different ways always our nonprofit to track and communicate in ways that are important to the donor.

I have used so many different donor management software packages throughout my career and I have never been so pleased as I am with eTapestry.

Etapestry was a Cadillac and we only needed a Ford Escort at the time. Great for large nonprofits, more than what's needed for small ones.

As we are in multiple cities - the user access is very limited. It is almost either they can see and do everything or not do anything.

It is not very intuitive. Also, the training videos are not included, which is a big negative since the program is so expensive to begin with.

It was difficult sometimes to get the information you required out of the program without specific training.

People knew what tools they need in the system, but did not invest in further exploration of resources until I arrived. It was fairly intuitive though.

Moreover, at the time, it did not integrate well with other systems we were purchasing.

Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager

Mailchimp

The support team at eTapestry is very helpful and having live chat is great. eTapestry has freed so much of our time and helping streamline our processes. 

Great Donor Software

This review was solicited by eTapestry's marketing department. 

An Investment for Growth

Frustrating with a long learning curve

IF you use their system, you should really consider using their payment processing as well.  It is comparable to other services and will make your life easier.

Overall a good starter CRM

The benefits that I get from eTapestry is a giant database that can easily access each user by using a simple 1 to 6 digit entry recognition. Being able to store all this information online as opposed to locally also benefits our organization due to eTapestry's massive storage.

Slow loading times, yet valuable, helpful, and easy to use

Perfect customer service and help

Appreciate the pricing for this tool to track and manage our donors. Highly recommend for small and mid-size nonprofits. Easy to learn.

eTapestry Great for Small to Mid size Nonprofits

The right features for the the right development plan

I've used eTapestry for five years. 

I find this platform user-unfriendly, and it regularly is buggy and slow. Considering we pay them literally thousands of dollars every year to use it, I expect a better product. Running reports is a nightmare and requires significant staff training for the simplest of reports. The only reason we are still using it is because it is so difficult to switch years of donor records to another platform. They also recently opted us into a more expensive package without giving me a chance to opt out – despite it being a feature we don't use.

Expensive, Buggy, and Complicated 

Unfortunately, eTapestry is just not easy to work with as they were in the beginning when we started working with them in 2011.

Expensive platform with increasing costs and long contract periods!

 A great starting point for small nonprofits!

The customer service has been top-notch. I'm a very satisfied customer and have already spread the word about Blackbaud and Etapestry to my colleagues in the nonprofit field.

Should have done this long ago

eTapestry is very useful for even small non-profits in terms of moving donors through cycles of giving and being able to thank them appropriately and within a good timeframe.

eTapestry for non-profits

eTapestry Donor Data Base

Etapestry needs to be more user friendly. 9 out of 10 times their chat can't even help, and I have to wait for a higher level and sometimes they need to get back to me, which they eventually do, but too much time wasted.

Painful learning process 

Take time to watch the training videos, read blogs and discussion boards. 

This is a powerful database that can help you track all of your fundraising needs.

Bring back the top notch customer support you had . . . eTapestry is hard to learn and unless you are a programmer you need qualified, knowledgeable support who will help.

Not user friendly 

We are able to track and communicate with our donors through this system. The reporting functionality is amazing for the price, and after a user has invested quite a bit of time into learning how everything works, the system has many capabilities that have been extremely useful for our organization.

eTapestry is a good (not great) system for what we needed

Hasn't been updated since 2006, not worth your time

Great donor relations CRM with great flexibility and adaptability

The only thing they are reliable at is billing you - they conveniently require direct deposit. Currently trying to find someone who can change my billing process - though it's been weeks and no one has gotten back to me. 

very disappointing

This software beats anything else we looked at, cost-wise, and job-wise. Overall, I'm very happy with it!

eTapestry - Great Development Software 

I rarely write bad reviews but this product made my job miserable. Even as a nonprofit with limited funds, I chose to use another product just because I couldn't get eTapestry to do what I needed. 

I still have to pay for their lousy contract even though I hate it and don't use it any more.

I really enjoy eTapestry and find it to be very robust and helpful for fundraising and general database activities.

Great product for small nonprofits

Data & Impact Associate

Pam W.:                                                Hi, I'm Pam. I'm director of operations. And I give Donorbox a five out of five. Click below for more reviews.
                                                       We're a pretty new organization. We spun off from a larger one back in 2019, where we used Salesforce. Salesforce worked fine in the situation that we were in at the time, and we planned to continue with it, but it just didn't work for our users and the size of organization we ended up being. We tried Raiser's Edge as well, and that was a little bit similar. And then, we looked at Donorbox, which ended up to be the perfect solution for us.
                                                       I looked at different kind of options and someone recommended Donorbox to me. So, when I looked at it, it looked like it would be a possibility. And because there wasn't a big investment upfront, like with some of the bigger ones, I decided to go with it. We have been so impressed, and it fits who we are as an organization. It fits the kind of people that work with us so perfectly. I think one of the things that's been most exciting to us is we have a lot of volunteer workers who recruit donors to give to them personally to do volunteer work overseas in different relief and development sorts of organizations and different situations. Many of them have struggled over the years to have enough to live on when they've been volunteering, but not since we started with Donorbox.
                                                       People can sit with a potential donor and just tell them to enter in what is a very easy URL that's linked to our account on their phone, and within 30 seconds, they've given them a donation. So, for the last year, every single volunteer that we've had work with us has been fully funded and supported mainly because Donorbox has made it so easy.
                                                       Donorbox made it really easy to start. They were really clear on the coding and the plugins we needed to install it, particularly into our own website. So, they made that really simple. They made it very simple to just have a URL that was made easy to read and for people to remember. People don't even have to look up our URL now for the Donorbox donation page because it's so easy and simple to memorize. It was easy to train our people on. So it was just an incredibly user-friendly experience to get started with it.
                                                       I really recommend Donorbox, particularly to small and mid-size type of organizations. And really a high point of them, not something you would necessarily know until you'd already been involved as a user, is I'll recommend them as the most helpful help desk and customer service people in the industry. They are incredibly kind to both our donors and to us as users. Any kind of troubleshooting we've needed to do, they have done so quickly and efficiently and with great kindness and understanding always, even to the people who are the least tech-savvy amongst us or amongst our donors. They've just made it so easy to work with them. That's one of the reasons I really recommend them.

Blackbaud eTapestry Reviews

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