Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
Fantastic customer support. Pretty intuitive to navigate. The right level of features for my fundraising program--all the functionality I need, but not too much to clutter my dashboard or brain. Easy to train colleagues.

Cons
Quite challenging to use on a Mac platform, which seems to be the predominant OS in educational/university settings and also among many non-profits. You have to use helper "remote connection" software even to reach the Trailblazer server, and then it looks and works like you're on a PC. Which leads to my other con: The interface is unimaginably ugly. Looks count, and most other CRMs are now clean and beautiful. Definitely affects the user experience to use attractive sites and software all day, but then to have to switch to early-'90s Windows land for database work. Also, Trailblazer doesn't work directly with the payment gateway required by the university where we're based. (Cybersource/Secure Acceptance) That means donations aren't entered automatically, but rather we have to import them manually. I see this as more of a limitation by our university than by Trailblazer, but it's still a hassle.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
The software has many features that have worked well for our group which is a membership based nonprofit. Over the few years that we have had it, the company has made substantial improvements on a continuing basis. However, the assumptions underlying the software's design and features must be a close match to your real world operations or you will likely need to adjust how you do some things to make the software work for you. However, the software is very adaptive, it has many features we need and quite a few we have not implemented. Also, and this is critical for us, the software support, training and consulting is worth every penny you pay for the annual license and more!

Cons
There are some issues but these are the nature of the beast with a product with so many features. One is the learning curve (although you can restrict access to certain features on a user by use basis to let them "grow" into the system). Another is that for a membership based system there are design assumptions that we have had to "work around" - but the programmers and tech support have been wonderful to make changes, tweaks and suggest alternative ways to get things done.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
The best thing about Trailblazer is the customer service. The guys are extremely accessible and helpful. They are willing to walk me through a process, or just do it for me - whichever I request. After trying two other donor management softwares that offered little or no help, Trailblazer's amazing service is a welcomed benefit.

Cons
The learning curve for Trailblazer is long. Therefore, whenever I wanted to do something new, I'd run into a wall. It seems like the first six months - at least - were pretty frustrating because there was always a glitch and I could never just get something done quickly. The glitch was in the training, not the software. I'd like to see a series of training videos that we could have our staff watch, in order, so that a general level of proficiency could be attained up front.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
It does SO much! It is light-years beyond Excel and serves us better than any other online system that we've looked into! Everything we do can be exported to an Excel form, it tracks people, finances, events, emails, relationships and so much more. It is easy to use and navigate and keeps us organized. I can run thousands of reports and customize all of it to meet my needs. Training is easy to understand and straightforward.

Cons
The email creation tool could be easier to use for those not skilled in HTML. It can do a lot but it isn't drag-and-drop easy like other systesm.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Customer support, particularly during the training and start-up phase, has been excellent. They are quick and responsive. And their solutions have nearly always been positive -- almost never a "Sorry we can't do that" or "It doesn't work that way" or "We don't have that feature."

Cons
It was not clear to me before I signed on -- and I can't say whether it should have been clear -- that as a Mac user, Trail Blazer is "non-native" in the sense that I have to use Microsoft Remote Connection to access the Trailblazer server and then use a Windows interface. It's reasonably fast. There's almost no lag time with this setup, and it's not as clunky as it could be. But it makes the experience of using Trailblazer a lot less pleasant. I frankly hate the way Windows looks, acts, and feels, and the remote connection is a couple extra steps each time I use the database. The whole reason I use a Mac is so as not to use Windows!

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10