CharityEngine
Review of CharityEngine Software: system overview, features, price and cost information. Get free demos and compare to similar programs.
Overview
About CharityEngine
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CharityEngine Features
CharityEngine Integrations
Customer Reviews
See why people love CharityEngine
Michelle H.
Verified UserNon-Profit Organization Management · 11-50 employees
Power behind your reporting
Verified reviewer
- CharityEngine is a great CRM tool, for me the feature I use most often is query builder to create custom reports of specific parts and types of data
- I love the functionality available in Query Builder, and since my organization has some pretty complex data structures, CE makes it really easy for me to get exactly the data I need at any given time
Sometimes when there are updates to the software, some functionalities are down temporarily, but their team always works swiftly to make sure everything is running smooth
Switched From
We needed more everything!
Adam H.
Verified UserNon-Profit Organization Management · 201-500 employees
CharityEngine User
Overall experience has been very good. Excellent customer support.
- The automated functions make my job much easier
- There are some functions that I don't know how to use well or don't work well
Switched From
Customer support and sunsetting of the product I was using.
Margie E.
Verified UserNon-Profit Organization Management · 2-10 employees
Design seems tailored more to mass mailers than high dollar cultivators
I was brought in to the organization after they had spent 9 months trying to transition to Charity Engine. I found that the data transfer from our old system was not done correctly and it took a lot of time to get that sorted out. It isn't intuitive, and is over complicated. It is hard to find what you are looking for in the navigation.
- Query capability
- Online forms
- Payment processing
- We can't use for generating acknowledgement letters because they won't format correctly
- We didn't use initially for email communication, but they have improved that feature
- It is very clunky to add or update individual records, requiring user to go in and out of many screens and remember to flag things, such as address is preferred, and remember to click a save button
- Far too many steps
- It doesn't help with grant management
- Event management also is not good
- It is difficult and time consuming to record activities (meetings, phone calls) that you have had with your donors, and then they are not exportable on reports
Switched From
I don't know - I wasn't here then.
Why they chose it
"IDK"
Dana C.
Verified UserFund-Raising · 11-50 employees
Highly-Customizable, Powerful & Accessible, Best Price
We use Charity Engine for on and offline monthly/quarterly/annual recurring donations and all online donation forms. We have a different CRM for sending email to our 250,000+subscribers and to host our actions to legislators and corporations. And another CRM for our direct mail constituents. Some at the organization argue that we should have one CRM to do all this--but I never expect that out of a company. Charity Engine clearly specializes in online donations and recurring donations, including an advance fraud suite that prevents the fraudulent testing of credit cards on their system (and fees associated). Monthly processing and all the management of credit card updating, both automatic and personal updates, are a breeze. And Charity Engine has made it clear that the data is ALWAYS ours. (Other companies we have worked with said they have the right to withhold credit card information of recurring donors, if you ever try to move off their system.)
- You can do pretty much anything with either the front-end or back-end design of Charity Engine forms
- This power and flexibility are exactly what our medium to large non-profit needs as we are testing and improving our online fundraising
- The user interface is intuitive and user-friendly
- I am not a developer and over the years I’ve learned how to navigate most things within the system, it is complex, but well organized
- And if you are not technical or don’t have the time, Charity Engine will connect you with a developer
- I appreciate how we have the capability to add code to our forms and templates
- This has enabled us to better track conversions, ecommerce, Google Analytics, and Facebook website verification
- The donation data is all there, you can query on anything and export it into excel to analyze
- Note: We added custom hidden fields to help with tracking donations from third party sites and other CRMs
- Sustainer charging is very simple within Charity Engine
- The amount of work required once you have someone set up in it is minimal
- The help files are actually helpful, and are clearly written to walk you through things you need to do
- We cannot use the “standard donation form” to meet our fundraising needs
- We have custom forms and once you make custom forms, if they break, Charity Engine support (often) can’t fix
- You need to go to a developer
- Good news is forms don’t break often
- Not a system flaw—rather warning to the user, because the tool is so powerful and hands on, you do have the ability to do almost anything, including break the forms
- More than once I have wanted to test something new, so I tinkered with the forms and broke something else
- Always create copies of forms and test them out before changing in a live environment
- Sometimes, the Charity Engine staff seem to have limited experience with, or solutions for, integrating CE with other platforms
- For example, we spent months trying to get Google Tag Manager to work correctly on Charity Engine forms so we could run a functional Facebook Ad campaign
- Another example, we had a comma issue with our forms that makes $1,000+ transactions register as $1 in Google Analytics
- We had to work with independent contractors to resolve both of these issues, even though we imagine they are issues all Charity Engine clients must face
- The system can be a little buggy, so you have to pay attention to things—especially patterns
- Example: every now and then the amount a donor has entered into specific form changes on its own after they hit the submit button, but because it can’t be consistently reproduced, there’s nothing they can do about it
Why they chose it
"In 2015 we researched Salsa's donation forms, Salesforce, and Blackbaud's Luminate. We were impressed with Charity Engine because they understood the importance of allowing back-end users (people at our org) to access all functions, data, and operations of the system--it is well-organized and accessible. Before our most recent contract renewal, we have researched SALSA Fundraise and Blackbaud's Luminate to sync with Raiser's Edge, because they were two other CRMs our org is currently using. When shopping around, we focused how these other platforms handle monthly processing, because that is where the majority of our donations come from. Although we also need dynamic highly customizable online donation forms. It is important to keep in mind that these companies make their money off you donation/payment processing--so keep a close eye on these fees, more than what you are paying monthly to use the system. Charity Engine matched our current rates and therefore won on payment processing for both Credit Cards and ACH. Charity Engines monthly payment processing, credit card updater, fraud protection suite, and manual processing is far superior to SALSA Fundraise. Luminate cost considerably more than Charity Engine to process monthly donations and to set up their platform. And why? Luminates functionality was far behind Charity Engines (in 2021). Example, BB said they would be rolling out PayPal on their donation forms "soon.""
Nick L.
Verified UserNon-Profit Organization Management · 51-200 employees
A view from a non-profit Food Bank.
As the donor database manager, I spend each and every day within CharityEngine. Processing donations, tracking pledges, building forms, event management, reporting and more. The overall experience I have had with CharityEngine is hands down some of the best. Each and every feature within CharityEngine continues to inspire individual growth within myself as the opportunities are endless.
- The convenience, and ease of all fundraising streamlines comes within CharityEngine
- From simple donation processing, to online forms, event registrations and individualize marketing tools, CharityEngine is the powerhouse software
- CharityEngine continues to improve with each and every release bringing more and more improvements for continued growth in the fundraising segments
- Managing our major gifts program through CharityEngine has allowed our gift officers to track opportunities, pledges and payments, reporting and all, in real-time
- Although we integrated CharityEngine just shy of a little over two years ago, it seems like just yesterday
- We continue to grow as an organization, and within that growth we continue to grow within CharityEngine
- That being said, each and every day I continue to learn more and more that CharityEngine can do
- Of course, we run into a hurdle here and there, but fortunately, we have a great support team behind us, and for that fact we really haven’t run into anything we find as a dislike
Switched From
The switch to CharityEngine was made for growth. At the time, our previous software had not allowed the growth factor that CharityEngine allowed. The online presence was an important move that my organization had prioritized to improve. After reviewing, and testing a number of CRM software's, the decision to move forward with CharityEngine boiled down to the support behind the product. A focused and dedicated support team provides valuable knowledge and potential to continue growing.
Why they chose it
"Choosing the right platform requires that you ensure you have all that you need within the product. CharityEngine provides just that. The decision was made to convert to CharityEngine for that, and it was the right choice for us!"
Benjamin M.
Verified UserNon-Profit Organization Management · 2-10 employees
Not just Donor Management
The system not only solves some of the most complex donor management system needs, but in some cases it's working for my association customers to manage membership needs as well. As for associations that have a donor arm, which is where we've done a lot of work, this system is easy to integrate as needed but is a real 360 degree view while also having top notch web forms, marketing automation and other critical items that are huge money and time savers for nonprofits
- For a multi-tenant system, I'm really surprised at the extensibility of the system
- Without "customizing" everything, it's really flexible and configurable to meet a lot of different business rules that are unique to my customers
- Their data model and ability to query and layer queries is really impressive compared to similar systems in the market
- Hard to say, I think it may be somewhat difficult to set up if you aren't trained on it like my team is as an integration and implementation firm
- We work with many similar systems in the market though and I'd say comparatively, it's easier to set up than most other member and donor management systems
- I wish it had some additional functionality like the Association Management Systems (AMS) market has around testing, certification and things like that, we could have consolidated down to fewer systems in the stack for our customers who we implemented it for, but that's not what we bought it for
- I'm super pleased with what's there
Switched From
Our customer would say that the functionality was greater and more all-inclusive, and the pricing model is surprisingly creative and flexible for the enterprise level system you get.
Why they chose it
"After spending months to consider a CRM based approach and all of the additional customizations and other 3rd party systems that would be needed to accomplish our customer's goals, the cost to stand up the system and get up and running was cheaper and faster while the customer felt they did not sacrifice quality or support."
Christina J.
Verified UserBroadcast Media · 51-200 employees
Connect, Customize and Collaborate
Verified reviewer
- The tool is feature rich
- I find new options that will improve our productivity just about every week
- One of my favorite features is their robust import tool
- They make is so easy to bring data into the system
- Charity Engine offers a wide variety of features, but some have not been developed to the level of sophistication we need
- The good news is they have an excellent process for submitting and reviewing enhancement requests and so far, all our requests have been submitted for future development
Switched From
Allegiance did not offer the ability to integrate with other technology platforms which is critical for the long term growth of our organization.
Why they chose it
"We chose Charity Engine because of their API capability, donor retention program and they offer the ability to customize just about everything within the tool."
Shalin D.
Verified UserNon-Profit Organization Management · 51-200 employees
An Easy, One-Stop Shop
Charity Engine has provided a one-stop shop CRM solution for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy for the past five years, providing a powerful tool to help grow the organization’s constituency. The one-stop shop aspect has been very helpful — everything is one place. Data collection, data management, campaign management, email distribution and so much more. We do not have to manage multiple vendors and contracts, we can track work and performance in one system, and we have one account manager ensuring our needs are met. We both appreciate and have enjoyed the support of the Charity Engine team and we know other organizations will too.
We loved that it's a one-stop shop, reducing the need to manage multiple contracts or engage in various conversations with multiple vendors
- The software could be more user-friendly, supplemented by robust customer support
- Fortunately, Charity Engine is expanding its account management/customer support team(s) so improvements are ahead
Why they chose it
"We chose Charity Engine because it offered us a one-stop shop for all of our needs."
Dana B.
Verified UserNon-Profit Organization Management · 1001-5000 employees
A True Partner
I've worked at start ups and with more mature fundraising programs and the level of transparency I had into our business, especially payment processing is unmatched. The experience with Charity Engine felt more like a partnership than a vendor / client relationship and I believe this contributed to our overall success.
- A monthly giving program can provide a stable source of income for an organization and Charity Engine software was integral to the implementation and ongoing success of our monthly giving program
- Our strategy included moving off of our existing online fundraising platform and finding a better option for payment processing
- Direct Response Television (DRTV) is a considerable investment and it was the primary acquisition method for our program
- We wanted a solution that could charge recurring gifts (monthly, quarterly, annual) and process ACH and credit card donations across all channels and we didn't want to deal with file transfers
- Charity Engine worked with us and the software accommodated all of our needs - the donation page integrated seamlessly with the website, we passed through our source code logic and the inbound contact centers could authorize and process transactions in real time (no batch processing) through Charity Engine's open API
- What I like most about this experience with Charity Engine software - flexibility
- Charity Engine felt like a solution with plenty of functionality I could use right out of the box but that also incorporated features designed specifically to meet my program's needs
- Later, with a smaller organization, I found my favorite thing about Charity Engine software - other than the cost (per contact record fee structure) was the intuitive interface that made it easy for a few people to manage events and peer to peer marketing/fundraising
- As a Charity Engine admin/user at the first organization, we identified a need for user manual/training resources
- Also, entering offline donations (literally entering check information) was a pain point, however, offline donation entry is problematic for peer to peer fundraisers/organizations still today - I don't think any software has the perfect solution
Kristi K.
Verified UserNon-Profit Organization Management · 51-200 employees
Data Warehouse Capabilities and SQL Integration
Charity Engine has expanded its one-stop shop CRM solution by also providing Data Warehouse capabilities and SQL integration. This DBaaS (Database-as-a-Service) offering has been instrumental in our Data Analytics Strategy. Easily generating a visual diagram of the database schema allowed new Developers to quickly come to speed at ATC by further understanding the underlying data construct. Developers could leverage their pre-existing SQL skills rather than learn different data extraction and querying tools. Additional efficiency was gained when interrogating data by allowing for infinite ways to join tables, filter data, and extract meaningful insights rather than be limited by rigid pre-established querying structures. The added benefit of Charity Engine’s hosted database service is that their team handles the infrastructure, storage, data replication, and backup automation, ensuring that the organization’s data is secure and accessible which is a priority for any organization.
The expansion of the native CRM solution with Data Warehousing capabilities and SQL Integration
- Proprietary report writing and querying tool native in the product
- This limitation was overcome by the release of the new data warehouse that allows for querying via SQL Server Management Studio (which is a well known industry standard)
CharityEngine
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