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!

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.

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.

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.

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.