eTapestry Customer Support

I was hired at Neighborhood Healthcare 3 weeks before its largest fundraiser of the year. I needed to learn eTapestry quickly to accurately update the database with event purchases and I needed my data entry to be fast. Customer support was my go-to, they answered questions over their chat module, emailed me white papers on best practices, and shared detailed instructions on how to be most efficient with our database.

Pros

Customer service was fast, knowledgeable, and respectful. I never felt like I was asking a dumb question and they always had an answer.

New to eTap, not to CRM

Creating an all in one database for donors and subscribers is very important as we grow. We grew from 1 to five employees overnight and so getting "organized" was essential.

Pros

I love the ease of functionality in finding and creating accounts. I like the connection with Blackbaud Merchant Services for an all in one platform.

Cons

The start-up was a little too long and delayed our business plan. Also, queries and forms are not necessarily intuitive.

eTapestry Great for Small to Mid size Nonprofits

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

Pros

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.

Cons

Would like to see improvement in the communications features - templates are clunky to work with and designing own templates is challenging. We end up creating image in outside tool and then import it in.

Good for Database Management, Poor Communications Tools

I have been working in communications and development for non-profit organizations for more than 15 years. I have been using eTapestry for 2 years. I have experience with a variety of other donor management tools including Blackbaud's The Raiser's Edge. eTapestry is strong in regard to contact management, processing online gifts, and the reporting/query tools. The expense as well as the email communications and analytics are where it falls short.

Pros

Entire system is very easy to learn no matter the experience level Managing donor records and online gifts is very easy Reporting and query tools are easy to use even for those without a lot of experience building queries clean, user-friendly interface excellent customer support simple data entry & gift processing online giving pages import gifts directly to database, helping teams avoid manual entry & the pages can be reskinned to match your website design easy to mass import records

Cons

expensive, especially having to pay for Advanced emails & paying an hourly fee for minor changes eTapestry support must be requested for an array of minor tweaks to giving pages for example and it usually takes several days to up to 2 weeks to get changes finished communications templates are inflexible and look extremely dated, often the preview of a communication you see on your screen is not how it looks at delivery, very limited analytics tools and delivery/testing options as far as I know there is no ability to export from eTapestry to QuickBooks which means gift processing team must reenter gifts manually into QuickBooks while it has the ability to provide personal fundraising pages, they are highly inflexible and the layouts look so dated they are almost not worth using

Etapstry by Blackbaud

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.

Pros

Central location for donor information and donations. Donors could log in to make changes to their donations and profile info so expired credit cards were not an issue.

Cons

It was hard to learn. So many features that we were unable to use them all. It was expensive for our needs. Couldn't create an email or newsletter within it at the time we used it.

Great Tool for Tracking Donors

I really like eTapestry for donor giving and cultivation.

Pros

It was easy to use and track giving and donors over time.

Cons

Grant tracking could be a little easier to navigate.

A great starting point for small nonprofits!

Good, but no the Best.

Pros

Ease-of-use was the best component of the system. When I was hired on by my organization in 2014, they had been using the system for a number of years already. 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.

Cons

The pricing was based around Contacts/Accounts which was not good for us as we have had rapid growth. Moreover, at the time, it did not integrate well with other systems we were purchasing. Our goals was to build out a seem less network where our data flowed in a way that made sense from Accounting to Marketing. eTapestry would have left us with few options.

Not recommended for small non-profits

Pros

eTapestry is probably suited for larger organizations and is much more than we need. There are a ton of reports available and it's easy to keep track of different campaigns. It also has excellent tools for event management, like tracking ticket sales, sending invites, etc.

Cons

I found the program a bit overwhelming to use as a new fundraiser who also worked by myself. If I had a team, or someone to train me it may have been a bit easier. 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. I did not find this program very simple for receipting donations as they came in with monthly receipts as well as year-end receipts. It was a tedious process. The customer support team was not very helpful. We ended up going in a different direction with our business.

Great for smaller organizations looking to grow!

Pros

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 really enjoyed the Query Builder tool and folders to keep all your queries organized!

Cons

Once my organization started to grow more, we needed a tool that could handle the bigger volume.

eTapestry Review

Was great but we had to find something Superior.

Pros

This software is great for a newly forming non-profit that is looking for a cost effective way to manage donors.

Cons

The reporting and integrations could be much better. As our organization grew we just needed a better CRM with more functionality for donor retention and better integrations.

Great Price, good functionality, limited ease of use

Overall, it's a good program for the price we pay, but if it was any more we would change to a more user friendly system. The most important thing with eTap is to make sure that you have an employee who is familiar with database administration otherwise it is very easy within eTap for data to be misrepresented. In summary, if you don't have a big budget, it's a good way to get your feet off the ground, but I wouldn't look at it expecting a 5+ year/long term solution.

Pros

First of all the price for our organization is fantastic, after shopping around for a new database management system, we have found nothing close to what we are currently paying. eTap has decent functionality after you learn how to use it; once you master the basics, it has the flexibility to store just about any data that you need as long as you are willing to get a little creative in how you organize the data. The ability for the data base to be directly integrated into our website and Quickbooks is also a great feature that minimizes potential lost memberships and corrupted data.

Cons

The hands down most frustrating part of the program is that you can't have multiple tabs open within the same browser with eTap. In order to have eTap open on two different tabs, you must use a different web browser and a different login ID, which becomes a complete and total pain. It is also not the easiest program to learn and train new people on. Often we want volunteers to work on data management for us but that is really only possible if the volunteer or intern is with us for at least three months so we an spend the time training them on the program.

eTapestry - A medium weight solution for Donor Management and Receipting.

I have been impressed with the solid support team eTapestry has. The online chat has been very helpful to me, and the specialists I have chatted with have always been knowledgeable.

Pros

eTapestry has lots of power to get things done. It is cloud-based, so there is no need for the user to worry about upgrading the software or backing up the data. Queries are very easy to produce, and exporting the results in reports, PDFs or excel is a snap. You can design your own forms so that your website can talk to eTapestry easily. eTapestry works equally well on desktop computers, tablets and cellphones. This is very helpful for fundraisers who are on the road.

Cons

If you are downsizing from a more robust package such as Raiser's Edge, be prepared for a loss of flexibility - for example, queries in eTapestry lack some of the power that Raiser's Edge has. When comparing what you get "out of the box" with some other solutions, you will find that in order to keep costs down for the average user, eTapestry is very basic. To add in eCommerce, donor logins, advanced email, etc these are available, but as an add-on pricing. This can make it more expensive than other products that have all these features to start with, so you should be aware of what your real needs are before committing to eTapestry.

eTapestry: simply the best product out there

Pros

The eTapestry system is by far the best we've ever used. There are many things to like including: the dashboard with its sophisticated look that integrates all of the important information in on place, which makes it simple to focus on important things like delivering programs. Our old system didn't work well, especially when we needed to pull information from it. Reporting in eTapestry is quick and it looks really professional. So far, everyone we've had to provide information to, such as accountants, counselors, and so forth, are really impressed with how the information is presented to them. Last but not least, the diy forms are a godsend. They've raised us to a whole new level in regards to our tax receipting, registration forms, and mail outs! Perhaps the greatest thing we've enjoyed using eTapestry is the caliber of service we've received from every member of the team.

Cons

So far there's nothing we don't like, but I do have some suggestions. First of all, for the diy forms, we are using one for program registrations that have a fee - the donation form seemed to be the best fit. It would be ideal for us if we could either change the wording from "donation amount" and "donation frequency" to "payment amount" and "payment frequency", or provide us with the options for wording because we don't want those who are registering to be confused about the fee because it's not a donation. Secondly, in the diy forms, where we have multiple options for users to check off, it would be ideal if we could create columns so that the form isn't too long. Finally, because we are using some of the diy forms for program registrations and we deliver programs to families, it would be ideal for us if we could have a form where participants could put in the names of their family members and those names would generate separate constituents in the database. For instance, a mother signs up for a program with her two kids. All have the same contact information, but the health information is different for all three. Currently, people have to do the form several times - once for each family member.

Great Donor Software

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.

Pros

Easy to create user defined fields to fit the needs of my organization. eTapestry is a great tool for volunteer tracking, event tracking, donation tracking, and in-Kind tracking. Having one tool for all of those categories is very helpful.

Cons

Queries and Reports are not the easiest to pull. I know that the queries can do so much more - but they are the hardest to manipulate to get the information needed for reporting purposes. Also - it would be nice to have some way to assign users their city specific donors. 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. There needs to be more user categories. And as we expand to other cities - I don't feel like eTapestry grows enough with us.

ETapestry for NonProfit

Pros

Data conversion from ResultsPlus was excellent. The specialist worked with us to make sure all the data was correct and matched or improved upon how it was organized. The process also helps you become familiar with the software. So, once completed, we were able to start using without much disruption. We've been successfully using it for over a year. Overall, it is user-friendly, with great support. Our account manager is wonderful and helps with issues/questions; checks up from time to time. Online resources/tutorial great and help navigate some of the learning curves with reports, mailings, etc.

Cons

We got an odd impersonal e-mail with a link to view our invoice.It would be nice to be able to pull it up online via our Blackbaud Account Site. Support was slow when we had a question with invoice and not easy to manage/review. Not the best for e-newsletters - it's a little clunky to design with limited templates. We stayed with Constant Contact, but there are good integration features with eTapestry.

An Investment for Growth

This review was solicited by eTapestry's marketing department.

Pros

I appreciate that the product is part of Blackbaud's empire of services for the sector, so you can assume that much of the functionality is based on best practices. It has a nice graphic interface. I really appreciate the DIY form features that allow us to collect information on not only donors but volunteers and other constituents. It's been a phenomenal transformation in our ability to track our supporters and empower the board with good information. The automatic address updates we completed before our annual fund appeal resulted in an increased in renewal rates for our lapsed donors, which effectively paid for the subscription for the year.

Cons

For an organization with a smaller budget, the software investment is expensive. We were fortunate to receive a 30% discount for our first three years, but as we look to renew in the coming year, I think it will start to become more painful to pay for this operational utility. It took a significant amount of time to learn how eTap works. I was initially stunned by the costs of eTapestry's video and in-person training programs and the knowledge base is a little funky to use. Their customer service staff on chat have been super helpful, however, and that's become my go-to for answering questions. They do have free resources for training, but they are basic.

Frustrating with a long learning curve

Pros

Integration with online giving is seamless. Manual entry of gifts is easy and straightforward. It's easy to export data.

Cons

No one in our small organization uses this software regularly enough to feel proficient, and it isn't intuitive. I waste a lot of time trying to get data out of the software. Reports have to be rebuilt every time you run them, and there is no built-in year against year to date report, which seems like an essential to me. When I was given instructions on how to accomplish this, I couldn't believe the number of steps it involved. I find myself spending a lot of time running queries, then exporting them to Excel to manipulate the data to prepare something I can share with the ED and Board. I know there are users who love this software, but it isn't working well for us.

Overall a good starter CRM

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.

Pros

The interface is easy to use and the donation processing and web forms functionality is pretty intuitive. If you haven't used a donor database before, this is a good beginning system. It has all of the basic functions you need, is fairly easy to use and fees are on a sliding scale.

Cons

Their reporting and querying system is not great. You can get what you need, but it seems to be overly complicated and often requires two or three steps where other systems can do it in one. They are making improvements on this, but the essential architecture now is the same as it was when I first used this system in 2008, so I am not sure how much they can effectively change.

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

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.

Pros

I like the most the fact that one can search for a client's account by their account number, with a / before it, and find any given person within the account instantly. This sort of number-orientation makes the software much easier to integrate for importing data, especially when importing hundreds of account updates and journal entries at a time.

Cons

I like the least how slow the software is. Perhaps this is because my company is utilizing the maximum account storage (we have 100,000+ accounts on file). When clicking on someone's name, there is a loading time of 3-5 seconds. When attempting to enter a gift or a journal entry from that person, there are 2 additional loading buffers of 3-5 seconds depending on the activity within the company at that time. This severely slows our process of data entry, preventing data entry from being smooth and fast.

eTapestry Likely Good for Larger Organizations

Pros

eTapestry has a responsive customer service team. Whenever I had an inquiry, someone was there to answer my questions. Once I was speaking with a sales associate and had a question the associate could not answer. The associate passed my question on to a customer service representative and the rep called me within a day to help solve my problem.

Cons

eTapestry has many options for managing large databases. This is wonderful for large organizations, however, ours is a small non-profit. We have two fundraisers and fewer than 1000 prospect records. eTapestry was too complicated for our needs and therefore ended up only being useful for data storage. Another issue arose when we had staff turnover. Product knowledge left with former staff and training for eTapestry would have cost 150% more than our annual eTapestry costs. Training was just too expensive and, as a result, we did not utilize eTapestry as much as we could have.

The right features for the the right development plan

Pros

I have worked with several different non-profits, and there are a wide range of products available. In many cases, people fall back on Raiser's Edge or a similarly-sized software package because it's comfortable. However, in my current position, I was creating a development department from scratch for a small non-profit, and we simply didn't need that level of software, especially not with our limited budget. eTapestry, I find, provides absolutely everything I could need at an extremely afford price point. Gone are our days of tracking prospects, donors and campaigns in multiple spreadsheets - but we don't have the complicated and, frankly, overkill options of a high-end software that's needed for the likes of non-profit giants. It's immediately accessible to fundraising veterans and novices, with access to your information from anywhere that you can connect to the internet. Plus, it grows with you, with very well-priced tiers based on your number of records. I'm a huge advocate!

Cons

I think there is still work to be done on making customization a little more straightforward. For certain, there are challenges when it comes to split gifts, for example, that still need to worked out. That said, I have not used any software that is perfect out of the box or even after tinkering for weeks, for that matter. There is always some give and take, but I feel eTapestry does a great job.

Expensive platform with increasing costs and long contract periods!

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

Pros

At first I loved eTapestry for its great support and a la carte options. It is definitely a robust system. Not so much anymore since they are now part of Blackbaud. They now bundle options and railroad agencies into long contracts to get single features that used to be available a la carte.

Cons

All of the above, plus their communications tool is not the best. It would be better if they integrated with a marketing tool like Constant Contact and included that in their packages. The maneuvering through the system is clunky and not at all intuitive.

Perfect customer service and help

Pros

We use eTapestry for all of our donor and fundraising needs. We have used many other products and have never been satisfied until now. Every function we need - and many we didn't even know we needed - are included in eTapestry. Even more than that, whenever I have a question or can't figure something out, their online help is available and can quickly and effectively solve any problem or challenge I have. I HIGHLY recommend eTapestry for your fundraising and donor relation needs.

Cons

I don't have a single con after using them for 3 years! The only small tiny downside would be that I wish there was an app I could check from my phone.

Highly recommend eTapestry for your fundraising software. Absolutely worth the money.

Easy to set up queries, fast reporting features and an increase of donations because we have more time to focus on the donor and not the software.

Pros

Blackbaud's eTapestry is highly functional and very easy to use. We have almost 7,000 records in the eTapestry database. We found for queries, reporting and lists we are able to create these quicky to return the information we desire. Also, there are customizable features that we use frequently for our specific donor interests.

Cons

Our organization does not have anything negative to say about eTapestry. The service is fabulous and so is the product. We wish it were a lower cost, but feel we get the value out of the software.

Decent donor software for medium-sized nonprofits

It's too complicated for small organizations and not robust enough for large organizations. Since bought by Blackbaud, it seems to have been de-prioritized in terms of features, upgrades and design. Customer support is very good - but you'll need them on speed dial. Great people, great company - but this produce needs a little more TLC. Email marketing function is almost un-usable in today's mobile environment. No moves-management function, etc. 'Entirely customizable' means you have to build your own systems within. Great for basic donor info and gift tracking. Took us a couple years to 'right-size' it for us - and even then, when you have more 'work-arounds' than original offerings, you wonder if there's something better.

Pros

Customer service

Cons

Old design, clunky, not intuitive.

Been with eTapestry for over three years.

Pros

Very recently, I had my first positive experience with phone support. Hopefully, that is an indicator that eTapestry is beefing up their customer service. We will know more as the holiday rush happens.

Cons

Since the beginning, customer support has been abysmal. Just recently, it has improved, but it took three years. Last year, during the holidays, I waited no less than an hour on hold each time and ended up hanging up because I did not have that kind of time to wait on the phone. One time, I waited an hour and a half, and when the closing time came, instead of taking my call, eTapestry simply disconnected me, and I pay extra for phone support! I gave up and was never able to reach support last year during the holiday season. This year's holiday season is just starting, so I have to see if anything has improved. Also, when we set up our account there was zero project management. They did not establish our needs, and as a result, set up the database as they saw fit. We had problems with defined fields (ones they established and ones they did not), and any changes would have cost a fortune. So we were stuck with what they did, which requires a lot of additional data input after the fact. There was also zero personal training. They provided videos to watch. That was not an effective way to train because they use their own terminology, and when you had questions to ask, you couldn't ask because you were watching a video. Hands-on training is a must! We started with a customer support person who was not in tune with our needs and was later switched to a group and lost one-on-one support.

Great donor relations CRM with great flexibility and adaptability

Pros

eTapestry offers a first-rate, flexible CRM with every function necessary to create and manage the organization's connections. Coupled with great customer service, eTapestry offers a CRM that can be adapted and created specifically for any nonprofit organization. Offering both standardized and custom query options, eTapestry allows the user every opportunity to get to the information needed. Additionally, eTapestry offers tremendous system integration. Via forms and a QuickBooks connection, eTapestry integrates with your website and reduces unnecessary and redundant input.

Cons

While mass emailing components (Delivra) are less aesthetically pleasing "out of the box" than Constant Contact or other email marketing tools, eTapestry allows for Constant Contact integration if one would like to use that product instead. Additionally, CART functionality (the area where one can sell merchandise) needs to be updated to allow for greater customer flexibility and usability. eTapestry needs to allow its customers more creative license so that forms, etc. can be updated more quickly to match websites. These are ancillary issues that eTapestry is constantly working on.

eTapestry use for all levels of fundraising

Pros

The best part of using eTapestry is the all-around ease of navigation and training. The software is laid out in a logical format, simple to customize to fit your needs and show you the numbers you really need to know. The Blackbaud training for eTapestry is outstanding. There are recorded webinars, an online community center, an online manual, live webinars that are interactive so you can practice what you are learning, and more.

Cons

What I like least about the product is the need to continually upgrade if you want more features.

e-Tapestry: Non-Profit Software for 10,000 or less donors

When I worked for a small non-profit we used e-Tapestry successfully. It was a tremendously helpful to establishing our development pyramid and where our team should best spend our time to be successful.

Pros

This software allows you to track, research and analyze donors. That means you can project revenue, cultivate more effectively and have a better communicative relationship with your donors.

Cons

In non-profit, development professionals use many different types of software. I see eTapestry as the entry level software with an eventual graduation to Raiser's Edge.

eTapestry Is A Great Product!

Pros

We receipt over 50,000 gifts annually. eTapestry saved us with their automatic pledge and recurring gift schedules with credit cards and EFT. We have over 3,500 gifts go off automatically each month. If we didn't have this feature, we would need to hire at least three more full-time staff for gift receipting. The ease of building queries and reports for mailing lists, monthly financial reports, moves management processes, and anything the VP needs is incredible. In my old database, it was a 24-hour process to run our alumni magazine mailing list. The first time I ran the list in eTapestry, it only took 15 minutes. We've been with eTapestry for seven years. I know many of their staff personally and enjoy the relationship that I have built with them over the years. Their support staff are amazing!

Cons

I miss the old days of eTapestry when they were their own, small company. Although Blackbaud has allowed them to advance in some areas, I miss some of the small company touches that used to be there.

eTapestry is a comprehensive software solution for fund development

I would highly recommend eTapestry as a software solution for fund development. Great for managing up to 10,000 constituents and Blackbaud is fantastic to work with.

Pros

eTapestry is easy to use, query and reporting features are dynamic and static and constituent records are easy to record journal entries, take notes and track information about donors.

Cons

Sometimes the reporting features change due to updates in the software (on in the cloud), but the customer service is top notch and will troubleshoot these concerns and find a solution to resolve the issue.

Should have done this long ago

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.

Pros

Etapestry makes it easy for me to have all of my important donor information in one comprehensive spot. Pulling reports, adding content and getting an at-a-glance look at where my financials are coming from have been an essential part of my strategic success.

Cons

There is definitely a learning curve, as there is for any industry-specific software. Working in the nonprofit field, it's hard to find time to learn everything there is to know but I'm confident that the more I use the software, the more second-nature it will become.

You can't ask for a better donor management software package

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.

Pros

Everything is a pro when it comes to eTapestry. The layout is very user intuitive and easy to understand. You can truly dive in and really get a huge bang for you budget almost immediately.

Cons

The only con I can think of for eTapestry is that there isn't a mobile app for the software. I would love to be able to check information when not at my desk.

Before and after Blackbaud

eTapestry has become a tool that can rival any of the more expensive CRMs in the market. The only big step back is that it now belongs to Blackbaud, which has decreased the quality of its customer service.

Pros

It is user friendly for the nontechnical staff when looking for and updating information.

Cons

Not that friendly for extracting information (querying and reporting features). And since Blackbaud bought it, its customer service has become bad and unreliable.

Streamlined Fundraising Support

Etapestry has helped our small development department in big ways! It's ease of use was critical for staff who had not used professional fundraising systems before. They were able to get on and get started right away.

Pros

Dramatically cuts down administrative time with auto functions, which was essential for our small development team so that they can spend time on cultivation vs. wasting time updating spreadsheets and processing donations. Easy reporting and querying has enabled us to better assess our efforts and returns. Great donor tracking functions ensure things are slipping through the cracks. The auto reminders and calendaring are super helpful. The seamless integration with online giving was also a blessing.

Cons

The only con is that the online fundraising interface is a bit limited design-wise, without additional cost.

eTapestry for non-profits

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.

Pros

For me, the best thing about eTapestry is being able to use it from anywhere and not worrying about site licenses or purchasing updates.

Cons

It can be quite hard to move data over into eTapestry due to a lack on intuitive functionality. However, the customer service is quite easy to use and they have been able to help me/my staff every time.

eTapestry Donor Data Base

Overall great software

Pros

eTapestry is an economical donor data base that is provided through Blackbaud systems. It is a great price for all the features and functions it has. It can store and track all data on donors both individual and grants.

Cons

While the software and database can track grants it is easier and more useful to track individual donors. Matching funds are a bit tricky to input and events are another feature which are a bit tedious and difficult to track.

Too Many Limitations

If you are only dealing with donations, this may be a good option for you, but I work for a membership organization, and not long after I was hired, I convinced the organization to scrap eTapestry for something better suited to our needs.

Pros

This database is easy to use. If you've ever used another donor management system, you'll find it pretty intuitive. You can build decent queries and create tons of data points you want to track.

Cons

Everything has to be done manually, and it can take some time. I wouldn't recommend this to a membership organization because of the time involved logging renewals. There is also a really not so awesome template you have to use create all of the products you want to offer, including donations. It's a hassle for the organization and the donor.

eTapestry - is it for you, without a rep?

I can recommend - you have to decide and you management without a Lindsey

Pros

I like eTapestry but I have to confess that when I started at an organization using it I had the benefit of an assistant who knew the product inside and out and got me started almost immediately actively working with the software. It is intuitive so I only had to query my wonderful colleague, on occasion. I was excited at what was possible to accomplish (with some add-ons).

Cons

Again the confession: if I did not have rep on board would I have been able to be operating the system my first week. I had used similar products before and am not really a novice. I did reach out during that time to eTapestry for support but it was often slow enough that I figured everything out without their help

Painful learning process

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.

Pros

Generating letters off of each donation. Being able to run queries. I like the address updates and a lot of the user defined fields.

Cons

Way too many layers/dynamics. Next to impossible to figure out many of the compound queries without help.

E-Tapestry Review

I am the office manager and I utilize E-Tapestry probably the most in our organization. I use it to manage our donor base, enter gifts, and create queries.

Pros

I do like the amount of information you can store on each individual account record. The search bar makes it easy to find an account if you do not know all of the information and just some of the information. Entering gifts and labeling them appropriately is very easy.

Cons

I would say there is not a lot of educational tutorials on how to performs a certain task. If there are videos to learn certain things they are not easily found. The only reason I know how to use this program is because of a co-worker who had been working on it longer and also using trial and error. It is not easy to delete multiple records. Merging accounts often causes you to lose information. The steps to get a task done are not very well communicated.

The best for smaller organizations

Pros

Such an easy interface to maneuver. It makes managing donors and tracking gifts as easy as possible, while maintaining an attractive interface. Customer support is cool because a primary function is for support to be given by other users, people who know the software and may have overcome struggles like you are enduring. It creates a community in the nonprofit sector.

Cons

It might be too simple for larger organizations, but it's functionality is just as applicable for larger groups as it would be for smaller! Customer support will get you through any hassle.

Exceptional product for growth and retention of members and donors.

Pros

There are too many wonderful things to list them all, and each organization will find ways to make it their own. Some of the things I like: you don't have to be a computer wiz; eTapestry provides a series of training videos, online support, and phone support to help you make the most of the program and keep in constant contact. eTapestry makes reaching out to your target audience fast and easy. Without it, our organization would have to hire another employee just to do mailings, emails, data entry, etc. Being a non-profit, we don't have the budget for more employees or multiple programs to meet our daily operational need . We have it linked to our website, allowing guests to make online purchases, sign up for emails, and volunteer for events. The information they provide, automatically gets set up in eTapestry, and we are notified that we have had online activity. Financial information can be sent directly to accounting software. We are always learning more ways to make eTapestry work for us.

Cons

I would like to see some newer templates for emails, cart, etc.

eTapestry is a very useful for successful fundraising

Pros

This software has the capability of reporting on so many things. From donor retention to volunteer hours, you can set up your own fields and track what is important to your organization.

Cons

It can be very challenging and tedious to learn how to queries and reports work. There are so many criteria that have to be set correctly to gather the information you need.

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

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

Pros

Customer support is amazing. The agents are very helpful and patient. Once you learn how to set up the dashboard, you can see just about anything without having to go from screen to screen on each account.

Cons

Setting up queries to get the exact information we need has been a challenge. Compound queries are very challenging.

The best part of Etapestry is their customer service; I have been able to quickly get any question or issue resolved with their online assistance.

Pros

Etapestry is very user friendly, I was able to pick it up quickly without utilizing any of the training videos.

Cons

I wish there was a way around only being able to open one record at a time. Other web based data bases I've used have had the same issue of only being able to open one window at a time. Are there any web-based data bases that allow you to open more than one window at a time?

Not user friendly

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.

Pros

The customer support it used to have when we first started a couple of years ago. Now it seems as if no one knows much on chat.

Cons

The customer support on chat is terrible. All they do is send you links to read. They don't seem to understand.

Solid, in-depth product that provides what you need

Pros

Product has been greatly improved. Functionality runs deep. While it's not the most intuitive product out there, the in-depth reporting and mass update options make it a boon to productivity and useful information for us fundraisers.

Cons

Some added features are not what they should be. Reporting not as intuitive as it could be. Process for entering donations and running receipts is a bit more cumbersome than it needs to be.

Excellent Non-Profit Museum Software!

Very nice product!!! It is easy to use and great for tracking museum data: memberships, visitors, artists, etc.

Pros

I love the journal entry ability. It is easy to use and a nice way to keep track of promotional emails sent.

Cons

There are many functionalities that require additional programming or knowledge. It would be nice to know how they work. A nice summary of the functions would be nice to have, so that we are aware of what we are working with. There may be functionality that would benefit us, but we are unaware of it.

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

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.

Pros

We like the tiered permissions (security groups) function, which set this system apart from many other offerings in the donor management arena. The customer service has always been great when we've had problems. The reporting capabilities of eTapestry are absolutely incredible.

Cons

The software is not always intuitive, and it's only easy to use after lots of time has been spent learning its layout and functionalities.