Walled garden that failed to keep up with changing world

For a small nonprofit trying to accomplish simple tasks, Luminate's all-in-one nature would be an advantage, but I can't imagine a small nonprofit having the budget for this tool. Any nonprofit who can afford this product is likely doing things far too sophisticated to accomplish without a lot of hacky workarounds. Blackbaud is a company that competes by acquiring their competitors and letting the product wither. LO's predecessor, Convio, was a pretty good early online nonprofit platform, but after the Blackbaud acquisition, they lost most of the original staff and fell permanently behind the curve on innovation.

Pros

As an all-in-one tool, there were some built-in easy personalizations and a universal login.

Cons

Very difficult to flow information to and from other tools. Query tool has significant limitations in capability - no nested parentheticals, e.g. ((a AND b) OR (c AND d) OR e) AND (x or y) AND z - and takes forever to run. Reports similarly limited and run slowly, occasionally hanging up and never finishing. Spend a lot of time exporting reports, manually manipulating them in Excel, and reuploading them back into the system. Limited number of custom fields available. Clunky interface that's difficult to train new employees on. No significant automation capabilities. Always 1-2 years or more behind the curve as new features become industry standard. Eventually started building a next-gen product that operates in parallel to the legacy product and requires the user to toggle back and forth between products and push data from one to the other (with a wait, of course) instead of all the features being available in the same product. Nickel and dime you with additional costs for anything remotely advanced or new.

Luminate Online: Sophisticated, Imperfect

Pros

Overall, I really like Blackbaud. I'm an expert user/administrator of several of their products. And to be perfectly frank, Blackbaud is THE industry standard software. You can go with another vendor, but Blackbaud WILL end up buying that product out. Luminate in all of its iterations is a perfect example of this. It used to be Convio, its own, standalone non-profit software company. It is now a product in the Blackbaud family.

I use Luminate in conjunction with Raiser's Edge via a Blackbaud-provided integration plugin. One thing I really like about this is that my two database software components communicate with one another. I also really like that you can use formulas--from simple to complex--to generate targeted ask strings for constituents in emails and donation forms.

And that is the best thing about Luminate Online. It is powerful and customizable. It is capable of nuance and automation. It has API access for developers. These things are vital in the world of internet marketing, communications, and donation processing.

I am also thrilled with its capability to automate recurring giving, providing recurring donors with logins to self-manage some of their giving information. Recurring giving in Raiser's Edge is a relatively manual process still. For orgs with large recurring donor groups, this product can help save a lot of time and energy by automating many of the aspects of managing these donors.

Cons

My biggest beef with Luminate Online is that it is ill-equipped to deal with non-individual, organizational records, such as businesses. There really is no functionality for org-type records, let alone the ability to manage and communicate with contacts. I would really like to see this part of the product fleshed out more in a similar way to the Raiser's Edge.

I also really dislike the event management piece of Luminate Online. It lacks basic functionality, such as the ticket buyer being able to provide guest names (!). It's almost unbelievable that any 21st century software product that provides event management functions would be incapable of collecting the most rudimentary, necessary information for an event.

Both of these issues are points in the software that make it clear this product was acquired by Blackbaud and not designed from the ground up by Blackbaud. Small snags in integration and imperfections in the product become sore points after a while, and the only way to overcome them is to have some serious web-developing firepower at your command. Many of Luminate Online's issues CAN be overcome by having a consultant or in-house web-developer customize the product for you. However, small non-profits rarely can afford this.

Not very user friendly

I have used TeamRaiser in Luminate a few times to create fundraising pages for kids in need of care and shared giving links via our website, social media however we weren't very successful with campaign and the platform could be updated as far as design, templates offered.

Pros

It's a great tool for event, volunteer management and crowdfunding. The TeamRaiser portion of Luminate offers a crowdfunding feature where you are able to create different fundraisers and share links via your website to direct people to make a gift.

Cons

Not very user-friendly and very tedious to me as far as the TeamRaiser software part of Luminate. It's very time consuming and tedious to create crowdfunding pages and requires you multiple steps to create a profile for another donor. I spent an hour trying to create one before giving up. If you want to create fundraising pages and share via your website it's easy however it gets complicated if you want to have your donors create their own pages and share with others as it requires just one person to manage all accounts so basically we need to create their profiles for them and all donations from their personal link go through my one email for all donors.

We purchased the platform nine months ago

Pros

This product integrates with Raiser's Edge, which streamlines data entry. They have a great program called Go!, which takes you through three different email campaigns and provides specific direction and feedback to grow your email lists. It is not difficult to set up new action forms. Emails are not difficult to send (especially if you are working off a template designed for you in the Go! Program). Blackbaud has been quick to respond to concerns and problems that arose from the integration with Raisers Edge.

Cons

Navigating to some of the reports is less intuitive than I would like. But, like anything, once you understand the structure, it is okay.

Bad Timing for us

Pros

It is powerful in the use of the data and also in the production of web pages.

Cons

It seems like every time we pay for some customization, then not long after, it becomes a feature or fix in a future release. I just feel like we're not being advised very well. We aren't a cookie-cutter blackbaud client, so it doesn't always fit with what we are trying to do.

Good for a very select group

Pros

As an all in one solution, it works very well. If you can afford it and aren't looking at any of its more advanced competitors, this will get the job done in a basic, matter-of-fact sense. Sleek design with intuitive, though limited, interface.

Cons

We found the pricing to be more than we were willing to put up with for long. Very limited in the ability to customize your dashboard and tools. More affordable alternatives exist on the market with more powerful tools, resources, and support staff. I also did not appreciate being charged for any little feature I wanted to add to my account that really should have come standard.

Great product with a lot of potential

Pros

The flexibility and the integration are the best parts.

Cons

Blackbaud has acquired a lot of products over the years and even though integration is happening, your needs may be slower at integration than others.

Easy to use, amazing results!

Pros

I like that it integrates almost seamlessly with Raisers Edge! I love how the Constituent 360 database tracks every interaction a user makes.

Cons

I don't like that the C360 database doesn't allow for Organisational records. That's silly Blackbaud! And the preceding alpha and zeros on a receipt number don't transfer to RE.

Horrid, stay away!

Pros

Nothing. Since this space has to be filled with 100 characters I will reiterate that there is nothing positive to say about this platform.

Cons

Blackbaud is a hydra with a thousand heads and zero direction. It's products, including Luminate, are archaic and outdated, lacking in user experience, features and functionality. Platform support is laughable. Choose an alternative and stay far, far away!

Easy to use without a programmer, but much better with programming experience.

The biggest thing I've been using this for lately is event registration and management. Without this product we wouldn't be able to pilot the programs we're piloting right now.

Pros

Very robust software with a ton of features built in. It requires some initial training to get started but once you get the hang of it, figuring out all the menus and features gets easier.

Cons

The interface can be clunky at times. Some things require navigating multiple menus and clicking multiple times to complete a task. But overall the functionality is incredible.

We use LO in conjunction with TR. We have several TR events each year.

Pros

It is easy to use once you spend the time to learn the product and receive the appropriate training.

Cons

The learning curve is steep. There is a big up tick in learning the product and using it to meet best practice standards.

Luminate Go!

Pros

I loved their Go! Program. It enabled us to get up and running with our eNewsletter, and various eCampaigns. Providing templates and guidance.

Cons

Not as intuitive as I would like. Also you either have to use the WYSIWYG Editor (which can be buggy) or know HTML.