Luminate Online Review

Overall experience is good with Luminate. Although we have to test many times to ensure the template looks good in the email structure, the system itself is great for scheduling, uploading lists, analytics, and more.

Pros

The analytics in Luminate Online (LO) are the best feature. You are able to get analytics in real-time by refreshing the page. The stats are up to date always and provide accurate numbers.

Cons

The email builder itself is not that user-friendly. I always have a tough time with transferring over templates. Luminate adds/deletes spaces, changes fonts and font sizes consistently.

Long time user review

Pros

The things I like most about Luminate are; It is a very powerful tool, it does a LOT. Email, newsletters, donation forms, donation management. It is easy to access from anywhere. It is highly customizable with the right skills.

Cons

The things I dislike are: It takes a very long time to learn how to use it well. I have been using it for over 14 years and still feel like I have barely scratched the surface. A bit outdated. While they relatively recently made it able to accept organization gifts, that functionality was never fully built out, is clunky, and less than great. The integration with RE is not great. I wish it were more seamless. Doesn't feel especially up-to-date, no major updates or changes in years and years

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.

Luminate Online

Pros

Robust nature of software, both donations and emails in one space plus the ability to create donor-centered web spaces

Cons

Not user friendly - the interface has a STEEP learning curve. Implementation requires an outside consultant or additional services from Blackbaud.

Not intuitive

We use it for transactional and reminder emails for registered programs, and marketing emails.

Pros

Honestly, I cannot think of any pros at this time.

Cons

Nothing about Luminate Online is intuitive. It does not integrate well with other Blackbaud products. We have had to purchase other third-party software to send information between Altru and Luminate.