Blackbaud Luminate Online is used by organizations to manage donor and constituent information alongside online fundraising and communications. Teams use it for donation pages, email campaigns, event fundraising, and related reporting.

What company sizes and industries is Blackbaud Luminate Online the best fit for?

Blackbaud Luminate Online has positive use across organization sizes, with mid-market organizations and nonprofits especially prominent. Small organizations and larger enterprises also appear among the positive experiences.

Organization size: Mid-market organizations are especially represented, alongside small businesses and enterprise organizations.
Industry: Non-Profit Organization Management is the clearest concentration, with healthcare and philanthropy also represented.

How long does it take to implement Blackbaud Luminate Online across a team?

Implementation timelines vary, but the most commonly reported time to go live is 1–3 months. Other reported timelines range from under a month to more than a year.

Time to go live	Relative frequency
1–3 months	Most commonly reported
Less than 1 month	Also reported
3–6 months	Also reported
6–12 months	Less commonly reported
More than 12 months	Less commonly reported

What customer support options does Blackbaud Luminate Online provide, and how do users find the overall support experience?

Support includes chat and 24/7 access to a live representative. The support experience is mixed: users appreciate friendly, accessible help in some cases, while others describe slow responses, difficulty resolving issues, or support that was hard to reach.

What is the experience like for teams switching to Blackbaud Luminate Online from another tool?

Teams have moved to Blackbaud Luminate Online from tools such as Raiser's Edge, NetCommunity, Sphere, and email or fundraising platforms including Lyris and Mailchimp. The appeal is often bringing fundraising, donor information, websites, and communications together, or gaining more connected campaign and donation workflows; however, users describe the transition and ongoing integrations as demanding, with setup and data synchronization sometimes requiring considerable effort.

What features or capabilities could make Blackbaud Luminate Online even more useful?

The product could be more useful with a more modern, intuitive experience and smoother day-to-day workflows. Users also point to opportunities to strengthen reporting, integrations, and data management.

Modernize the interface and improve the email and page-building editors so common changes are easier to make without technical work.
Make reporting more flexible and straightforward to build, run, and export.
Improve integrations and data synchronization with other systems, including more reliable handling of records and duplicates.
Streamline complex tasks and make key forms and tools work responsively on mobile devices.

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Verified User in Marketing and Advertising

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 6/10/2016

"Luminate online for collecting donations"

4/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Easy to create new donation forms and copy old ones. The responsive layouts are a great functionality that work well with our website to create a good user experience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Fixing problems seems to take a while and involve several layers of people. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 12/17/2019

"Great for housing email drafts and stacks well with other softwares"

3.5/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Luminate, specifically Convio, has done a great job updating its product visually. Easy to edit/update front end website for events/campaigns. Great that you can create a bunch of email templates and save them for later/right time of year. Such a great tool to showcase fundraising! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

While I love that you can fill it up with email templates and categories. It isn't the most user-friendly for creating an actual email template. Many times the user of the back-end is an event manager that needs to communicate or make consistent back-end updates. It can be a bit time consuming! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online:

Take your time learning the ins and outs of customization and you will be able to take full advantage! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you?

Mass communication either through emailing or making front-end website updates. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lindsay R.

Vice President & Co-Founder

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4/21/2020

"Luminate Online is user friendly"

3/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Luminate is easy to use and is great for our friend-raising events, email hosting, etc. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

I don't dislike anything so far that I've encountered using Luminate Online. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online:

No recommendations at this time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you?

We use Luminate for email hosting to event participants, friend-raising fundraising events. It's very streamlined for our constituents and users. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Hospital & Health Care

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

4/23/2019

"Challenging to learn but gets the job done"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

I like the email platform the best, especially that you can create a bank of emails and save them as drafts that you can modify. We run email campaigns that we schedule out ahead of time and the turnover is easy year over year when we can go back to old drafts, make copies and modify using new branding, dates, etc. It would be nice to be able to modify multiple messages at once if that feature doesn't already exist. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

The donation entry system is complicated and confusing, possibly just because the relationship between Luminate and our other constituent services can be complicated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you?

Using more tedious systems for mass communication like outlook takes much more time and we have realized that using a more uniform branding made possible through email campaign templates allows us to get better rates of opening, action and response. The reports are also changing how we set goals. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Muhammad U.

Tradings

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5/7/2019

"It's more than my expectations."

4.5/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

I liked its Fundraising Features more satisfied and have not more trouble in searching inviting for fund raising in. It enhanced the capacity, capacity of all staff related to marketing, communication, web searching. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

There is always an improvement corner empty. I don't think there are many dislikes in this feature, but improvement is always needed in any software that helps a product compete in the market, and supporting staff should always be there. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online:

I advise newbies to use this software. It is more efficient than other competitors in terms of functions, price, and support. But keep in mind, there is always room for improvement. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you?

Managing my credentials, email handling, fundraising. It helps to increase your operations worldwide. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

2/18/2019

"Challenges increased as BB stopped upgrading and maintaining Luminate Online product"

3/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Consolidation of critical onlineFR functions, under Luminate Online umbrella. Chat support/case assignment system so much better now. Also, integration with BB database of record is a well oiled system. would require resources and time if ever migrated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

huge issue is that default products are not mobile responsive out of the box. forces customers to go third party developer for building it on top of LO. complicates any user issue after that. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

1/23/2019

"Use this product everyday- love it"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Very versatile- website editing and donor database Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Often difficult to not make duplicate accounts- merge feature is not user friendly Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sherry K.

Grants Writer

Non-Profit Organization Management

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

10/29/2018

"Luminate Online a hidden gem"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

I love the analytics, such as rating clients by engagement factors. I also love the seamless integration of email and donation forms and the website. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Query and reporting are not as comprehensive as I would prefer. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online:

An org must have a dedicated (or at least part time) administrator who can make the most of the robust tools available in LO. Ideally you will also upgrade to LCRM. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you?

Ongoing communications with stakeholders. Analytics as far as general engagement. Customization of communications to targeted audiences. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Rebecca P.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

7/26/2018

"used daily"

3.5/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

nice looking interface, fairly user friendly after some basic training. great report capabilities. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

sometimes the mass-email function can be a little difficult to manage... so many steps to complete. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Philanthropy

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

6/18/2018

"Almost Seamless Word Pasting - time efficient and user intuitive "

4/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

The product required minimal manipulation in html after copying and pasting word doc text (or email text) into the luminate system. Great way to organize multiple campaigns and distribution lists. Easy to added additional recipients to a campaign or a specific email. Emails can be sent to additional distribution lists based on set criteria within the crm function of the platform. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

From time to time when copying and pasting material into the email template not all formatting would transfer over - including text color, font, and font size. Typically an email would require 1-2 additional proof edits to fix the formatting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.