Blackbaud Luminate Online Reviews & Product Details

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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UC

Verified User in Civic & Social Organization

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

2/15/2016

"Dated software, but integrates well with Raiser's Edge"

3/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Luminate integrates well with Raiser's Edge and when configured properly, it will synchronize well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Luminate is billed as a platform that is extensible, however, nearly every customization requires expensive consultants to configure. Donation forms beyond the basic templates require custom work and additional features like peer-to-peer fundraising require the TeamRaiser module at an extra fee. Integration of Paypal will also require additional setup fees. Overall, the platform is clunky and aside from its integration from Raiser's Edge, there are many other platforms that offer similar or more functionality at comparable prices. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online:

Read the fine print and make sure that it is clear what is going to require additional customization to get things to look the way you want. Consider that there are platforms that will allow you to go on month-to-month contracts on the strength of their platform rather than locking you into a multi-year contract. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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

Luminate allows donations to be processed and the data to be synchronized with Raiser's Edge. When it finally got working, it works well most of the time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

CB

Catie B.

Annual Giving Manager

Museums and Institutions

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

1/14/2016

"Glitchy email marketing platform with disappointing support"

1/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Solid reporting function on email performance. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

The interface was incredibly glitchy for us, frequently freezing, kicking account users out, and not saving new content. I would often have to resort to making edits via HTML because the front-end platform was unresponsive to attempts to make style and formatting changes. Web forms were also cumbersome to edit.

Convio's customer support was unhelpful if not entirely unavailable - which is unacceptable considering the price we were paying. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online:

Look at other options if your primary use is going to be e-communications and web forms. The system is clunky and time-consuming to use, and you can get a better product for less money - such as MailChimp or Constant Contact, I cannot speak to the software's other functions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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

Convio was used for email campaigns across a number of departments - primarily marketing, development, and membership. It also hosted a variety of web forms, including online giving pages. It allowed us to communicate with a variety of audiences, but at the cost of an inordinate amount of staff time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

AN

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 6/3/2015

"Limited ecommerce capability"

1/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Somewhat intuitive to use - reports easy to run Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

Very limited ecommerce and apparently going away Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

UN

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

10/14/2014

"Dated CRM/CMS but strong platform for Scale"

3/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

I like that this CRM/CMS system allows for cross-reporting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

I don't like the GUI for this product, it is not intuitive. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

EN

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

11/19/2013

"Experienced Convio User"

1.5/5

What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

The integration with the email marketing and the CMS platform is useful for populating content and timely updates. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online?

The look and feel of email templates, click-through reporting, and ability to integrate with other systems is dated and often cumbersome. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.