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Bonterra Guided Fundraising
What Is Bonterra Guided Fundraising?
Track and measure supporter activity and fundraising efforts all in one place with clear, simple visuals and charts.
Who Uses Bonterra Guided Fundraising?
Bonterra Guided Fundraising (formerly Network for Good) helps small and growing nonprofits build strong donor relationships that advance their missions with simple, smart fundraising software.
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Reviews of Bonterra Guided Fundraising
Fantastic for Nonprofits
Comments: It's been a really positive experience. The customer service is quick and friendly. They're constantly updating the software for the better. It's really easy to use, even for the least tech-savvy people.
Pros:
The CRM works really well -- it's easy to keep track of donors, real-time donations, and events. It lets you stay in contact with donors and see their patterns of giving. It's also easy to see which events brought in the most donations, and lets you easily email groups of donors, either by event or by giving patterns.
Cons:
The forms (surveys) are too limited. I can't collect data in the way I want, so it makes surveying donors difficult.
Center Point - [sensitive content hidden] found the solutions we needed in Bonterra (NFG)
Comments: I had used NFG at a non-profit I was previously employed. I asked my new colleagues to consider the Bonterra platform and they were equally impressed. It helped that I had the prior experience, however, I'm still learning, but am finding how versatile and easy to use the platform is.
Pros:
--Ease of implementation and set-up --Combined tools in one platform (donor management, donor communication, fundraising campaign pages)
Cons:
--Exporting of data was somewhat difficult, but the tech staff at Bonterra has been responsive in helping us work through the process
Extremely Disappointed with Bonterra/Network for Good's Service and Support
Comments:
Our experience with Bonterra/ Network for Good has been incredibly damaging to our organization along with so much frustration. Since the beginning of the year, we have encountered a series of major issues that have significantly impacted our ability to operate effectively. Despite our best efforts to resolve them, Bonterra/ NFG has not lived up to our expectations in both service and support.
Most importantly, we lost years’ worth of vital donation records, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in donation history from one of our largest donors recorded in our database. This devastating loss occurred because one of NFG's support members misunderstood a request to remove duplicate records and ended up deleting all our data instead. This error, which could have been prevented with better communication, has devastated our organization.
To compound the problem, the accountability from Bonterra has been virtually nonexistent. Regardless of us reaching out multiple times as early as June to resolve this issue, we received little to no communication from their team until 2 months after our subscription renewed, which was several months after the initial contact. The unresponsiveness left us in a problematic situation as we tried to piece together what happened and look for answers on how to recover from this.
When we finally heard back, it was too late. Bonterra/ NFG was unwilling to offer flexibility on our contract terms, and even though we were actively working to transition to another platform, they cut us off from their system with little warning. This forced us to scramble to retrieve our remaining data under a tight deadline, making an already stressful situation even more stressful.
For an organization that relies on accurate donor records and strong data management, the failure of Bonterra/ Network for Good has had enduring effects. They did not take responsibility for their mistakes, provided no meaningful solutions, and ultimately left us feeling abandoned during a crucial time.
I strongly warn any nonprofit considering Bonteera/ NFG to carefully evaluate other platforms before making a decision. Our experience has been a sad lesson of lost trust, poor communication, and inadequate customer support.
Pros:
Very basic system to it is very easy to navigate.
Cons:
Lack of Accountability and Communication: One of the most frustrating aspects of Bonterra Guided Fundraising (formerly Network for Good) was the lack of accountability when critical issues arose. We lost vital donation records, including large sums from major donors, due to errors by their team, and there was no immediate communication or support to resolve the issue. Repeated attempts to reach out were ignored for months, and by the time they responded, it was too late to correct the damage. Inflexible Contract Terms: Despite the issues we faced, Bonterra refused to offer any flexibility in their contract terms. Even though we communicated well in advance of our renewal that we were facing problems and might need to transition off their platform, they still renewed our contract without providing a solution and eventually cut us off, leaving us scrambling to retrieve our data. Poor Data Handling and System Limitations: The system itself proved unreliable for managing large amounts of donor data. When a data import error occurred, it not only caused us to lose records but exposed serious limitations in their platform's ability to handle important donor information properly.
Bonterra Response
5 months ago
Hi Diane, thank you for your honest feedback, and we're terribly sorry to hear about your poor experience. The loss of vital donor records, poor communication, and inadequate support you've described is completely unacceptable. Trust is everything in supporting your mission, and we've clearly fallen short. Someone from our team will reach out to you today to address these serious issues. We want to investigate the data loss, review our communication failures, and explore every possible solution to help your organization recover from this situation. Your mission is too important to be hindered by these failures. While we cannot undo the frustration you've experienced, we are committed to taking accountability and making this right. Thank you for pushing us to be better. We're listening and ready to help.
Top 5 best decisions made as ED
Comments: So far it’s been amazing. Anytime we need help we can reach a real person and solve the problem, and the program has remained user friendly through the years
Pros:
For me it’s the seamlessness from Fontacts and programmatic fundraising. In one space I have a clear concise way of organizing my funders and supports to not only raise money, but communicate with them as well. On the other side when it comes to fundraising , it is an extremely easy tool to create very specific fundraising buckets that you can use to target your specific donors
Cons:
Facebook flags our fundraisers as “pretending to be them when we try to post on socials , it would be helpful ton figure that out but otherwise my only gripe with the program is having to pay an extra fee for an event as opposed to just a regular fundraising page.
Alternatives Considered:
Satisfied Customer Since 2020
Comments: Love the customer support! So responsive! We implemented the product during COVID and it couldn't have gone more smoothly.
Pros:
The addition of event ticketing and auction functionality makes the package even more attractive and useful.
Cons:
Our database count is inflated by zero-dollar "subscribers" -- people who have never donated but receive information (such as local government officials on the newsletter list) -- so our annual costs are higher than I would like.
Bonterra Response
last year
Thank you for the awesome feedback, Kate! Absolutely delighted that you've been happy with our product and support since 2020. I'll be sure to share your pricing feedback with our product team. Thanks for choosing Bonterra Guided Fundraising!
