eTapestry Reviews

Pros

Customer service was fast, knowledgeable, and respectful. I never felt like I was asking a dumb question and they always had an answer.

Pros

I love the ease of functionality in finding and creating accounts. I like the connection with Blackbaud Merchant Services for an all in one platform.

Cons

The start-up was a little too long and delayed our business plan. Also, queries and forms are not necessarily intuitive.

Pros

It was easy to use and track giving and donors over time.

Cons

Grant tracking could be a little easier to navigate.

Pros

Entire system is very easy to learn no matter the experience level
Managing donor records and online gifts is very easy
Reporting and query tools are easy to use even for those without a lot of experience building queries
clean, user-friendly interface
excellent customer support
simple data entry & gift processing
online giving pages import gifts directly to database, helping teams avoid manual entry & the pages can be reskinned to match your website design
easy to mass import records

Cons

expensive, especially having to pay for Advanced emails & paying an hourly fee for minor changes
eTapestry support must be requested for an array of minor tweaks to giving pages for example and it usually takes several days to up to 2 weeks to get changes finished
communications templates are inflexible and look extremely dated, often the preview of a communication you see on your screen is not how it looks at delivery, very limited analytics tools and delivery/testing options
as far as I know there is no ability to export from eTapestry to QuickBooks which means gift processing team must reenter gifts manually into QuickBooks
while it has the ability to provide personal fundraising pages, they are highly inflexible and the layouts look so dated they are almost not worth using

Pros

Easy to create user defined fields to fit the needs of my organization. eTapestry is a great tool for volunteer tracking, event tracking, donation tracking, and in-Kind tracking. Having one tool for all of those categories is very helpful.

Cons

Queries and Reports are not the easiest to pull. I know that the queries can do so much more - but they are the hardest to manipulate to get the information needed for reporting purposes. Also - it would be nice to have some way to assign users their city specific donors. As we are in multiple cities - the user access is very limited. It is almost either they can see and do everything or not do anything. There needs to be more user categories. And as we expand to other cities - I don't feel like eTapestry grows enough with us.

Pros

This database is easy to use. If you've ever used another donor management system, you'll find it pretty intuitive. You can build decent queries and create tons of data points you want to track.

Cons

Everything has to be done manually, and it can take some time. I wouldn't recommend this to a membership organization because of the time involved logging renewals. There is also a really not so awesome template you have to use create all of the products you want to offer, including donations. It's a hassle for the organization and the donor.

Pros

Accessibility and ease of data entry. I also liked the templates that were available for newsletters, emails and etc.

Cons

Creating reports was not user friendly.

Pros

Its an inexpensive way to manage donor and supporter activities. It also allow us to bulk email and communicate to our audience. We can design a nice email with graphics and it is fairly easy to set it up and send it out.

Cons

It is a little clunky in that the categories and drop-downs aren't customization. You basically have to get with your team (or those responsible for entering data) and decide how to use their established categories to fit the data you want to collect in order to have it be consistent for each person's information that you enter.

Pros

eTapestry has a lot of great cloud based functionality for keeping track of your donor database, sending communications, running reports on interactions with donors, etc.

Cons

It's pretty pricey for smaller not for profits.

Pros

The ability to have recurring donors processed automatically and securly is very important and Etapestry delivered this. The program is able to track donations to specific projects and fundraising programs. Handles EOFY receipts well.

Cons

It was difficult sometimes to get the information you required out of the program without specific training.

Pros

First of all the price for our organization is fantastic, after shopping around for a new database management system, we have found nothing close to what we are currently paying. eTap has decent functionality after you learn how to use it; once you master the basics, it has the flexibility to store just about any data that you need as long as you are willing to get a little creative in how you organize the data. The ability for the data base to be directly integrated into our website and Quickbooks is also a great feature that minimizes potential lost memberships and corrupted data.

Cons

The hands down most frustrating part of the program is that you can't have multiple tabs open within the same browser with eTap. In order to have eTap open on two different tabs, you must use a different web browser and a different login ID, which becomes a complete and total pain. It is also not the easiest program to learn and train new people on. Often we want volunteers to work on data management for us but that is really only possible if the volunteer or intern is with us for at least three months so we an spend the time training them on the program.

Pros

eTapestry has lots of power to get things done. It is cloud-based, so there is no need for the user to worry about upgrading the software or backing up the data. Queries are very easy to produce, and exporting the results in reports, PDFs or excel is a snap. You can design your own forms so that your website can talk to eTapestry easily. eTapestry works equally well on desktop computers, tablets and cellphones. This is very helpful for fundraisers who are on the road.

Cons

If you are downsizing from a more robust package such as Raiser's Edge, be prepared for a loss of flexibility - for example, queries in eTapestry lack some of the power that Raiser's Edge has. When comparing what you get "out of the box" with some other solutions, you will find that in order to keep costs down for the average user, eTapestry is very basic. To add in eCommerce, donor logins, advanced email, etc these are available, but as an add-on pricing. This can make it more expensive than other products that have all these features to start with, so you should be aware of what your real needs are before committing to eTapestry.

Pros

The eTapestry system is by far the best we've ever used. There are many things to like including: the dashboard with its sophisticated look that integrates all of the important information in on place, which makes it simple to focus on important things like delivering programs. Our old system didn't work well, especially when we needed to pull information from it. Reporting in eTapestry is quick and it looks really professional. So far, everyone we've had to provide information to, such as accountants, counselors, and so forth, are really impressed with how the information is presented to them. Last but not least, the diy forms are a godsend. They've raised us to a whole new level in regards to our tax receipting, registration forms, and mail outs!

Perhaps the greatest thing we've enjoyed using eTapestry is the caliber of service we've received from every member of the team.

Cons

So far there's nothing we don't like, but I do have some suggestions.

First of all, for the diy forms, we are using one for program registrations that have a fee - the donation form seemed to be the best fit. It would be ideal for us if we could either change the wording from "donation amount" and "donation frequency" to "payment amount" and "payment frequency", or provide us with the options for wording because we don't want those who are registering to be confused about the fee because it's not a donation.

Secondly, in the diy forms, where we have multiple options for users to check off, it would be ideal if we could create columns so that the form isn't too long.

Finally, because we are using some of the diy forms for program registrations and we deliver programs to families, it would be ideal for us if we could have a form where participants could put in the names of their family members and those names would generate separate constituents in the database. For instance, a mother signs up for a program with her two kids. All have the same contact information, but the health information is different for all three. Currently, people have to do the form several times - once for each family member.

Pros

Data conversion from ResultsPlus was excellent. The specialist worked with us to make sure all the data was correct and matched or improved upon how it was organized. The process also helps you become familiar with the software. So, once completed, we were able to start using without much disruption.
We've been successfully using it for over a year. Overall, it is user-friendly, with great support. Our account manager is wonderful and helps with issues/questions; checks up from time to time. Online resources/tutorial great and help navigate some of the learning curves with reports, mailings, etc.

Cons

We got an odd impersonal e-mail with a link to view our invoice.It would be nice to be able to pull it up online via our Blackbaud Account Site. Support was slow when we had a question with invoice and not easy to manage/review.
Not the best for e-newsletters - it's a little clunky to design with limited templates. We stayed with Constant Contact, but there are good integration features with eTapestry.

Pros

I appreciate that the product is part of Blackbaud's empire of services for the sector, so you can assume that much of the functionality is based on best practices. It has a nice graphic interface. I really appreciate the DIY form features that allow us to collect information on not only donors but volunteers and other constituents. It's been a phenomenal transformation in our ability to track our supporters and empower the board with good information. The automatic address updates we completed before our annual fund appeal resulted in an increased in renewal rates for our lapsed donors, which effectively paid for the subscription for the year.

Cons

For an organization with a smaller budget, the software investment is expensive. We were fortunate to receive a 30% discount for our first three years, but as we look to renew in the coming year, I think it will start to become more painful to pay for this operational utility. It took a significant amount of time to learn how eTap works. I was initially stunned by the costs of eTapestry's video and in-person training programs and the knowledge base is a little funky to use. Their customer service staff on chat have been super helpful, however, and that's become my go-to for answering questions. They do have free resources for training, but they are basic.

Pros

The interface is easy to use and the donation processing and web forms functionality is pretty intuitive. If you haven't used a donor database before, this is a good beginning system. It has all of the basic functions you need, is fairly easy to use and fees are on a sliding scale.

Cons

Their reporting and querying system is not great. You can get what you need, but it seems to be overly complicated and often requires two or three steps where other systems can do it in one. They are making improvements on this, but the essential architecture now is the same as it was when I first used this system in 2008, so I am not sure how much they can effectively change.

Pros

Integration with online giving is seamless. Manual entry of gifts is easy and straightforward. It's easy to export data.

Cons

No one in our small organization uses this software regularly enough to feel proficient, and it isn't intuitive. I waste a lot of time trying to get data out of the software. Reports have to be rebuilt every time you run them, and there is no built-in year against year to date report, which seems like an essential to me. When I was given instructions on how to accomplish this, I couldn't believe the number of steps it involved. I find myself spending a lot of time running queries, then exporting them to Excel to manipulate the data to prepare something I can share with the ED and Board. I know there are users who love this software, but it isn't working well for us.

Pros

I like the most the fact that one can search for a client's account by their account number, with a / before it, and find any given person within the account instantly. This sort of number-orientation makes the software much easier to integrate for importing data, especially when importing hundreds of account updates and journal entries at a time.

Cons

I like the least how slow the software is. Perhaps this is because my company is utilizing the maximum account storage (we have 100,000+ accounts on file). When clicking on someone's name, there is a loading time of 3-5 seconds. When attempting to enter a gift or a journal entry from that person, there are 2 additional loading buffers of 3-5 seconds depending on the activity within the company at that time. This severely slows our process of data entry, preventing data entry from being smooth and fast.

Pros

I have worked with several different non-profits, and there are a wide range of products available. In many cases, people fall back on Raiser's Edge or a similarly-sized software package because it's comfortable. However, in my current position, I was creating a development department from scratch for a small non-profit, and we simply didn't need that level of software, especially not with our limited budget.

eTapestry, I find, provides absolutely everything I could need at an extremely afford price point. Gone are our days of tracking prospects, donors and campaigns in multiple spreadsheets - but we don't have the complicated and, frankly, overkill options of a high-end software that's needed for the likes of non-profit giants. It's immediately accessible to fundraising veterans and novices, with access to your information from anywhere that you can connect to the internet. Plus, it grows with you, with very well-priced tiers based on your number of records.

I'm a huge advocate!

Cons

I think there is still work to be done on making customization a little more straightforward. For certain, there are challenges when it comes to split gifts, for example, that still need to worked out. That said, I have not used any software that is perfect out of the box or even after tinkering for weeks, for that matter. There is always some give and take, but I feel eTapestry does a great job.

Pros

eTapestry has a responsive customer service team. Whenever I had an inquiry, someone was there to answer my questions. Once I was speaking with a sales associate and had a question the associate could not answer. The associate passed my question on to a customer service representative and the rep called me within a day to help solve my problem.

Cons

eTapestry has many options for managing large databases. This is wonderful for large organizations, however, ours is a small non-profit. We have two fundraisers and fewer than 1000 prospect records. eTapestry was too complicated for our needs and therefore ended up only being useful for data storage. Another issue arose when we had staff turnover. Product knowledge left with former staff and training for eTapestry would have cost 150% more than our annual eTapestry costs. Training was just too expensive and, as a result, we did not utilize eTapestry as much as we could have.

Pros

We use eTapestry for all of our donor and fundraising needs. We have used many other products and have never been satisfied until now. Every function we need - and many we didn't even know we needed - are included in eTapestry. Even more than that, whenever I have a question or can't figure something out, their online help is available and can quickly and effectively solve any problem or challenge I have. I HIGHLY recommend eTapestry for your fundraising and donor relation needs.

Cons

I don't have a single con after using them for 3 years! The only small tiny downside would be that I wish there was an app I could check from my phone.

Pros

At first I loved eTapestry for its great support and a la carte options. It is definitely a robust system.

Not so much anymore since they are now part of Blackbaud. They now bundle options and railroad agencies into long contracts to get single features that used to be available a la carte.

Cons

All of the above, plus their communications tool is not the best. It would be better if they integrated with a marketing tool like Constant Contact and included that in their packages. The maneuvering through the system is clunky and not at all intuitive.

Pros

Blackbaud's eTapestry is highly functional and very easy to use. We have almost 7,000 records in the eTapestry database. We found for queries, reporting and lists we are able to create these quicky to return the information we desire. Also, there are customizable features that we use frequently for our specific donor interests.

Cons

Our organization does not have anything negative to say about eTapestry. The service is fabulous and so is the product. We wish it were a lower cost, but feel we get the value out of the software.

Pros

Customer service

Cons

Old design, clunky, not intuitive.

Pros

eTapestry offers a first-rate, flexible CRM with every function necessary to create and manage the organization's connections. Coupled with great customer service, eTapestry offers a CRM that can be adapted and created specifically for any nonprofit organization.

Offering both standardized and custom query options, eTapestry allows the user every opportunity to get to the information needed. Additionally, eTapestry offers tremendous system integration. Via forms and a QuickBooks connection, eTapestry integrates with your website and reduces unnecessary and redundant input.

Cons

While mass emailing components (Delivra) are less aesthetically pleasing "out of the box" than Constant Contact or other email marketing tools, eTapestry allows for Constant Contact integration if one would like to use that product instead.

Additionally, CART functionality (the area where one can sell merchandise) needs to be updated to allow for greater customer flexibility and usability. eTapestry needs to allow its customers more creative license so that forms, etc. can be updated more quickly to match websites. These are ancillary issues that eTapestry is constantly working on.