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Blackbaud FIMS

Score8 out of 10

12 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Blackbaud FIMS?

Blackbaud invites the user to manage and improve your funding and giving process with Blackbaud FIMS, a single, customizable foundation management software solution. It is based on the former MicroEdge FIMS product.

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Reviews

What users are saying about Blackbaud FIMS.
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Blackbaud FIMS Review

Incentivized
JoAnn TiefauView profile
Program Officer at FM Kirby Foundation (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • Ease of data entry
  • Good reporting tools

Cons

  • Creating ad hoc reports
  • Editing ad hoc reports

Return on Investment

  • Good reporting (by program area, geographic area, payments, and backgrounds) for close to 250 grants per year
  • Due to familiarity of program (MicroEdge), not too difficult to convert to new program of Blackbaud Grantmaking

Like Your Favorite Sensible Shoes, Only for Data!

Incentivized
Meridian NapoliView profile
Director of Grant Management at Houston Endowment (11-50 employees employees)

Pros

  • GIFTS Classics does a very good job of processing transactions. You can track workflow and enter/change important information along the lifecycle.
  • My favorite feature is the ability to select almost any field within the database and organize how it will be viewed, either within the system or when exported to Excel. You can relabel the column headers, sort, switch the order, stack fields, and capture all the information that will help in both processing and decision making.
  • I find the ability to create a wide range of templates that can then be generated and stored through the document manager tool to provide great efficiency and reduce opportunity for error.

Cons

  • The old-school tables format has made it particularly difficult for the system to be as nimble as the work demands. Its user interface is unappealing and general navigation makes it hard for infrequent uses to find what they need.
  • Ad-hoc reporting can get you far. But the set of canned reports with preset criteria and formatting is very limiting.
  • Because we want controls between the funding database and the financial database, we value the two systems being separate. However, the way GIFTS tracks different payment activities (cancellations, refunds, voids, etc.) and the inability to easily get 'as of' information, reconciliation with a true accounting system is problematic.

Return on Investment

  • We have to use several other systems to get our work done and/or to present the information in a visually pleasing manner to key stakeholders.

Other Software Used

MS SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics AX

Comprehensive GMS that works for you - just learn how to use it!

Incentivized
Margie O'Connor
Grants Associate at Commonweal Foundation (11-50 employees employees)

Pros

  • Customer support is readily available and comprehensive. As an advanced user, I have been really pleased with MicroEdge customer support and every time I call, my issue is not only resolved, but I learn something new about the system or a simpler way of doing things.
  • MicroEdge's support staff are extremely knowledgeable with philanthropy and grantmaking. They are not just database administrators, they assist in helping their users conceptualize how to use the database to the best of their ability in a way that is aligned with their organization's grantmaking strategies and initiatives. For example, our Foundation does a wide variety of grantmaking from matching contributions to complex contract management for operating grants. MicroEdge has helped us restructure our code tables and user ability in a way that works for us.
  • MicroEdge does a great job at hosting user groups by geographic region so we can personally express our concerns and desires for our organization's needs. You get more than a GMS when you choose MicroEdge.

Cons

  • While GIFTS Classic is the most barren interfaces of all MicroEdge products, there are some simple capabilities I wish GIFTS could still perform such as better email integration from outlook to a GIFTS request, more efficient requirement reminders, and a wider use of Microsoft Office and other external product integration (GuideStar).
  • It's disappointing that you have to purchase an additional "Customizer Module" or "Budget Module" in order to access basic functions of a GMS. This seems like a basic system function that MicroEdge takes advantage of, unfortunately.
  • The online application module (IGAM) is still quite antiquated and you have to be knowledgeable of basic HTML in order to really customize your organization's online application. More flexibility and design functions would be greatly appreciated with the online application function, especially since this is a public document and represents your organization.

Return on Investment

  • Managing nonprofit contacts efficiently through contact management, email integration (GIFTS Email Plus module), and managing multiple contacts per organization.
  • Increased employee efficiency, especially once we roll out the system for program use foundation-wide.
  • Increased financial efficiency through an accountability-based management system of the grants database and the Finance Dept database.

The GIFTS that Kept on Giving (In the Worst Way Possible)

Incentivized
Verified User
Program Manager (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • Simple layout
  • Duplication reports
  • Lots of fields for organization-specific information

Cons

  • GIFTS system had many inherent bugs
  • Difficult to search for information in GIFTS
  • Customer support was difficult to reach
  • When reached, customer service was rude and unhelpful
  • GIFTS system could not put addresses in alphabetical order by country
  • Upon updates, GIFTS system would crash and data would become corrupted
  • GIFTS often would freeze and crash when exporting information to Excel
  • GIFTS would not allow for the deletion of certain program codes even when user had full administrative privileges

Return on Investment

  • Reporting was difficult on GIFTS - often we had to place data into Excel by hand since we could not create simple customized reports. This increased time spent on tasks GIFTS was supposed to streamline.
  • GIFTS did not alert us to duplicated organization records, so often it was difficult to reflect an organization's full grant history to our Board of Directors, leading to employees spending time searching through paper records to make sure all information was properly reported.
  • GIFTS created duplicate contact records, meaning it was difficult to find out which contact was related to which organization and cluttered our data. This caused decreased processing and response time to "new" contacts who turned out to be previous contacts or contacts whose information was tied to previous organizations. Even when contact information was updated for a new organization, sometimes the program would revert to the first organization contact information, several times leading to checks cashed to incorrect organizations---the very worst consequence of using GIFTS to our organization. Thankfully, the money was recovered upon the few times that error occurred, but it led to me and other employees reading through out 800+ checks before issue to make sure the correct organization was in fact being rewarded.