HQ - Charleston - 115 Fairchild Street

I rarely review businesses but the public deserves to know the TOTAL FAILURE OF BLACKBAUD CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. Here is our story: We operate a non-profit that was founded after our daughter was tragically taken from us by an impaired driver in 2019. As a result, we help others who are dealing with similar, difficult & tragic circumstances. As Blackbaud purports to offer software solutions for entities like ours, we purchased an expensive (for a non-profit like ours) software solution from them in 2023. That is were this story turns from bad to worse. From the beginning, we were unable to coordinate training on the software for a variety of reasons. Primarily because we are a completely volunteer run organization and we all have full time jobs and families. Blackbaud was less than accommodating. After 6 months (yes...6 months) of trying to facilitate training, Blackbaud stopped communicating with us and we requested a refund due to the circumstances. They refused our request and then Blackbuad proved their ineptitude. They sent us a bill for the next year's renewal! We had truly forgotten about Blackbaud as they had chosen to forget about us. Please know that we had never one time been able to utilize their software...not once. We ignored the renewal billing, as there was not going to be a renewal from our perspective. Blackbaud then sent us a late payment notice...for a service that we had not ever used, nor could we. Here is where Blackbaud's business model falls apart. We ultimately reached out personally to contacts within the company to share our experience and were sent to an individual in their legal department...who told us our contract stated that we owed them for future services, like it or not! Regardless of the failure of Blackbaud to perform their obligations. We could have chosen to take legal action at this point and upon reflection now, we should have. But we are a small non-profit, who cares for and supports grieving and distraught families who are in tragic circumstances. We don't have funds for such legal escapades nor is that our purpose. So we paid for another year of services we could not use so this matter would end. Anticipating that our 2 year obligation was now complete and we had learned a valuable lesson about NEVER DOING BUSINESS WITH BLACKBAUD AGAIN. How naive we were... In mid 2025, Blackbaud sent us a renewal invoice. So I began what should be a simple process of reaching back out to resolve this non-issue. Except, YOU CANNOT REACH A HUMAN BEING AT BLACKBAUD. So I sent an email to customer support indicating we we had not and will not be using their services. End of story, right? Of course not...they sent a "friendly reminder email", which of course does not accept replies! So, I followed the instructions in their email: 1. "If you have questions, visit our customer portal". Ok, I did... 2. In the portal, you can use the chat function. I did... 3. Chat function sent me to a phone number. I called... 4. Phone support requires your customer ID. I put it in... 5. THE MESSAGE I RECEIVED WAS ASTOUNDING: "YOUR ORGANIZATION IS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR PHONE SUPPORT. PLEAE USE OUR CHAT FUNCTION" I did again... 6. CHAT FUNCTION SAID TO "CALL CUSTOMER SUPPORT..." 7. Frustrated to no end at this point, I called the Worldwide HQ phone number, hoping I could find a human to help. It is the same system I had reached previously and required our customer ID for support. Which I was again told "YOUR ORGANIZATION IS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR PHONE SUPPORT. PLEAE USE OUR CHAT FUNCTION"...Blackbaud needs an entire overhaul of their customer interface and experience. They will cease to exist as a company in their current configuration. I still don't know how we will deal with an invoice that should have never been sent, for a third year of services WE HAVE NEVER USED... I hope this information helps someone, somewhere.

I cannot imagine a worse company to work with. I've been stuck with them for 7 years and finally breaking free. Their accounting software simply does not work. Besides the fact that you can't trust the ability to simply log in, you also can't trust the information in reports. At one point, the same report run by 2 users was millions of dollars off, and when a support ticket was opened, the response was that they already knew about the problem and had been working on it since the prior day. There was no outgoing communication. Had the colleague and I not coincidentally been chatting about it, we may not have realized it and actually sent it out to the governing board - with millions in error, and it didn't occur to Blackbaud to tell us?! You also can't trust the idea that any portion of the software will work on any given day, or the idea that they have customer service. I can't tell you how many support tickets I've had over the years that consisted of literal weeks of back and forth in which multiple different reps would not be able to understand the question, offer no resolution whatsoever, let a few more weeks go by in silence while it was "being escalated" and then close the ticket with no further information provided. I get that a software help desk is not going to understand high level accounting, but you can't pretend to provide support if you have no one who understands the basic needs of accounting software. If you value your sanity or your time at all (not to mention your money), you'd be better off with paper and pencil than this piece of trash.

Worked very hard to disengage from this company in a previous role. Posted poor reviews and posted on BBB site - read these comments and recognize the trend. Was sad to see my new company uses a product also owned by Blackbaud for corporate training - sad to see the same problems and hope to see us disengage again soon. Stay clear unless you want to post you own warning one day. ( FYI - maybe my experience is due to the small size of the teams - both companies have less than 2,500 employees - you big guys may be just fine.

Dear Fellow Nonprofit Executives, I wanted to share a cautionary note about my recent experience with a particular SaaS company Blackbaud and their product eTapestry. Initially, their technology appeared to be a valuable asset for small nonprofits like ours. However, the experience has been far from what was promised. Firstly, the company demands an extensive time commitment upfront – about 20 hours of coursework – just to get started with their product. This is a significant ask, especially for small organizations with limited resources. But more frustratingly, even after completing these courses, the platform itself is so intricate that you essentially have to start learning all over again. Furthermore, their billing practices have been highly problematic. Despite multiple cancellations on our end, we have been continually invoiced for unclear and seemingly arbitrary charges. This has been a recurring issue over the last three years and has caused not just financial strain but also considerable administrative hassle. Given these experiences, I strongly advise fellow executives in the nonprofit sector to carefully reconsider before engaging with this company. There are other, more user-friendly and transparent options available that may better suit the needs and capacities of small organizations like ours. Warm regards,