Most organizations leave Blackbaud over quote-only pricing, auto-renewing multi-year contracts, and a payment stack that layers several fees on the same gift. Stay if major-gift moves management runs your development office.
Ordered by how well each one fits the organizations that usually outgrow Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT.
Memberships, programs, facilities and volunteers on one member record
Memberships, program registration, facility booking, volunteer shifts and POS on one member record, with campaign pages, recurring giving and automatic numbered tax receipts on the donation side.
Check first: No wealth screening, prospect research, moves management or peer-to-peer fundraising; if that is why you bought Blackbaud, look at Neon CRM or Bloomerang.
The usual mid-market landing spot for Raiser's Edge refugees
Neon CRM gives you unlimited records, users, emails and forms, with memberships, events, volunteers, workflow automation and an open API on the Impact tier.
Check first: Annual terms are typical and there is no free trial.
Enterprise flexibility, if you have an admin
Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud gives eligible nonprofits donated licenses through Power of Us, with a data model, automation and reporting as deep as Blackbaud CRM.
Check first: Implementation, migration and an ongoing admin or consultant are the real work, and dues, event registration and payments all need add-on apps.
Donor retention CRM with a friendlier interface for smaller teams
Bloomerang gives smaller development shops engagement scoring, stewardship tooling and event ticketing with QR check-in, with unlimited users on every plan.
Check first: Pricing scales by records, volunteer management is a separate product, and contracts are annual.
Proven donor database with free migration
DonorPerfect puts Constant Contact email, online forms, donor portals and a mobile app on every plan.
Check first: Higher tiers are quote-only and API access is restricted to the top tier.
Canadian donor CRM with CRA and IRS receipting in every plan
Keela includes donor and volunteer management, unlimited email automation, membership management and automatic receipts compliant with both CRA and IRS rules.
Check first: Tiers climb with contact count, events rely on the Eventbrite integration, and there is no free trial.
Open source with no license fee, for organizations with technical support
CiviCRM is free and open source, and its membership, event, contribution and mass-email modules are deep enough for federations and foundations that want to own their data.
Check first: Setup, upgrades and hosting need a partner or in-house technical staff, and the admin interface is dated.
| Feature | Communal | Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT | Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud | Neon CRM | Bloomerang |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Membership management | IncludedTiers, custom fields, segments | Included | Partial | Add-onImpact tier and up | Partial |
| Automated renewals | IncludedReminders and auto-renew | Not listed | Not listed | Included | Partial |
| Digital membership cards (Apple / Google Wallet) | IncludedIncluded in every plan | Not offered | Not offered | Not listed | Not offered |
| Event registration & ticketing | Add-onPrograms & events add-on | Included | Partial | Add-onImpact tier and up | Included |
| Program & class registration | Add-onWaitlists, capacity, attendance, rosters | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Facility booking & rentals | Add-onApprovals, invoices, agreements, iCal | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered |
| Volunteer shifts & hour tracking | IncludedShifts, hours, auto volunteer discounts | Partial | Included | Add-onImpact tier and up | Add-onSeparate Bloomerang Volunteer product |
| Donations & fundraising | IncludedIncluded; donor covers fees option | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Automatic tax receipts | IncludedAutomatic | Included | PartialVia apps | Included | Included |
| Member self-service portal | Included | Partial | Add-onExperience Cloud | Included | PartialDonor portal |
| Email campaigns | IncludedCampaigns and segments | Included | Add-onMarketing Cloud / apps | Included | Included |
| Website builder | Not offeredWorks beside your site | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered |
| Public API | IncludedREST API, Zapier webhooks, MCP server | Included | Included | Included | Included |
Blackbaud publishes no list prices, so quotes depend on database size, modules, users and term. Implementation is a separate project with its own bill.
Blackbaud's own billing FAQ says contracts automatically renew on a standard 3-year term, with renewal pricing subject to an annual adjustment. Leaving means planning around a renewal window.
Card processing, an online-form platform fee and a separate Payment Enablement Fee stack on the same gift. Foundations notice those lines on the invoice.
Raiser's Edge NXT is built around gifts and prospects, so membership, events and volunteer tools sit as add-ons, with no digital membership cards, facility booking or program scheduling.
The product assumes dedicated development and IT staff and a consultant ecosystem. A community organization with two administrators is carrying overhead sized for a university advancement office.
Communal publishes every plan on its pricing page, bills month to month with prorated charges, and lets you cancel any module at any time. Blackbaud is quote-only with contracts that auto-renew on a standard 3-year term.
Card processing is set in your agreement, with no monthly minimums and weekly deposits to your own Stripe Connect account, plus a donor-covers-fees option. Blackbaud layers card processing, an online-form platform fee and a separate Payment Enablement Fee.
Membership types with family plans, Apple and Google Wallet cards, resident vs non-resident pricing by map boundary, program registration with waitlists, facility booking with approvals and invoices, volunteer shifts with hour tracking and POS all share one member record. Blackbaud treats those as add-ons to a fundraising CRM.
A 30-day trial needs no card, admin accounts are unlimited with role-based access, and the scoped data migration is free. Blackbaud offers no free trial.
Stay on Blackbaud if your revenue is major gifts, your development team lives in moves management and prospect research, and you have the staff to run the product. A foundation paying Blackbaud prices mainly for memberships, program registration or facility rentals is the one that should leave; a foundation funding a real advancement operation may be getting what it pays for.
Neon CRM for a donor-first foundation that wants unlimited records and published pricing; Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud if you have an admin and want the deepest data model with donated licenses. Communal if the foundation also runs programs, rents space or manages a membership, and donations are one stream among several.
Communal, where membership types and plans, automated renewal reminders, family memberships, wallet cards and a member portal come as standard and plans follow member count rather than database size. Neon CRM on its Impact tier is the pick if you want memberships inside a donor CRM.
Communal for associations and chapters that mainly need tiers, renewals, events, a directory and receipts, or Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for large associations with staff to build on it. If you need committees, continuing-education tracking and a job board, look at an AMS such as MemberClicks or GrowthZone.
Communal if you sell memberships, run classes and camps and rent studio or gallery space, since those all sit on one member record with wallet cards and program waitlists. Bloomerang if the organization is primarily a development operation with ticketed events.
Raiser's Edge exports constituents, gifts and actions as CSV or through SKY API; plan the move around your renewal window and expect two to six weeks for the data work.
Export constituents, relationships, membership records, gift history and action notes from Raiser's Edge NXT; we map constituents to Communal members, relationships to family groups and gifts to donation records, and run a dry-run import with validation before anything goes live.
Set up membership types, donation forms, campaign pages, programs, facilities and volunteer opportunities in Communal, then import members with existing renewal dates and historical memberships so nobody renews early and giving history is intact.
Switch donate, join and register links on your website to the Communal portal, connect your Stripe account so payouts land weekly, send members their wallet cards, and run both systems briefly while the first renewals and recurring gifts clear.
How the hall gets booked, how program pricing works, how you chase renewals. No canned tour. We walk Communal through your real process so you can see the fit before you decide.
No canned tour · No sales script
For a donor-first nonprofit, Neon CRM or Bloomerang are the usual mid-market replacements, and Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud is the enterprise option. For a community organization, foundation or association that mainly needs memberships, programs, facility rentals, donations and volunteers, Communal covers that side with no contract.
First decide which half of the product you use. If it is donor cultivation, Neon CRM, DonorPerfect or Bloomerang replace Raiser's Edge with published pricing and no hosting line. If it is memberships, event registration, room rentals or volunteers, Communal covers that side, and CiviCRM suits organizations with technical support.
Not for major-gift fundraising. Communal has donation forms, campaign pages with goals, recurring giving, automatic tax receipts with CRA and US templates and matching gifts through Double the Donation, but no wealth screening, prospect research or moves management. It replaces Blackbaud for organizations whose day-to-day is memberships, programs, facilities and volunteers.
Communal. Membership is a first-class system rather than an add-on: membership types and plans, fixed-date or anniversary renewals with automated reminders, family memberships, Apple and Google Wallet cards and a member self-service portal. Neon CRM on the Impact tier is the alternative if you want memberships inside a donor CRM.
If you came here searching for Convio, the legacy Blackbaud online-fundraising brand, the replacements are the same as for Raiser's Edge: Neon CRM or Bloomerang for donor CRM with online forms and email, Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud for an enterprise platform, and Communal for community organizations that want donations, memberships, programs and volunteers together.
Yes, and the scoped migration is free. We take the constituent, membership, gift and action exports from Raiser's Edge NXT, map them to Communal members, family groups, donations and notes, run a dry-run import with validation, and go live with your existing renewal dates intact. Time the switch for before your renewal window closes.