Allow Donors to Manage their personal and giving information via a Donor Portal

Dear Bloomerang Team,

I am writing to formally raise a concern regarding a feature that was explicitly promised to us during the sales process but is not being delivered.

When we purchased Bloomerang, we were assured that donors would have the ability to update their own recurring payment information through the CRM. This capability was positioned as a standard and “easy” feature of Bloomerang—not something that required additional tools like Kindful. At no point were we informed that this core functionality would be dependent on a separate platform.

This has now created significant challenges for both our staff and our donors. As an example, one of our recurring donors recently had their credit card compromised. Instead of being able to quickly and securely update their own payment information, they had to call our staff, who then had to manually enter the changes. This creates inefficiencies, unnecessary burden on our team, and frustration for donors who rightly expect modern self-service options.

We have since learned that multiple other customers have expressed the same frustrations, and that feedback has already been submitted to Bloomerang requesting this functionality. It is very disappointing that this feature was marketed as part of Bloomerang when in fact it is not. Overselling a product on the basis of features that are unavailable undermines trust and puts nonprofits like ours in difficult positions with the very donors we rely on to fulfill our mission.

We respectfully request the following:

1. Clarity – A clear statement from Bloomerang on whether and when donors will be able to update their recurring payment information directly within the CRM.

2. Accountability – Acknowledgment that this feature was misrepresented at the point of sale.

3. Resolution – A firm timeline or roadmap for delivering this functionality, or a meaningful alternative solution for organizations like ours who were sold Bloomerang on this basis.

Palmer Home for Children is committed to strong donor stewardship, and this gap is directly hindering our ability to serve donors well. We hope Bloomerang will act quickly to address this issue and rebuild the trust that has been damaged.

Please make this available.

We do a campaign each year inviting our donors to "increase their monthly donation." When we were in Kindful, they were able to make a few clicks, and change the amount of their gift.

Without this ability in Bloomerang, our fundraising efforts are SERIOUSLY HINDERED this year because we have so many legacy donors that are not on QGiv and only on Bloomerang.

I'm so upset. We are set to lose a LOT of money. 😢

Please make a "donor backoffice" where they can update their address, credit card info, and information more accessible. This is kind of mind boggling that you have customers asking for this feature since 2022 on this form and you still haven't figured it out. If you have released it, your support team isn't aware of it, since they directed me here and I'm still not sure where I'm looking. Any help is appreciated locating this feature or prioritizing it. Thanks.

Yes! I know Kindful and QGiv offer a way for donors to do this, but we use the Bloomerang forms currently. We really like it and it has worked well for us. However, the one thing that is really a huge downside here is that donors can't edit/cancel/manage their gifts on their own. I have found this to be discouraging to some; as others here have mentioned, some people will not want to start a monthly gift knowing that they will not be able to manage it on their end.

This features is still not available in Bloomerang directly, correct? Don't you need to use a donation form from either Kindful or QGiv to allow the donor access to their account (which is still only in those products)? Can you please clarify and provide links to the related support documents?

I was searching because I was interested in that, and below is what I found on their Changelog. I'm just wondering if this feature request should be classified as Release if it only works with an add-on...

4/27/2023

If you have the Kindful Fundraising add-on, your donors can now create and manage a donor account. Donors can sign in to review their donation history, update profile information, add and manage donations, request a refund, and download a tax summary.

Hi everyone, this feature can be accessed by signing up for an account after a donation is made or at the top right of any hosted page like Donation Pages or Events, with the Sign In button.

Was this new donor portal feature only released for Kindful? If so, when will it be available in Bloomerang? If it is already available in Bloomerang, where is it?

Can you provide an update as to when the donor portal will be live? A lot of our donors are requesting a donor portal b/c the other npo's they support have a donor portal. I believe it was over 2 years ago that I was told that Bloomerang was working on a donor portal.

I concur. I had a potential new, large donor just ask for this, and was skittish that they wouldn't be able to manage the recurring donation themselves as they do with the other non-profits they support. I have yet to see if they will still be donating to us through another means that they can control directly.

This feature is a big reason we made the switch to Bloomerang, and I'm hopeful to see it implemented soon! I'm new to Bloomerang, but so far the Kindful integration is confusing. Please please make a donor portal available soon.

We are getting constant requests for this, especially as recurring charges have recently begun displaying differently on donors' bank statements. We've had multiple disputes of recurring gifts due to donors not understanding that "Indianapolis, IN" in their statement is their recurring gift to an organization based in Boston, MA. Also the constant expiring of the credit card donors' have used to set up their gifts causes constant chasing down and manual editing, where they should be able to do this themselves.

100% - and the Kindful integration does this theoretically, but is not worth the horrible hassle of all the other issues it brings.

Our donors ask for this all the time. This should be a priority!

+1 for the all the reasons below. For a platform that is billing itself as being on the forefront, this is a big hole where the competition has a lead.

We have donors asking when the donor portal will be live. they are frustrated that they have this option with other orgs they give to.

With Mastercard's new regulations, this is becoming more of a necessity. We don't want to have to create new systems for this and we especially don't want to find a new CRM.

100% I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out an easy way to do this. Even started exploring a custom app utilizing the API system, but always prefer native solutions.

It would be great if there were also a snapshot of their donation history. That way, during tax season, they could log in to see their total giving for the year.

We need our donors to be able to manage their donations! The donation page is a huge struggle for our recurring donors. They miss the button to make it recurring and they have no easy way to fix it. It loses us funds, frustrates them and wastes so much time. Please please consider this.