How Amara Traded Complexity for Clarity and Transformed Their Fundraising

Key Outcomes

• Replaced a complex, expensive legacy CRM with an intuitive, all-in-one platform
• Cut gift entry time dramatically with streamlined imports (400+ gifts processed via spreadsheet upload in a single month)
• Gained built-in email, texting, automations, and recurring donation management that Raiser's Edge couldn't offer

Wearing Every Hat on a Growing Team

Amara has been devoted to meeting the needs of children and families in the Puget Sound region since 1921. With offices in both Seattle and Tacoma, they serve over 1,400 parents and 1,100 children annually through foster care services, kinship support, family resources, and youth programming.

Their fundraising operation reflects the complexity of their mission. The team manages a robust mix of grants, individual donors, direct mail campaigns, in-person events, and a growing monthly giving program. Major gift officers carry portfolios. Multiple campaigns run simultaneously. And Marissa, a key member of the development team, found herself responsible for managing the donor database alongside everything else.

"I'm the one person managing all of this."

It's a reality that plays out across lean fundraising teams everywhere: juggling a dozen responsibilities while the tools you use make your work harder, not easier. And that's exactly where things started to break down.

When the CRM Works Against You

Amara had been using Raiser's Edge, and Marissa was struggling. The platform felt overly complex for the size of their team, and getting help was an uphill battle.

Support articles were outdated, referencing features that had been rolled back. YouTube tutorials no longer applied. The chat "support" was a bot, available only during business hours. Response times lagged. And the cost was hard to justify for what the team was actually getting out of it.

"I wasn't enjoying using Raiser's Edge. It doesn't really make sense for the size of our team. I was having a lot of issues."

When a new development director came on board, he saw the same problems. The system wasn't serving the team, and the investment wasn't adding up. It was time to explore other options.

Evaluating 14 CRMs to Find the Right Fit

Amara didn't rush the decision. Marissa and the director sat through demos with 14 different CRM providers. They built comparison spreadsheets, typed detailed notes from every meeting, cross-referenced reviews on G2, and narrowed the field methodically.

For Marissa, the interface mattered. As the person living in the database every day, the platform needed to feel clear and intuitive.

"I'm very visual, and the interface needs to make sense for my brain. It was going to be me doing all of this, being in the database every day."

After rounds of follow-ups, the finalists came down to three: DonorDock, Keela, and Neon One. When the team sat down to make the call, DonorDock stood out for clear reasons.

Why DonorDock Won

Marissa pulled up the actual decision document her team created during the evaluation. The reasons they chose DonorDock were specific and practical:

• Transparent pricing with no hidden costs (unlike what they encountered with other finalists)
• No annual contract requirement
• Shortest migration timeline of the three finalists
• Strong customer support team, backed by a response time stat that impressed Marissa immediately
• Top reviews on G2, the comparison site they relied on throughout their search

Beyond the evaluation criteria, specific features sealed the deal: built-in email integration, the donation portal for managing recurring gifts (a top priority as Marissa was tasked with growing the monthly giving program), task delegation between team members, automations, and texting capabilities.

"DonorDock stood out for the following reasons: transparent pricing, no annual contract, shortest migration timeline, strong customer support, and top reviews on G2."

A Migration That Was "Shockingly Easy"

Like many teams leaving a legacy system, Marissa was nervous about the transition. She was handling the migration largely on her own, and her experience with Raiser's Edge had set her expectations low.

"I was super intimidated, stressed, scared, because I was doing all of it."

The hardest part? Getting data out of Blackbaud. Retrieving saved credit card data for recurring donors required working with contractors and navigating miscommunications. That friction came from the old system, not the new one.

Once the data was in DonorDock's hands, the process shifted. Marissa started working with her onboarding specialist and things clicked.

"I built trust with our support specialists. They are responsive to me, and they do help me. This is actually just working."

What Changed After Switching

Gift Entry Went from Painful to Effortless

For Marissa, the single biggest transformation was gift entry. She handles monthly financial reconciliations for the team, and in a busy month like December, that meant entering over 400 gifts received via check and ACH.

With Raiser's Edge, imports were confusing and poorly documented. With DonorDock, she uploads a spreadsheet and the mapping is clear, well-documented, and fast.

"The import function in DonorDock has completely changed the way that I do gift entry. Being able to just upload these spreadsheets saves so much time."

Automations That Save Steps Every Day

Amara is using automations to handle tasks that used to eat into Marissa's day: automatic receipts for check gifts, tagging DAF contributions, sending welcome emails to first-time donors, and even an auto-send text campaign for donors who opted into messaging.

Every automation is one less thing to remember, one less manual step in an already packed workflow.

Built-In Tools That Raiser's Edge Couldn't Match

Email integration, annual giving statements, texting, the donation portal for recurring gifts, pulling reports, and task delegation between team members. These weren't add-ons or workarounds. They were built into the DonorDock platform from the start.

"I feel like DonorDock is more on the cutting edge of integrating AI and all of that. Faster to adopt than Raiser's Edge was."

A Platform That Matches the Pace of Your Mission

Amara's fundraising landscape is evolving. They're building a younger donor base, growing their monthly giving program, and navigating the post-COVID shift back to in-person events. Through all of that change, they needed a platform that could keep up.

For Marissa, DonorDock delivered exactly what the team was hoping for.

"It's panned out exactly what we were hoping for, and has been super fruitful for our team."

If your team is navigating a similar crossroads, juggling a legacy CRM that's working against you while trying to grow your fundraising, you're not alone. And the switch might be easier than you think.

Curious how DonorDock compares to what you're using now? We'd love to show you.