In 2022, we announced that CyberGrants, EveryAction, Network for Good, Social Solutions, and their respective entities were part of Bonterra. And our family continues to grow: WeSpire recently joined Bonterra to expand our corporate social responsibility (CSR) offerings, a strategic acquisition that marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to supporting and evolving employee engagement and powering those who power social impact. At the same time, we’ve been hard at work bringing together the wide range of tech, tools, and services these brands offer, including case management, corporate social responsibility, and fundraising and engagement. Our goal is to fundamentally change the way social good is delivered by empowering the doers of good to advance their missions through a connective, comprehensive technology ecosystem.
Collectively, we share a commitment and extensive history of supporting corporations, nonprofit organizations, philanthropists and foundations, and public agencies. Going forward, Bonterra is continuing our investments across our products that support these people and organizations to enable them to collaborate and make a broader impact together. We remain focused on providing software solutions that help social good organizations achieve their goals more effectively and efficiently. This way, you can focus more of your resources on the work that matters most—making a positive impact in the world.
Now, as we continue to move through 2023, we are excited to show you what we’ve been focused on and what lies ahead on our product roadmap.
How Bonterra’s software is working together and how you benefit
By engaging in discussions with our customers and those in the market looking to do more good, we have discovered a strong need for unique insights derived from a holistic view of an organization’s program and objectives, and an intuitive and approachable user experience that allows them to act on these insights quickly and effectively.
With that in mind, we intentionally want to evolve into a platform that bridges multiple infrastructures and products that become even stronger when they are used together. To make that a reality, we are working toward a hub-and-spoke approach to our products, which means we are building a hub, or foundation, to support our best-in-class products, or spokes. If a customer purchases multiple products across Bonterra’s ecosystem, this hub-and-spoke approach will allow them to have a centralized location to review and gather insights from data rather than logging into multiple product instances to answer questions like the following:
- “Are we staffed up for the demand our social good organization is receiving?”
- “How are we doing on our fundraising goals for this quarter with the amount of money we raised?”
- “What kind of outcomes did we deliver?”
- “How engaged was our volunteer workforce?”
All of these questions can be answered based on a common data infrastructure that is shared across our products.
Bonterra’s products are already coming together in ways that make our customers’ lives better. Last month, we announced an exciting matching gift integration between Bonterra Donor Engagement’s Development and Digital solutions (formerly EveryAction) and Bonterra Corporate Social Responsibility (formerly CyberGrants.) With this integration, donors who make an online gift to a nonprofit that uses Bonterra Development and/or Digital have the option to add their information to see if their employer will provide a matching gift. If the donor’s employer is a Bonterra Corporate Social Responsibility customer, the donor will receive a follow-up email that includes instructions on how to submit a matching gift through our CSR platform. It’s a significant step forward in bringing our solutions together, and we are currently designing the next set of integrations in our solutions ecosystem.
How Bonterra’s ecosystem better supports you
Our customers across the social good landscape are seeking solutions to highly complex problems that are not siloed. Housing insecurity is a great example. It’s not as simple as building a giant apartment complex and saying, “All of you now have a place to stay. Problem solved.” Oftentimes, these folks need job training, workforce development programs, mental health support, substance use treatment, childcare, and so on. Considering all those factors, we’re now talking about a community-based approach to solving a community-sized problem. So how can these organizations come together to work with funders and donors to move the needle on a critical metrics? How do they know if their focused efforts are paying off?
Bonterra’s software solutions provide tools for all of those groups to work together within communities, helping coordinate action and share successes.
Ultimately, our goal is to achieve an understanding of what factors lead to successful outcomes so we can build solutions that make those outcomes more achievable for everyone. Unique to Bonterra, we work directly with different types of organizations, people, and government agencies using our software that are driving toward a collective problem together, and we want to be able to share the successful approaches across the social good space.
Integrated payments solutions for Bonterra CSR and Guided Fundraising
Consumers in general have come to expect to have financial and payment information ready at the push of a button, especially on a mobile device. Our payments team’s primary goal is to meet donors where they are, and under that umbrella, speed and ease of giving are priorities. The more steps it takes for someone to complete a purchase, the more hoops they must jump through to get to a submit button. And with each of those steps, people drop off before they ultimately pay for the thing that they’re trying to pay for.
We want a person to give dollars or time as seamlessly as possible and we want those on the receiving end to get those donations as seamlessly as possible. Providers like Google Pay and Apple Pay provide seamless integration tied to existing digital wallets to make giving as easy as possible.
For our corporate customers, we want to limit the number of clicks it takes for their employees to make a donation or volunteer their time to support meaningful causes. That’s why we incorporated easy-to-use digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay into the giving process on our CSR platform to reduce friction, provide more flexibility, and fuel growth.
On the flip side, Bonterra Donor Engagement’s Guided Fundraising (formerly Network for Good) customers on the receiving end of those donations should be able to set it and forget it. That means that after our fundraising and engagement customers set up their payment options and launch them, they should not have to monitor payments unless they need to make updates as an organization. With Google Pay and Apple Pay recently added to our Guided Fundraising solution, our customers will be able to give their supporters the best experience when donating and our customers will get those funds faster than ever.
How we’re investing in our products this year
Bonterra CSR in 2023: increasing employee giving and encouraging ERG engagement
The Apple Pay and Google Pay improvements stem from our commitment to increasing employee giving participation. When paired with workplace giving and volunteering, we know that Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are often a key vehicle for building an inclusive workplace, fostering a sense of belonging, and boosting employee engagement. To allow you to better encourage engagement in ERGs, we’re making improvements to help you build communities and foster belonging through ERG events and activities.
Other ways we’re helping our corporate customers drive deeper engagement in workplace programs is by launching a matching gift integration with Bonterra Donor Engagement and Supporter Engagement and further supporting global giving and international employees.
When managing employee giving, matching, volunteerism programs, or strategic grantmaking, we understand that the one-size-fits-all approach is not always ideal. That said, we have also heard your feedback that flexibility can come with challenges to efficiently managing programs. We have assessed the areas of our platform that could benefit from increased standardization and will be rolling out standard capabilities that can be configured by your program administrators without the involvement of our services teams. An out-of-the-box integration with eSignature providers like DocuSign will allow you to quickly support standard program needs, and an enhanced matching gift configuration coming later in 2023 will better support best practices.
To increase collaboration between grantmakers and grantees, we’ve invested in Bonterra’s FrontDoor solution enhancements that make it easier for both stakeholders to securely share information and determine program eligibility.
Bonterra Donor Engagement and Supporter Engagement in 2023: NextGen CRM and tools to build and engage donors
We understand that nonprofits don’t just raise money to raise money—there are real consequences when an organization is able to meet their fundraising goals and when they aren’t, and that’s why payments is a focus for us. We know payments need to be efficient, secure, and compliant—without forcing you to become an expert in all the technical complexities of payment pathways. We have two areas of focus in the payments arena this year. First, we’re working to build a more robust payments system that’s not only fully embedded in our CRM, but that also makes onboarding, adoption of new payment methods and capabilities, and reporting and reconciliation easier for our customers. And secondly, we’re working to maximize conversion rates on our forms.
On top of efforts to optimize your fundraising through flexible payment options, we are also working to bring our customer relationship management (CRM) platform to the next level. We’re introducing a New Contact Record user interface (UI,) upgrading our Data Platform, improving core objects like Phones and Addresses, and enhancing navigation and wayfinding. It’s all in an effort to improve usability and scalability to modernize the platform because when your CRM platform meets your needs, it makes it easier to do your work and spend more time on the tasks that require creativity, warmth, and a human touch.
To help you work smarter instead of harder, in reaching your donors and supporters, we’re continuing performance and capability updates, such as the ability to send by time zone and A/B testing for email, online forms, and mobile messaging.
We’re working on a seamless integration between Donor Engagement and Supporter Engagement and Mobilize with updates to provide nonprofits with a better view of supporters and to enable nonprofits with better targeting. And we want to make volunteer coordination smoother. Improvements to the event creation and group signup workflows will save volunteer coordinators time and make it easier to create and manage volunteer shifts. As we build on existing check-in capabilities, you’ll be able to track volunteer hours more granularly and make hours visible to supporters.
Meaningful change starts with engaging and growing your community. We’ve stood, messaged, and canvassed in your shoes; and we know the right tools are the ones that make your job easier so you can focus on your mission. You might’ve seen that in 2022, after some intensive user experience (UX) research we made updates to the flagship MiniVAN mobile canvassing app. We also built a MiniVAN and Mobilize integration which allows canvassers to see upcoming events in Mobilize after they complete their shift in MiniVAN, so they can sign up for their next canvassing shift or community event right from the app. Additionally, we recently made enhancements to our OpenVPB phone bank organizing tool to allow users to set a default script and up to four alternate scripts for their phone banks—all of which will help you connect with and activate more support for your mission or goal.
From its roots in the aftermath of the 2016 election all the way to the present, Mobilize has been there to help organizations like nonprofits, unions, and public institutions meet, engage, and activate the broad base of support they need to get involved and create change—and Bonterra is investing in the Mobilize network. Through the Mobilize.Us “front door,” we’re helping our customers reach new supporters, and we’re helping supporters discover ways to act on the issues that matter to them. Improvements to promotions will make it easier for organizations to reach a broader base of supporters on Mobilize and drive them to sign up for more of the events that resonate with them, which helps everyone make an even deeper impact.
Bonterra Giving Days in 2023: building efficiency, democratizing data, and empowering Giving Day leaders
We heard that you want more efficiency. Using that invaluable feedback, we’re dedicated to improving the usability of Bonterra Giving Day’s (formerly GiveGab) Giving Day dashboards to empower our partners to complete critical tasks faster and more effectively. To enable our partners to focus on strategy over set-up, we’re simplifying Giving Day provisioning and onboarding with easier-to-use dashboards and additional host permissions.
Data drives decisions. That’s why we’re committed to exposing more data to our Giving Day leaders and increasing flexibility in our tools to generate the reporting needed to drive those decisions and increase community impact directly from our platform.
We have always believed that the people best equipped to provide platform feedback are our Giving Day customers. That’s why in early 2023, we launched our new Customer Ideas Portal, which gives our customers a direct line of communication to our product team. This portal, which is also being utilized across some of our other platforms, and will be rolled out across all Bonterra products, will allow us to better understand the holistic needs of the social good organizations we serve.
Bonterra Guided Fundraising in 2023: upgrading auctions and helping you fundraise with ease
We remain committed to providing the tools and support small and growing nonprofits need to fulfill your mission more efficiently and effectively and providing best-in-class resources to help you develop and execute successful fundraising campaigns. While we will continue to work on ways to innovate and improve the product and customer experience, the existing tools and easy-to-use interface will remain the same. Keep reading to learn more about the exciting updates coming within our product roadmap.
In addition to allowing your donors to give faster and easier than ever with Google Pay and Apple Pay, we’re excited to introduce new features in 2023 so you can better manage your auction experience. Our Auctions software now has the option to require credit cards at check-in to help reduce your time spent on fulfilling funds. Dashboards will also be accessible to user admins, providing admins with easy access to performance data, and allowing them to quickly and easily complete tasks, generate more bidding activity during the auction, and easily communicate with their bidders. Another way we’re improving our Auctions feature is by offering our customers the opportunity to purchase an auction without having the full Guided Fundraising platform. This will allow anyone who may be interested in Guided Fundraising a chance to experience the product and allow our customers to purchase standalone Auctions for a single event they’re hosting.
We’re committed to continuing to tailor capabilities to make you a better fundraiser. In-product engagement paths based on fundraising best practices will help you fundraise with ease. You’ll be able re-engage lapsed donors and act on other foundational fundraising activities based on tips you get from your dashboard.
While there are exciting changes coming, one thing that will not change is your relationship with us. You will continue to receive the same level of support, training, and service and your data will be stored, managed, and serviced in a secure way. We will continue offering our services and honoring the commitments under your current contract without change, and there is no action you need to take.
As for Bonterra’s Jumpstart program, there will be no fundamental changes, and program elements, such as the needs assessment, coaching engagement, educational curriculum, platform, technical assistance opportunities, and reporting, will remain the same.
Bonterra Program Management in 2023: rolling out new features, strengthening the foundation, and enhancing data reporting
This year, we’re delivering on your most-requested key features. To serve the evolving needs across social good organizations, Bonterra Program Management’s (formerly Social Solutions) Case Management users are now able to receive notifications tied to dates with Time-Based Alerts, develop complex configurations in their forms and assessments with Smart Fields | List, and soon they will be able to serve and track the availability of beds and other items with Inventory | Bed Management.
We are focused on ensuring we provide the best possible case management platform with upgrades to our billing service as we completely rebuild our Penelope Billing service from the ground up.
More broadly, we want to upgrade our user interface and modernize our tools by improving accessibility and delivering several technical upgrades throughout the year.
We’re focused on general reporting enhancements that help your teams gain insight, drive decisions, and show your programs’ impact. Look forward to our upcoming ETO Results Reporting Engine upgrade and use our Blueprints Templates to stay compliant with required data and forms.
We know that our ETO customers, especially those with complex organizations, were spending a lot of time adding attachments to individual touchpoints on our platform. We wanted to give you that time back and modernize our system by adding attachments to our Batch Upload process. With attachments in Batch Upload, your team can spend less time performing repetitive tasks and more time driving your mission forward.
Our ETO customers will also see improvements made to our navigation to better streamline their user experience with our product.
The bottom line from Bonterra’s 2023 product roadmap
We believe that relationships are how things get done. That’s why we put them at the heart of our solutions.
Those relationships span across 20,000 social good organizations, including 16,000 nonprofits and 50% of Fortune 100 companies. And without a doubt, things are getting done. In 2022, Bonterra’s solutions supported the fundraising efforts of more than 300,000 nonprofits, helping them raise over $6.7 billion. Bonterra’s CSR customers distributed $6 billion in grants to organizations throughout last year. All of our software solutions are highly regarded in their market. We’re not losing sight of what made each of our products successful before bringing them together as Bonterra, and we’re continuing to invest in the areas that made them successful. We aim to equip you with each of our products to help you connect all the dots to improve outcomes across entire communities—from donors to volunteers, employees, service providers, program beneficiaries, and their loved ones and neighbors.
Our products need to work together, just like our people and teams work together in this company to better support the needs of our customers. We want the Bonterra software ecosystem to look and feel like it’s one company, and that is already underway. But, more importantly, we don’t want to give up the critical functionality and problem-solving within each of our product lines, because each part of our comprehensive suite of solutions empowers the community effort needed to enact change. We know that no matter how hard any one individual works, communities are the real change-makers. Significant, sustainable impact across entire communities requires a comprehensive, cooperative, and technologically connected approach to social good that is dedicated to achieving unprecedented outcomes.
We are better together through collaboration and innovation, and we’re so excited to continue this journey with you.
