# Page 2 | Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Page 2 - Is Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager the right Fundraising solution for you? Explore 71 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/101648/Trail-Blazer/reviews --- Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager 4.4 (71) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Page 2 - Reviews of Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 26-50 of 71 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use SP Shelly P. Vice President Philanthropy Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best Customer Service" October 24, 2024 5.0 Pros Excellent customer support - from a timeliness and issue resolution standpoint. They also offer excellent training and online tutorials. Cons I don't really have any complaints. Customizing reports for repetitive use can be challenging but that's mitigated by the excellent customer service Alternatives considered [Salesforce Sales Cloud](https://www.capterra.com/p/61368/Salesforce/) Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager Primarily cost and the ability to migrate our existing data cheaply. Switched from [Microsoft Excel](https://www.capterra.com/p/176574/Excel/) We needed a real donor management system Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services November 4, 2024 Thanks, Shelly! We enjoy working with your and your organization. As always, please lean on our team if you need anything. YC Ykatirina C. Database Manager Performing Arts Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lacking on Donor Mailing Capabilities" December 17, 2020 3.0 I have learned a lot about how to use this database, however, I am often frustrated at how clunky it is. Yes, it's customizable, but it's very difficult to do some of the most straightforward and necessary functions for our organization. Pros I like that you can customize and edit your own attributes and query views for columns. I love how in columns, you can make attributes updatable, and edit them. I like that you can save queries, though I rarely use the function. Cons There's a lot that I dislike about the user experience of this database: -When you run a query, I wish you could create an attribute and assign it to all donors in the query -I wish I could update attributes for donors from other search space (e.g. contributions, events, etc) -I don't like that it's only available on PC, and I have to use remote desktop on my Mac laptop. -Mailings are really difficult - households aren't very use-friendly. For example, when I want to mail all of our donors, I have to search the donors in contributions, export them, import them to tag with an attribute as donors, then I honestly can't remember the next steps, if very complicated, and if I am creating multiple lists (e.g. donors, Lybunts, non-donors) I have to deduplicate the lists because there is so much overlap, when I just want the system to reflect who is on what list--it's very complicated and time consuming. -WIth Contributions, the button to "exclude events marked 'non-tax deductible'"to distinguish between sales and donations, is not available in other queries outside the contribution tab. -Reports are not helpful - unclear if it's including all income, vs. just contributions -I need to use summaries and pivot tables for most basic tasks, which is very challenging -Searching and exporting a List of our donors, separated by giving level is very complicated -Importing - duplicate contacts happen often when names & emails don't merge -Matching funds & Events is weird & clunky Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager I believe it was recommended to us by a fundraising consultant we were working with, \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\], who's partner, \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\], has worked at Trailblazer for years but is now partially retired, as I understand. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services December 21, 2020 Thank you for the review and the detailed feedback. As we continue to develop our product we are always interested in which items a customer struggles with, and making every effort to improve it. A few items worth mentioning: they system has the ability to mass update both a list of individual contacts as well as household records with an attribute item en masse. - Article 1: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=276&cat=0&qq=attribute - Article 2: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=234&cat=0&qq=attribute Regarding the upkeep of household records, running and saving custom queries and reports for mailings and other purposes, we HIGHLY recommend a live interactive training with one of our experts on the same: support@trailblz.com We see that a customer that is struggling with something can usually rectify it with a training, and often a second or third on more complex issues. DV Dustin V. Director Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "We love TrailBlazer" March 23, 2022 5.0 We have been using Trailblazer since 2014. It tracks all of our income, relationships, churches/volunteers… everything. It has literally been the best single expense that we have spent over the past 10 years! Especially considering that we were using Excel sheets beforehand. It saves us SO much time, the cost is inexpensive, and the amount of time it has saved is well worth the cost which is much better than the other alternatives and at a reasonable cost. It easily pays for itself in time saved alone. Easy to use, and great customer service. Pros It tracks all of our income, relationships, churches/volunteers… everything. It has literally been the best single expense that we have spent over the past 10 years! Especially considering that we were using Excel sheets beforehand. It saves us SO much time, the cost is inexpensive, and the amount of time it has saved is well worth the cost which is much lower than the other alternatives we've looked at. It's been worth every penny. It easily pays for itself in time saved alone. Easy to use, and great customer service. If I could wave a wand and make one move to help the state, it would be to provide this to every chapter. It provides accountability with QuickBooks and has many huge capabilities. Unlike other systems that we've looked into, they have excellent customer support included without extra cost. The web app is also wonderful. I can pull up information on the fly. If I meet a volunteer and they are curious on how much their church is giving, I can get an answer within a minute through the app. It also tracks relationships I have, like: which volunteer serves at which club, when they were processed, what training they have, what church they go to, etc all connected. So, I can pull lists of everyone involved from a church, or all the volunteers from a club, etc. I can also see who has made a pledge, find who my top givers are, see how long it's been since people have given, find which events certain people have attended and given at and which ones haven't. Cons Any system you go with has a learning curve. There is a learning curve here too. It requires some logical thinking to use well. You tell it what you want and it pulls the information. You can immediately get to work once you know the basics but as you learn new ways to us it, soon you'll become much more efficient. Email is also a con. It uses html formating. Other services have an easier drop and type interface, templates, and pictures ready to speed up the process. This one requires a little more work. But once you have templates built, it works fine... AND the trailblazer staff will help you build a template if desired. Plus there are great help article and videos to walk you through everything you may want. They have also made some great improvements recently in this area too. Alternatives considered [Bloomerang](https://www.capterra.com/p/131207/Bloomerang/)[Blackbaud eTapestry](https://www.capterra.com/p/29170/eTapestry/)[Microsoft Excel](https://www.capterra.com/p/176574/Excel/) Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager Being a small non-profit, price was a main factor that had us consider them. The experience we had with their representatives was the best of all of the demos that we took from the various companies. We trusted that Trailblazer would be there for us and help us out. They remembered us and we felt as though we were valued rather than just another customer. Switched from [Bloomerang](https://www.capterra.com/p/131207/Bloomerang/) Customer service was terrible - especially for us as new costumers. If it was that bad while we were coming on board, it was a poor testament of how it could be once we were long time patrons. Plus, they wanted to bill us for customer service. Our information being imported was a mess in their system and we were not given any help or guidance on how to fix it. We also ran into issues trying to get reports and information out of their system. Review Source CR Carla R. Executive Director Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Nonprofit User" April 2, 2022 3.0 Assistance with developing campaign templates. Pros Constituent tracking: Donor contact info/gifts/registrations. Revenue/expenses reports. Cons Biggest complaint is the automatic overloading of donor records when a person purchases multiply tickets. Example: A parent purchases 5 tickets for their family to attend a program/event. TrailBlazer automatically creates 5 records for which only one person is recognized with an email and mailing address. This also promotes between three and four times the amount of records in the system (for which the organization is billed annually) when truly only one person's record is viable. Unfortunately this was not realized initially. Many hours have been spent and continue to be spent merging family records to have accurate records in the system. Develop of campaign mailings was initially difficult to manage. Media specialist was engaged that integrated a program to allow for the ease of developing campaigns for email distribution. Originally TB automatically marked a new record as allowable to receive emails (donor choice). A change was implemented in TB around two years ago that eliminated that function. We manage registration records daily by checking them as allowable. The donor then has a choice of "unsubscribing" after receiving their first email. TB is probably best as a vote tracking software where adults are registered per household and multiply non-usable records are not created. Alternatives considered [DonorPerfect](https://www.capterra.com/p/2698/DonorPerfect-Fundraising-Software/) Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager Pricing and apparent ability to tracking constituent information. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services April 6, 2022 Hi Carla, thank you for your review and your feedback. We will be in touch to help work through some of the issues you are running into. There are ways to configure events so that you collect more data on each participant, such as their name / email / mailing address / phone number / etc. We also don't know about the change to email subscriptions that you are referencing, so we will need to look into that with you. It sounds like you have your database configured so that any new email signup has to explicitly opt-in a second time, that is a setting that can be turned on or off. Any donor or event attendee should be able to opt-in to future mass emails with ease. CH Carl H. Executive Director Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Excellant CRM" April 1, 2022 5.0 Trail Blazer was excellant at tracking donors and donations and other income. The biggest plus was their always ready customer support. You get a live staff person who patiently walks you through whatever issue. They also respond to suggested program tweaks. Pros The set up was straitforward, and the learning curve wasn't too steep. it was easy to integrate with our payment processor. Cons The missing piece was bookkeeping integration and their event registration didn't have an integrated calendar. Switched from [QuickBooks Online Advanced](https://www.capterra.com/p/189398/QuickBooks-Online/) QB is not very functional as a CRM, we kept QB as bookkeeping software. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services April 5, 2022 Thanks, Carl! We enjoy working with you and your team. Your feedback has been very valuable, and we will continue to make improvements to our tools. KG Kelly G. Executive Director Fund-Raising Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Customer service wins" March 23, 2022 4.0 Trail Blazer has been great for moving our small non-profit organization into a larger one at a reasonable price. We started using Trail Blazer when we had under 1,000 donor records and now we have over 5,000 donor records. The software has helped us organize donor information with tools to help us create more in-depth donor details that are easily searchable. Although, this software may not have the prettiest interface, the customer service is what makes this company special. They were extremely helpful during the initial set up. I love that whenever I call or email for help, I always get one of the same three helpful employees and they always respond! Pros The customer service is what I like best! Someone is always available to help. Cons The interface is pretty old-school. There are major improvements needed for creating newsletters that allow the user to be more creative. Alternatives considered [Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT](https://www.capterra.com/p/247647/Blackbaud-Raiser-s-Edge-NXT/)[Blackbaud eTapestry](https://www.capterra.com/p/29170/eTapestry/) Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager It was less expensive and the employees were good at answering my initial questions. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services March 28, 2022 Thanks for the feedback, Kelly! We are in the process of developing a newer version of the software. We would be happy to get you logged into it so that you can begin testing. Your feedback is valuable and we are always here to help if you need anything. FW Frank W. Director of Development Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Trail Blazer " April 4, 2022 5.0 Pros The response for queries is fantastic. Cons Using a MAC makes things a little frustrating. Alternatives considered [DonorPerfect](https://www.capterra.com/p/2698/DonorPerfect-Fundraising-Software/)[Salesforce Sales Cloud](https://www.capterra.com/p/61368/Salesforce/) Switched from [Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT](https://www.capterra.com/p/247647/Blackbaud-Raiser-s-Edge-NXT/) Ease of queries and common sense nomenclature. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services April 5, 2022 Thanks, Frank! We always enjoy working with you and your team. If you run into any issues while working on a Mac, please give us a call. There are a handful of useful tips and tricks we can show you to help improve your workflow. ME Michele E. CEO Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Trailblazer for Our Pro Life Nonprofit" November 2, 2018 5.0 Now that I've been using it for a while, I'm able to get things done very quickly and efficiently. I greatly appreciate the ability to sort donors into super specific groupings. Trailblazer has allowed me to segment my donor base with amazing flexibility, with just a few clicks. Pros The best thing about Trailblazer is the customer service. The guys are extremely accessible and helpful. They are willing to walk me through a process, or just do it for me - whichever I request. After trying two other donor management softwares that offered little or no help, Trailblazer's amazing service is a welcomed benefit. Cons The learning curve for Trailblazer is long. Therefore, whenever I wanted to do something new, I'd run into a wall. It seems like the first six months - at least - were pretty frustrating because there was always a glitch and I could never just get something done quickly. The glitch was in the training, not the software. I'd like to see a series of training videos that we could have our staff watch, in order, so that a general level of proficiency could be attained up front. Review Source LC Lynn C. Executive Director Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Review" April 1, 2022 4.0 Pros Data management. Ease in finding contact and contact information. Cons Unable to query contacts with events. Software designed more for campaigns than our nonprofit needs. Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager price Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services April 4, 2022 Hi Lynn, thank you for your review. We would love to help with your event search queries. Many of our nonprofit customers use the event system heavily, so I'm confident that our support team can walk you through the reports you are going after. We'll be in touch! TR Teresa R. Assistant to the Director Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "my review" March 15, 2022 4.0 The help that their staff gives is above all other systems! Pros Helps with keeping my data base every day. Cons Hard to use in some ways. Could be easier to use, if I could teach myself. Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager No customer service and did not do what they said they would do. Review Source BP Barbara P. Bookkeeper Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Good Starter program" November 13, 2018 4.0 We are able to track donations by events and have a great database for marking! Pros the program is very easy to use for donation tracking and works well with Vanco for online donations and events Cons Needs some software improvements. Templates don't save the margins for envelopes and do not allow you to have a left sided letterhead. Extracting information for year end letters can be cumbersome but customer service is very good at helping out to get what you need. Review Source MV Mathew V. Shelter Manager Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Tech Savy or it falls flat" March 23, 2022 3.0 The support is fast and friendly, but the program is not built for a beginner and could use some upgrades. Pros This product organizes and stores data well. It integrates with our website and payment vendor. Cons This product requires technical skills. It is not a drag and drop type program and some of the features like email campaigns can be done much easier through other software. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services March 28, 2022 Mathew, thank you for your review. We would love to get you better trained on the tools! My first suggestion would be to attend the free orientation training (https://www.trailblz.com/LearningResources/Events), and then to call or email our support team to setup further training, or to plug into your computer to walk through any questions that you have. I'm confident that we can get you up to speed on feeling more comfortable with the software. KW Katlyn W. Director of Communications Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "User friendly and great customer service" March 23, 2022 4.0 Great experience overall. Customer service is always so helpful and willing to walk you through any problems. Pros Trailblazer is extremely user friendly and when you know how to work it, it makes the job so much easier. I love how I can write all the thank you letters in one place and takes out room for error. Cons The one thing that I don't like is how when you choose the cycle or year for a donation, it has previous years in it. I can understand going back a couple of years for a choice but not 10. But I guess it can be helpful for those who are trying to put previous records in Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services March 28, 2022 Thank you for your review, Katlyn! I'll relay your feedback to our development team. MH Melissa H. Used the software for: ### "" December 19, 2011 3.5 We use Trail Blazer much different than the intent for the software just because we think it works better the way we have it set up. We have adapted how the software currently functions to our needs. Therefore, we cannot go to Trail Blazer staff to do training on everything. When there are updates, our staff that aren't very tech-savvy sometimes have a tough time. When we do not have a lot of time for database maintenance in the first place due to budget constraints, it can be quite frustrating. Customer support is great, but we kind of have to bend a database to our needs and there is also a learning curve, mostly because nonprofits have to train not only staff who struggle with technology but also volunteers and interns. We appreciate that Trail Blazer is constantly striving to improve, but I would love to see a personalized email or call go out with big updates. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services January 18, 2013 At Trail Blazer, we are committed to the long-term development and refinement of our product. Our goal is to be nothing less than the software product of choice in the non-profit arena. Yes, the ongoing changes can at times be frustrating, but after the adjustments are made, the net result is a tool that allows you to be even more productive. The particular issue that presented a problem for NCPTC was the change in our attribute (aka groups or flags) facility. The original design allowed for any number of attributes within nine (9) folders. For many organizations, as their list of attributes within a specific folder grew longer, this eventually grew cumbersome. We enhanced this system so that now the data is stored and presented hierarchically where a folder can contain any number of folders or attributes, and those folders can contain any number of folders or attributes, ad infinitum. It's a far more flexible, logical, and powerful structure. RF Roxanne F. Executive Director Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Data collection" December 24, 2020 5.0 We have better communication with our partners, volunteers, and customers. Pros Our office does not use the software for donor management. We use it for volunteer and educational workshop attendees data collection. Each employee had their own mail list and you had ask if anyone had the person you were looking for. How inefficient! Trail Blazer is quick and easy for all staff to use. Cons I would like to see an easier faster way to download a list. Maybe download it as an Excel file. Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager Ease of use and the customer service we received. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services December 28, 2020 Roxanne, thank you for the review! Regarding the download of data - from every list in the database you can download it by clicking \[Export\]. This allows the file to be opened in Excel. I will follow up with you directly to walk through that process. Joel MS Mara S. Administrative Specialist Research Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Small office, Big functionality" March 22, 2022 4.0 Pros I use Trail Blazer for tracking and updating donor contact and contribution information, and for logging correspondence. It is user friendly and fairly intuitive. Cons I wish I could copy/paste donor address data to use in MSWord document correspondence. It would also be helpful if I could navigate between donors without backing all the way out to the dashboard. Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services March 28, 2022 Thanks, Mara! We recently put out an integration with MS Word for mail-merge purposes. Here are some resources: - Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhxj0ztvUAc - Article: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=1389&cat=0&qq=word Please don't hesitate to call or email our support team for help with any part of the system. I'm confident we can get you comfortable with areas that may require a bit of training. CG Cindy G. Secretary Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "ISKCON of Alachua" March 23, 2022 5.0 Pros The data entry is easy, and looking things up is easy. Cons If just took some time to get used to it when it was new, but the support team was great Review Source Response from Trail Blazer Campaign Services March 28, 2022 Thanks, Cindy! Please don't hesitate to reach out if questions come up with anything. We are here to help. BB Bekka B. Development Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Love Trailblazer" March 14, 2022 5.0 Fantastic Pros The support team is responsive, always friendly Cons There are a few features that the team has already incorporated after my suggestion. I expect that will continue as we discover desired features. Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager Price, support team Review Source RK Ramona K. bookkeeper Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Trailblazer" December 17, 2020 5.0 There are no business problems - this is a very organized way to keep up with our alumni, grandparents, and staff. I have been using this for over 7 years. Pros This software is very user friendly for our school use. Cons I really do not have any dislikes with Trailblazer Review Source TV Tracey V. Executive Director Education Management Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Wonderful Product" November 2, 2018 5.0 Very positive. Customer Service has been EXCELLENT. You won't find a better team anywhere. I am a raving fan and I have used Blackbaud, DonorPerfect and many other fundraising or donor tracking software. Pros Trailblazer is used for our non-profit. It is easy peasy to export the data you need. You don't need complicated codes or reports, you can access what you need quickly including event information & ticket sales. It does all we need and then some. Cons That it won't allow you to sell tables or golf foursomes and include the names of the guests. This needs to be revised and I submitted this request in October of 2018. You need to be willing to learn some coding to make the features work really well. The mobile piece needs to allow you to open a record and read notes etc. It isn't just for canvassing any more. Review Source LC Lyn C. Board Director Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Good value though limited features" March 21, 2022 4.0 Pros The customer support! Always there and usually quick response, at no add'l cost. Cons Letter generation, must export to use this Reason for choosing Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager Easy to work with staff; reasonable cost; free support and data transfer Review Source BB Bekka B. Development Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Totally satisfied - Outstanding customer service" November 2, 2018 5.0 Simply put this is a perfect data base system. Pros While this database doesn't come with lots of pretty buttons to click, the staff at Trail Blazer walks you through every step of set up and is there for you - ongoing - within 2 rings of the phone and email response within the hour - every time. The system is robust. Cons There is nothing we dislike about this software. Review Source LB Laurel B. Development Director Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Trail Blazer for a small non-profit" March 15, 2022 5.0 Pros Trail Blazer is easy to use and easy to learn with a tutorial and lots of instructional videos, but what I like most is the live customer support. They are a small company, but always available with a quick phone call to answer any questions. Cons This is pretty minor, but I would like the online payment page on our website to be more customizable. I asked and they are working on improvements to the design. Review Source Jennie D. Director of Communications and Development Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Trail Blazer gives me back my time." November 13, 2018 4.0 It has really helped me keep better track of campaigns and LYBUNTs. Mailing is a lot easier now as well. It has automated several things that have helped me spend more time working on what matters. Pros The Trail Blazer team is so helpful and getting started is so easy. It is easy to search for the information I need. Cons There have been a few things that have been hard to do find to edit. Review Source SS Sherri S. Finance Director Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great customer service" March 18, 2022 5.0 Good way to keep track of donors and generate reports on donations. Very helpful on support issues. Pros Easy to keep track of donors-works with Vanco on collecting funds. Great support on all levels. Use for newsletters also. Very easy to add input. Cons Sometimes it's tricky on formatting newsletters. Review Source Talk to a Capterra advisor for free and get results within 15 minutes.