Return on Investment

More meals.
More impact.
More donors who stay.

Every dollar you put into Bloomerang is a dollar working to help you reach 125,000 meals a year. Here is what that actually looks like.

47%+ More raised on average
22% More recurring donations
154%+ First-time donor retention
94% Customer renewal rate

The Case for Change

Three reasons this decision matters right now.

01

Why change

Spreadsheets, Dropbox, PayPal, and Auctria are four separate systems that share zero data. Every donor interaction, every volunteer shift, every event registration disappears into a different silo. You cannot build recurring relationships on disconnected tools.

02

Why now

Your fall benefit and giving season are approaching. The board has committed to a decision by Labor Day. Every month without a platform is a month of uncaptured donor relationships, missed recurring gift prompts, and volunteer data that lives only in someone's memory.

03

Why Bloomerang

Bloomerang is the only platform built exclusively for nonprofits that unifies donor CRM, fundraising, and volunteer management in one place, with Penny AI built in to tell you who to talk to and when, without requiring a full-time administrator to make it work.

Where Things Stand Today

The real cost of your current tools.

Donor Management

Multiple spreadsheets with no single source of truth. Up to 1,000 documents in Dropbox, no one knows which file is current. Donor relationships depend entirely on tribal knowledge.

Online Donations

PayPal button with extra steps and fees on every transaction. No recurring gift prompts, no donor records created automatically, no connection to any other system.

Event Fundraising

Auctria runs your fall benefit in isolation. Every attendee and bidder is a warm donor lead who never makes it into a database. Two events per year, zero follow-up infrastructure.

Volunteer Management

Pen and paper sign-in sheets. No application workflow, no interest tracking, no background check process, no automated communication. Hours tracked manually.

Communications

No newsletter exists yet. Outreach only happens when money is needed. Donors have no reason to feel connected between asks, and no system exists to change that without a large manual lift.

Board Bandwidth

Dave estimates 5 to 7 hours per week on data management tasks. The board is doing work that should be automated or delegated, leaving no time for the community relationship strategy that actually drives growth.

Your Numbers

What Bloomerang can return for Shalom Ministries.

Adjust to match your goals

Current Annual Revenue $350,000
Fundraising Lift (11.14%) $38,990
Online Donation Lift (8โ€“14%) $28,000
Recurring Gift Lift (22%) $15,400
Staff Hours Saved / Week 6 hrs
Top 20% of Bloomerang customers raise 103% more annually. We show 50% as the conservative figure for organizations just getting started with a unified platform.

Projected Annual Return

Fundraising lift $38,990
Online donation lift $28,000
Recurring gift lift $15,400
Staff time recovered (@ $22/hr) $6,864
Year 1 investment $2,778

Conservative net return

$128,476

Conservative figure. Top 20% of customers see 103% lift.

The Numbers for Your Board

Frame it in meals, not software costs.

Break-even point
7 donors

Seven new recurring donors covers the entire platform.

At $25/month per donor, just seven people committing to a small recurring gift pays for Bloomerang in full. You currently have no system in place to ask for or retain those commitments.

Cost per meal served
3.3ยข

The platform costs 3.3 cents per meal at current volume.

At 84,000 meals per year, the $2,778 first-year investment breaks down to 3.3 cents per meal. At 125,000 meals that drops to 2.2 cents per meal. The more Bloomerang helps you grow, the cheaper the overhead gets.

The real risk
$0

The cost of staying on spreadsheets is not zero.

There is no way to reach 125,000 meals on the current tools. Every month without a platform is lost recurring donors, untracked volunteers, and event attendees who never get a follow-up. Status quo is not free.

18-Month Recurring Donor Goal

125
$25 / mo
$3,125/mo
60
$50 / mo
$3,000/mo
30
$100 / mo
$3,000/mo
15
$200 / mo
$3,000/mo

Combined recurring goal: $12,125/month from 230 donors across four giving tiers. Bloomerang's donation forms, journey automations, and recurring prompts are built specifically to help you get there.

The Other Side of the Equation

What staying on spreadsheets actually costs you.

Meals not served

At $4 per meal, every $1,000 in missed donations is 250 meals that don't happen. Without a system to retain donors and grow recurring giving, the gap between 84,000 meals and 125,000 meals does not close.

Donors who don't come back

The industry average for first-time donor retention is under 20%. Bloomerang customers see 154%+ improvement in first-time donor retention. Every event attendee who doesn't get a follow-up is a relationship that ends at the door.

Time that can't be recovered

At 6 hours per week on manual data tasks, Dave alone is spending 312 hours per year on work that should be automated. That is the equivalent of 8 full work weeks not spent building the community relationships that drive your fundraising strategy.

Why Low-Cost Apps Fall Short

Not all platforms are built to help you raise more.

DIY / Low-Cost Apps Bloomerang
Donor CRM + volunteer management unified Separate tools, no connection One record per person
Automated donor retention and journey tools Manual follow-up only Journey automations run in background
Recurring gift prompts on donation forms Static forms, no prompts 22% average increase in recurring gifts
Event registration connected to donor records Siloed, no CRM link Auto-logs to constituent profile
AI that tells you who to contact and when Not available Penny built in at no extra cost
Wealth screening to find hidden major donors Not available DonorSearch integration included
Multi-generational communication (email, letters, text) Email only or manual All channels, per-donor preferences
Volunteer application, background check, hour tracking Not available Full volunteer journey, kiosk check-in
Onboarding and data migration support Self-serve, no guidance Smart Start: live in 5 weeks or less
Built exclusively for nonprofits General-purpose tools repurposed Nonprofits are our only customers

Built for Everything You Need

One platform. Every capability Shalom needs.

CRM

Single donor record

Every gift, communication, volunteer shift, and event in one place. No more spreadsheet hunting.

CRM

Church and partner tracking

Organizational records with contact history, relationships, and engagement timeline for every church partner.

Fundraising

Donation forms that convert

Customizable forms with meal-tied giving amounts, Apple Pay, Venmo, and recurring gift prompts. 58% increase in conversion on average.

Fundraising

Email marketing and letters

Templates, segmentation, donor newsletters, and physical letters with merge fields for every communication preference across generations.

Fundraising

Events and auctions

Event registration and auction tools that feed directly into the CRM. Every fall benefit attendee becomes a followable donor lead.

Volunteer

Application and onboarding

Online volunteer applications with custom fields, photo release waivers, background check integration, and document uploads.

Volunteer

Hour tracking and kiosk check-in

Replace pen and paper sign-in with iPad kiosk check-in. Automatic hour logging, year-end statements, and grant-ready volunteer impact reporting.

CRM

Journey automations

Automated welcome series, recurring gift prompts, birthday acknowledgments, and milestone recognition that run without anyone doing anything.

CRM

Wealth screening

DonorSearch scours public data to surface volunteers and one-time donors who have the capacity to become major gift supporters.

Organizations Like Yours

What nonprofits like Shalom Ministries have achieved.

58%
Donor retention rate

"Our Place NH went from scattered donor records to a retention rate that now funds consistent programming year-round."

Our Place NH
Read the story
154%+
First-time donor retention

"The Bridge used Bloomerang's human services and volunteer tools to build a donor base that keeps coming back, not just showing up once."

The Bridge
Read the story

Getting Started

Live in five weeks or less.

1

Kickoff

Dedicated conversion project manager. Review your existing data and map it to Bloomerang's template structure. You define what comes over.

2

Populate

Populate the provided Excel templates with your donor records, transaction history, and interaction notes. Bloomerang handles the technical load.

3

Review

Submit files, review the data load, and complete one feedback cycle. Any adjustments are made before go-live, not after.

4

Go live

Go-live support from your PM on launch day. Your team is using the platform before your fall benefit planning needs to be in full swing.

What comes over: all constituent records, transaction history, interaction logs, and up to 20 custom fields. Your data does not stay in Dropbox.

The Investment

Everything you need. Nothing you don't.

Service
Description
Annual
Bloomerang
CRM — Up to 1,000 Records
Unlimited users
Nightly address updates and deceased status updates (via TrueGivers)
Built-in email marketing tool
Mobile app
Unlimited chat and email support
Unlimited access to live and on-demand webinars via Bloomerang Learning
Daily group training sessions
Fundraising — Giving+
Donation forms
Event registration pages
Text-to-Donate
โ€”
Total Recurring Fees
$1,978.00
One-Time Fees & Promotions
Data Conversion
Smart Start Standard Data Conversion
$800.00
Total One-Time Fees
$800.00
Total First Year Investment
$2,778.00

Every week without a platform is meals that don't get funded.

Getting live before your fall benefit means every auction attendee becomes a followable donor. Every church partner receives a consistent communication. Every volunteer hour gets counted toward your next grant. The infrastructure you build this summer is what gets you to 125,000 meals.

125K
Meals per year at $500K