Key Nonprofit Highlights
The Lindbergh Schools Foundation—an education nonprofit supporting students and teachers across eleven schools in St. Louis, MO—had juggled a unique mix of scholarships, grants, and community programs. They significantly improved their donor management and engagement by switching from DonorPerfect to Bloomerang. The previous system was too complex and not user friendly, hindering donor engagement and staff efficiency.
With Bloomerang’s unified giving platform, the Foundation gained a comprehensive overview of donor activity, streamlined the management of over seventy scholarship funds through automation and reporting, and leveraged integrated tools like branded donation forms and automated communications. This led to an increased donor retention rate of 43%, a 455% increase in monthly recurring donors, and a more transparent donor experience, ultimately allowing the Foundation to better focus on their mission of empowering students, teachers, and the community.
Challenge
DonorPerfect was clunky for both donors and staff
Lindbergh Schools Foundation had the passion, the programs, and the donors—but not the right tools to keep up. Their old CRM, DonorPerfect, was slowing everything down, making even simple tasks feel like uphill climbs. Giving forms were complicated, reports were manual, and every update seemed to require extra steps and guesswork.
“We were looking for something that was clean and seamless that could bring all of our data together in one space,” Executive Director Erica Keating recalled. “We’re still pretty small, but we do a lot, so we wanted something that focused on the donors’ engagement and retention and not just a bunch of data entry.”
DonorPerfect was not just frustrating for staff, but for supporters too. Andrea Porter, Foundation Development Specialist, added, “It was very clunky with data, events, sponsorships, and volunteers. It was not user friendly for us as the managers of it, and I don’t think it was very user friendly for our donors either.” Their mission to strengthen the entire school community through scholarships and grants was too important to be slowed down by inefficiency.
Solution
Deepening connections with Bloomerang’s fundraising and donor management
Lindbergh Schools Foundation opted to make the switch to Bloomerang, choosing a giving platform built for purpose and designed to simplify every piece of the fundraising and stewardship process. “After twenty years on our old system, we could immediately see a difference,” said Keating. “Bloomerang is modern and up-to-date, like with the new AI features to help write emails or auction descriptions.”
Porter also noticed the difference right away: “With Bloomerang, you can see a complete overview of our data immediately. You can see the donor retention, what revenue is coming in, who you need to make calls to, and the month-to-month revenue for different campaigns—all at a glance.”
For a foundation managing more than seventy scholarship funds, automation and accurate reporting had been game changers. “Last year we gave out 118 scholarships to seniors, ranging from $500 to $40,000, totaling nearly $240,000. Bloomerang makes managing all the money that’s coming through for them much cleaner for us, and our donors can see what their fund balance was at any time,” said Keating. “Before, we manually updated shared Google spreadsheets with every transaction coming in for each scholarship. Now we are able to schedule monthly reports for donors using specific scholarship codes, plus we can easily look up their fund balance upon request to keep our donors informed.”
Lindbergh also found creative ways to use Bloomerang’s integrated fundraising tools. From branded donation forms and emails to automated text reminders during auctions, every feature helped deepen connection. “It’s very simple, and you can do a lot of form customization for your branding which has been really helpful.” said Porter. “With DonorPerfect, we had no options for branding colors or fonts. Now, we can stay branded and make a form look fun like a reunion or an event page look super fancy for a gala.”
Results
Increasing monthly giving by 455%
Since switching to Bloomerang, the Foundation had seen measurable growth in both team efficiency and donor engagement. Giving revenue has increased by 14% since moving to Bloomerang, and as Keating shared, “The forms are easier to use, and they give our donors a way to donate whether they have a credit card, check, Venmo, Paypal, whatever.”
Lindbergh’s donor retention rate increased to 43%—and it’s still growing! Keating credits that improvement to strong donor engagement. “We really prioritize communicating and continuing that stewardship. I feel like we really do a great job of connecting with our supporters and showing them how we’re using their money.” Foundation staff regularly share photos, videos, and thank-you notes from scholarship students with donors, and their committees hand-write notes to recurring donors. “We also give our board two or three donors at each meeting so they can call and thank them to make sure everybody feels appreciated.” With Bloomerang, Lindbergh also experienced their largest alumni banquet ever, growing from 120 to 180 attendees.
Monthly giving to the Foundation skyrocketed by 455% after switching from DonorPerfect to Bloomerang—from just 9 recurring donors to more than fifty. “We launched a monthly Green and Gold Society and I feel like using the Bloomerang form really made it easy to manage it, grow it, get it out there,” shared Keating. “We’re having a happy hour for them coming up, we do a special behind-the-scenes tour of the school, just ways to really connect with them.”
The Foundation also saved time with Bloomerang’s QuickBooks integration for their accountant, improving transparency on their team and speed of processing donations. “It just saves a lot of time—not having to go to one thing and do another,” said Porter. “It’s an all-in-one platform, and that’s really helpful.” They’ve also saved time with tasks like year-end giving statements. “We were printing all those out ourselves,” Porter said. “Now you can literally just hit a button and send them out as emails.”
Shared Keating: “Bloomerang really listens to their customers and are always enhancing the platform as much as they can to stay up with the times.” With the cutting-edge tools from Bloomerang’s Giving Platform powering their fundraising, volunteer, and donor management, the Lindbergh Schools Foundation is now free to focus on what matters most: empowering students, celebrating teachers, and fueling a stronger community.
