Blackbaud is built to do a bit of everything. Reviewr is built for your program.
Blackbaud is the giant of social-good software — and its size is the story. Scholarships live in one acquired product, grants in another, corporate giving in a third, each licensed separately and shaped for enterprise buyers inside the Blackbaud ecosystem. Their own users describe the cost and complexity that comes with it. If what you need is to collect applications, evaluate them, and select recipients, Reviewr does exactly that — one modern platform, right-sized for the program itself.
Scholarships run in Blackbaud Award Management — the former AcademicWorks, built for higher-education institutions. Grants run in Blackbaud Grantmaking, the former MicroEdge. Corporate giving runs in YourCause GrantsConnect. Three acquired products for three audiences, licensed separately — and none of them shaped for an organization that simply runs an application program.
One platform, purpose-built for scholarships, grants, and awards — whoever you are: foundation, association, nonprofit, corporation, or school.
Blackbaud's users describe the daily friction in their own words: many screens and clicks just to award one student, a reviewer portal committees find difficult to use, systems that are hard for casual users and easy to make mistakes in, and steep learning curves — with a small foundation calling the complexity very time consuming for an already stretched team.
Effortless by design — admins launch fast, volunteer reviewers need no training, and awarding a recipient doesn't take a maze of screens.
Users report paying for features they weren't using, pricing that's high for smaller organizations, and annual increases becoming difficult to overlook — all behind quote-only pricing. Even Blackbaud's own comparison content concedes that smaller programs may find the platform more robust than necessary.
Structured pricing for all shapes and sizes - you pay for the program, not the ecosystem. No gated pricing tiers restricting essential features your program needs.
Longtime users report support slipping after products merged into Blackbaud — phone and chat access replaced by messages, success managers regularly unavailable, and product changes arriving without notice. One user even worried the focus was drifting away from scholarship management itself.
Named humans who answer, a 4.9/5 support score, and a roadmap where your program type isn't a side product — it's the whole company.
Blackbaud's answer to application programs is a portfolio: scholarships in one acquired product built for universities, grants in another built for foundations, corporate giving in a third — each licensed separately, each carrying enterprise weight. Their own users describe what that weight feels like day to day: screens and clicks to award a single student, reviewer portals committees struggle with, reports that need training, prices that climb every year, and paying for features they never use.
To be fair, if you live inside the Blackbaud ecosystem, the connections are real — and its higher-ed scholarship consolidation is genuinely excellent. But most organizations don't need an ecosystem. They need to collect applications, evaluate them well, and select recipients. Reviewr is built for exactly that: one modern platform, fast to launch, effortless for reviewers, with published pricing and the essential tools in every plan.
No sales pressure. No commitment required.
The all-in-one platform for managing scholarships, grants and awards programs.
