FrontStream Payments

FrontStream Holdings, LLC owns the donor database software ***, which our non-profit organization uses for *** (donor management) purposes. Our company owns the data we submit to the database. This data is extremely sensitive and has cost our organization millions of dollars to obtain over the past thirty years- it is ESSENTIAL to our fundraising which keeps us in business. For 17 days I have been battling to retrieve a settings password from their company which allows us to export our donor information, to no avail. They are holding our data hostage and disrupting our ability to raise funds. We need the database and settings password recovered immediately. Because of this, I want to cancel our service with them as well. This isn't the first time we have had issues with them and I know it won't be the last if we continue. Our company simply cannot afford to take that risk. I have numerous emails to back up this complaint.

We were faithful clients using GiftWorks as our donor database before being contacted in June of 2019 that they were moving to a new product; a Cloud version of this software. We were very content with what we already had but were given an ultimatum. We could go along with the new program which would include customer service and support or stay with the old program but have no support at all. As a small non-profit, we felt we were given no choice so we paid $4,320 to renew our contract with the new program. GiftWorks Cloud was not ready to be launched. In addition to programmatic breaches (we were able to retrieve other clients' confidential information and no one could explain how that happened), we were not given the support we were promised or contracted for. Every user (there are 4 of us) had issues and could not satisfactorily complete our work. Daily frustrations, lack of return calls, lag time in responses, customer service representatives who had no idea how to fix any of the problems we were encountering. This went on for months. The company claimed "glitches" were common in new programs but clearly they had not done the advance work before launching this new program as the glitches were plentiful and covered basic issues that any nonprofit would need when accessing their donor software (ie, sending acknowledgement letters on company letterhead.) There was also enormous turn-over in staff on their end. When requesting a refund we were offered only a partial one and only after promising not to make any public comments. We have no interest in disparaging anyone but are committed to expressing our concerns and hopefully sparing other nonprofits the same experience, which they can ill afford. We were never able to get a working platform for Gift Works from FrontStream and ultimately had to purchase a different software incurring duplicate expense, downtime during our most critical season, and new training for staff.