Blue State Digital is a digital strategy agency that also provides technology to nonprofits and campaigns. They focus on strategy consulting, but their technology includes fundraising and advocacy tools, as well as a website for some customers. Pricing is often complex and focus is on strategic support.

NationBuilder is a technology company, focused on providing the best possible software to help you lead your organization, not consultant services to write your emails. As the world’s first leadership software, NationBuilder provides everything you need to lead your organization, including a website, a database, all your communications tools, including email, social media, and text, as well as the financial tools you need to accept donations and raise funds. The NationBuilder database is best-in-class, fully integrated with social media, dynamically updating with all actions taken on your site, and includes advanced geocoding and filtering to target and engage users according to actions they’ve taken with you, or even demographic variables. Additionally, NationBuilder includes innovative features we’ve created to help you lead, including NationBuilder paths, built to increase your supporters’ engagement with your organization, and goals to motivate your team and help you to achieve greater impact.

Full integration of all these tools in one platform isn’t just convenient. It’s the difference between retaining your supporters and losing them. And for many of our customers, it’s the difference between winning and losing. NationBuilder improves your insights into the impact you’re having, and helps you to take action on those insights from within the software. NationBuilder is designed to help you identify, attract, and engage more readers, supporters, donors, voters, or customers.

Important Considerations: 

Still interested in Blue State Digital. Here are some important things to consider: 

• Cost: To replicate the essential functionality that NationBuilder can offer, Blue State Digital will need to custom build functionality and, potentially, integrate with one or two (maybe more) other systems. This has real costs, in man hours upfront and for ongoing consultation by Blue State, as well as in subscription fees to multiple vendors if integrations are required. That means your fully loaded costs are a lot higher than list price, and your ongoing costs for support are real. At NationBuilder, all functionality and access to our world-class team is included based on your plan. No hidden costs. 

• Security: Cyber attacks are a real threats and hacks are common, especially for high-profile leaders or efforts with real opponents. With Blue State, you'll need to make outside arrangements for someone to handle your security if you want the kind of protection you can get from NationBuilder. And, if you're maintaining a separate website or database, you could still be vulnerable. As a technology company first, NationBuilder understands and can anticipate these threats.  We're equipped to handle the security of the most high-profile leaders in the world, and all of our customers get the benefit of that. Each customer has their own isolated database so you’re not vulnerable to shoddy firewalls or accidental leaks. We provide world-class DDoS protection to counter the real threat of cyber attacks by hackers trying to bring you down, keeping you organizing when it matters most. 

Scale to Grow With You

NationBuilder has reached a scale that allows us to serve everyone--from the largest institutions to the smallest campaigns. Our extensive ecosystem, includes hundreds of world class designers, developers, and apps to provide custom design and functionality for any organization, including best in class advocacy tools and integrations with crowdfunding platforms, email whippers for state and federal engagement in the US and abroad, and integrations with legacy CRMs like Salesforce and Raiser’s Edge for the largest organizations.

NationBuilder also offers special solutions for our largest Enterprise customers, including advanced features like single sign-on and secure pages via SSL. For those organizations with distributed infrastructures, including associations, nonprofits, alumni organizations, and political parties, with chapters, alliances, locals, and country offices, we’ve launched NationBuilder Network--the first product designed specifically to tackle the challenges facing distributed organizations, and unlock the unprecedented network effects that drive real impact. A real, comprehensive Network solution with controls to maintain branding, best-in-class tools for chapters, and that doesn't required hundreds or separately maintained websites or outside databases.