TLDR
If you're moving from Bloomerang because you've outgrown its grant tracking capabilities or need tighter compliance infrastructure, this guide covers what data migrates cleanly, what needs manual work, and how long the process typically takes.
Organizations that move from Bloomerang to GrantPipe typically fall into one of two groups: those that have grown to a point where Bloomerang’s grant tracking limitations are costing real staff time, and those that have taken on federal grants and discovered that compliance requirements go beyond what any CRM-first platform was built to handle.
This guide covers the migration process honestly - what moves cleanly, what takes work, and what you should set up in GrantPipe before importing anything.
What Bloomerang Stores (And What You’re Moving)
Before planning a migration, map what’s actually in your Bloomerang account. Most organizations have:
Core donor records:
- Contact profiles (name, address, email, phone)
- Organization records linked to contacts
- Custom fields added to contacts over time
- Tags and segments applied to contacts
Giving history:
- Donation records with date, amount, fund, campaign, and appeal
- Payment method records (credit card, check, stock, etc.)
- Recurring gift setups and schedules
- Soft credits for matching gifts and donor-advised fund gifts
Funds and campaigns:
- Fund structure (however you’ve defined it)
- Campaign records and associated donations
- Appeal records
Communications:
- Email correspondence logged in Bloomerang
- Interaction notes entered manually
- Acknowledgment letter history
What Bloomerang doesn’t store that you’ll need to plan for separately:
- Grant pipeline data (Bloomerang has a basic grant tracking module, but it’s limited)
- Detailed compliance documentation
- Subrecipient records
- Restricted fund balance tracking tied to actual spend
Exporting Your Data from Bloomerang
Bloomerang provides data exports through its settings panel. You can export:
- Contacts: Full export to CSV, including all standard and custom fields
- Transactions/Donations: Full donation history to CSV with fund, campaign, and appeal columns
- Funds: Fund list with descriptions
- Campaigns: Campaign list with dates and goals
- Appeals: Appeal records
What to request or export before you start:
Pull full exports of all four record types. For contacts, include all custom fields - you’ll need to map these to GrantPipe fields during import.
For transaction history, export the maximum date range available. Giving history going back 5+ years matters for major gift research and donor retention analysis.
If you’ve been using Bloomerang’s email tool, export your interaction/communication history before migration. This won’t import directly into GrantPipe, but having it available for reference prevents the “we sent this donor a letter about X” questions from being unanswerable.
Deduplication Before You Import Anything
The most important pre-migration step: clean your Bloomerang data before it comes over.
Bloomerang’s duplicate detection has improved over the years, but any database that’s been maintained by multiple staff members over multiple years has duplicates. Common patterns:
- Same individual with two email addresses (work and personal)
- Organization record and contact record for the same person
- Household and individual records for spouses that got entered separately
Import deduplication is significantly harder than pre-import deduplication. Spending 4-6 hours cleaning your Bloomerang data before export will save 10-20 hours of post-import cleanup.
Run Bloomerang’s built-in duplicate finder. Review any contacts where name + zip code match. Check for organizations with the same name in slightly different formats.
The CRM migration data map template has a deduplication checklist and field mapping worksheet that will help you structure this work.
What Migrates Cleanly to GrantPipe
The following data types migrate with minimal friction:
Donor contact records. Standard contact fields (name, email, address, phone) map directly. Custom fields require mapping to GrantPipe’s custom field structure - you’ll create the equivalent fields in GrantPipe first, then the import process maps them.
Donation history. Donation records with date, amount, fund, and campaign transfer cleanly. GrantPipe’s fund structure needs to be set up before donation import - create your funds first, then import donations assigned to those funds.
Funds and campaigns. These are simple list records that import quickly. Create them manually in GrantPipe if you have fewer than 20; use import for larger fund structures.
Organization records. Company/foundation records and their linked contact relationships import well. Review the parent/child relationship structure in your Bloomerang export to ensure the org-contact links are preserved.
What Needs Manual Work
Activity logs and interaction history. Bloomerang tracks emails sent, calls logged, and notes entered. GrantPipe has an activity log, but it’s a live system - historical interaction records from Bloomerang don’t import as system-generated activity entries. You can create manual notes referencing historical interactions, but expect to lose the searchability of years of Bloomerang interaction history.
Custom reports. Any saved reports you’ve built in Bloomerang don’t transfer. Budget time to recreate your standard reports in GrantPipe after the core data is migrated.
Email templates. Communication templates built in Bloomerang need to be recreated. Export them as reference documents before migration.
Recurring gift schedules. Recurring gift records import, but active recurring gifts require re-setup on the payment side. Coordinate with donors who have active recurring commitments so there’s no payment disruption.
Bloomerang Spark integrations. If you’re using Bloomerang’s native integrations (QuickBooks sync, payment processor connections), these need to be reconfigured in GrantPipe.
What to Set Up in GrantPipe Before You Import
The most common migration error is importing data before the structure exists to receive it. Set these up first:
1. Fund structure. Create all your funds (restricted and unrestricted) in GrantPipe before importing any donations. Every donation needs a fund assignment to import correctly.
2. Custom fields. Review your Bloomerang contact export, identify every custom field column, and create equivalent fields in GrantPipe. Document the mapping: “Bloomerang field X = GrantPipe field Y.”
3. Team members and permissions. Add your team to GrantPipe with appropriate roles (Admin, Editor, Viewer) before they need to access imported data.
4. Active grants. If you have active grants being managed outside Bloomerang, enter them in GrantPipe before import so you can associate donors/funders during the migration.
Realistic Timeline
For a mid-sized organization (2,000-5,000 contacts, 5,000-20,000 donation records):
- Week 1: Export Bloomerang data, run deduplication, create field mapping document
- Week 2: Set up GrantPipe structure (funds, custom fields, team members), test import with a small subset of data
- Week 3: Full data import, verification pass (spot-check 50-100 records for accuracy), address discrepancies
- Week 4: Team training, go-live, run both systems in parallel for 2 weeks as confidence builds
Total migration effort: 40-80 hours of staff time depending on data complexity and how much cleanup is needed.
What You’ll Gain After Migration
The core reason most organizations make this move: grant compliance workflows that Bloomerang wasn’t built to handle.
After migration, GrantPipe provides:
- Restricted fund tracking against actual spend - not just what was donated, but what’s been spent against each restricted fund
- Grant compliance documentation in the same system as donor management
- Deadline-triggered compliance reminders
- Funder reporting tools that pull financial and programmatic data together
See the GrantPipe vs. Bloomerang comparison for a detailed breakdown of feature differences. The grant compliance checklist is a useful reference for the compliance capabilities you’ll want to configure after migration.
Before You Start
Migration goes smoother with a clean starting point. Before you export anything from Bloomerang:
- Archive any test records or dummy contacts
- Resolve any open pledge records (pay them off, write them off, or keep them active - just make a decision)
- Review your fund structure and simplify if it’s grown inconsistently over the years
- Document any custom field meanings that only exist in someone’s memory
The data map template is the right tool for this: CRM migration data map template.
Free resource
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A practical checklist for post-award grant compliance: restricted funds, reporting cadence, audit prep, and common failure points. Delivered by email.