Candid GuideStar vs. Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit (discontinued)

GuideStar Pro is well suited in two scenarios: when you want to demonstrate your organization's commitment to transparency (through the seals) and when you know what you're looking for when searching through 990s. Basically, if you can mine a 990 well, GuideStar Pro is perfect for you. If you are new to the grant-seeking industry and need more guidance/clearer information already mined for you, then GuideStar Pro is likely to be overwhelming.

Incentivized

I have recommended Microsoft for Nonprofits to other Nonprofits that we work with. I have helped to implement it for a couple of them. I want to share the good things that Microsoft has to share for nonprofits like ours. I understand the struggles of paying for things and not having enough money at times to do everything I would love to be able to provide.

Incentivized

• Excellent data.
• Easy to use site to find what I need.
• Provides relevant data that is recent and not many years old.

Incentivized

• Providing a basic framework for nonprofit organizations who've been limping along or have capped out with their current platforms to consider switching to amplify and multiply their capabilities, reach, and impact
• Increasing the accessibility for both citizen developers and tech teams to extend a platform, so long as there are clear parameters (business use case) and thoughtful design and architecture planning
• Sharing some core infrastructure that accelerates the use of important tools to further the mission of nonprofit organizations

• None - anything missing from GuideStar Pro can be found in FDO, also from Candid

Incentivized

• The system is ridiculously hard to implement, requiring too many tiers of Microsoft cloud services to be enabled.
• The technical aspects of the product are far too complex for anyone with standard cloud-based app training to implement.
• The non-profit "qualification" system is poorly designed.

Incentivized

It's been very helpful at a very discounted price, especially in data analysis and visualization with Power BI.

Incentivized

I have not had any issues with GuideStar Pro where I needed personal support. They have helpful tutorials and overall the platform is very user friendly.

Incentivized

I have always used Guidestar as my go-to not only when I was a non-profit executive and wanted to ensure we remained worthy of their rating but also now as a non-profit consultant where I need to understand my current and potential partners across financials, key contacts, board members, etc.

Incentivized

Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit has a similar applicability for us to Microsoft SharePoint; however, Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit really fits the size of the organization, whereas Microsoft SharePoint seems to be often tuned for larger organizations than our own. Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit seems to be the right product and size.

Incentivized

• More informed grant proposals.
• Able to easily and efficiently complete grant research.

Incentivized

• Attempting to deploy Microsoft Cloud for Non-profits had a negative impact on our donor relations staff, the technical team tasked to deploy it, and upper management who watched the deployment fail.
• Overall, this product is too dependent on too many Microsoft Cloud services to really deploy with any sort of clear expectation to management of what the "hidden" costs would be.

Incentivized