DonorPerfect vs. GiveSmart

I love that I can integrate with Donor Search to learn about a person's past giving history to learn more about their interests. DonorPerfect also lets us upload a photo of our donors so we can easily identify them when they visit us or Attend a function. I wish the photo upload offered a larger image and multiple images, some donors send me pics of their visits and pets and it would be great to also store those right in their DP account.

GiveSmart definitely works for large in-person ticketed events which also involve auctions, paddle raises, and more. The workflow is relatively easy for guests, and especially for volunteers. We especially like how quickly you can add paddle raise donations to specific people's paddle numbers because it allows us to track in real time. The seating functionality has some odd quirks, but overall it works. We opted not to use it for our main donation capture organization-wide because it doesn't look as professional, nor is it as customizable, as some other options on the market.

Incentivized

• Reports are clean and fairly simple to pull, as long as you're trained in how to use the filters. Especially coming from experience using a database where we had to write codes to pull reports, Donor perfect's report system is incredibly simple.
• DonorPerfect is SO user-friendly and simple to find the information you need. I believe anyone can easily learn how to use it.
• It's so simple to customize your DonorPerfect system. Screen Designer is one of my favorite parts. I have no background in databases, but I can create fields, calculations, set alerts for our philanthropy officers when certain gifts come in, and customize how the screens look. You can make so many adjustments in your DonorPerfect system to meet the needs of your organization.
• The staff listen to your needs! The community allows you to make a suggestion for how DonorPerfect can be improved. If your idea gets enough votes, they make it happen. The support team is also probably the best I've ever seen. Each person is so knowledgeable, personable, and helpful.

Incentivized

• GiveSmart is a very easy-to-use platform that provides robust instruction on use but is so user-friendly that the instructions are mostly not necessary. I find it easy to update, change, and create all aspects of our page. For example, I first used GiveSmart without any instruction from a manager. She instructed me to look around and see what was going on. I was able to navigate the site effectively, and only found a few pieces for which I needed more instruction.
• GiveSmart offers a well-made item section. Our gala has a silent auction made up of more than 170 items, and GiveSmart makes it easy to upload those items in bulk or add them individually. It offers every field I would want to have for an item and provides a comprehensive and adjustable front-facing-view for donors that is easy to manipulate.
• GiveSmart's main page creator is easy to navigate and create the site you want. They provide helpful details like sizing for images and the ability to create buttons and links and different sections as our needs dictate. It's easy to adjust the colors and design to reflect our branding.

Incentivized

• DonorPerfect lacks good reporting functionality. Our staff often have to export data to CSV or use other reporting tools so we end up with a lot of data outside
• DonorPerfect doesn't really do a good job of tracking the full donor relationship. It needs to have better CRM functionality. Our donor relations staff often resort to third party tools to track these things.
• DonorPerfect has an API for integrations but it is very poorly implemented and slow.
• We have a lot of security concerns about DonorPerfect. These stem from our experiences using their API and observing how it is implemented, but also through our conversations directly with the company. They refused to provide security compliance details during a routine vendor risk audit from a reputable security audit vendor that we engaged to evaluate all of our vendors.

Incentivized

• The distribution reports do not separate what campaign the transactions were for.
• Revenue reports do not clearly state the CC fees for each transaction, which requires manual calculations.
• We could not change the item a transaction was billed to if it was wrong. For example, if a donor made a restricted donation but was labeled unrestricted, we were told there was no way to correct it, so we had to keep track of those changes on the side.

Incentivized

It is by far the most cost-effective

Incentivized

For the most part, we are very satisfied with GiveSmart. There are some additional functions we'd like to see it have and GiveSmart has been responsive in the past to add new features that nonprofits are looking for. Their support teams and account representatives are very friendly and helpful. The ease of their system allows a competent person to enter the data and create campaigns without having to have much technical knowledge.

Incentivized

The software is very easy to use and to figure out. Someone using it for the first time would be able to navigate through it easily.

Incentivized

For the most part, GiveSmart serves our organization's needs for creating fundraising forms. It is especially useful for our peer-to-peer fundraising and event planning and registration efforts. The dashboard is relatively intuitive, and there have been improvements in creating forms and managing campaigns since shifting from Mobile Cause to GiveSmart Fundraise.

Incentivized

It's always up when we need it. There are some errors that happen and are not reproducible and cannot be resolved. But [they are] very few and none that cause disruption for the organization.

Incentivized

We never experienced any issues with outages, the system being down, etc. It's extremely reliable. That's very important when you're dealing with financial and personal information! We want to make it easy for people to give, and it's great that we've never had to worry about service issues making that more challenging/

Incentivized

DonorPerfect is as reliable as your internet connection. It is a cloud based application and therefore you cannot pinpoint where the bottleneck is should you have one. But for the most part the app runs quickly.

Incentivized

We haven't had any issue regarding performance or reliability with GiveSmart. We don't integrate it with any other software so that issue isn't relevant. The pages load quickly and reports are completed almost as soon as you hit the "run" button. Overall, the system works as designed and is pretty quick when people use it.

Incentivized

Support is so easy. We use chat most often - as we can get someone quickly. The support folks know the product and get answers quickly. If they need to escalate an issue, they do so quickly. The training is great and easily accessible. You can take classes over and over until you completely understand concepts

When I did have to reach out for support it was not always easy to get ahold of anyone to help. There were also times when I did get help where I struggled to understand and be understood. Not a language barrier, but more of a not understanding what my problem was. I am not sure if it was a problem on my end or on theirs, maybe both, lol

Incentivized

I was able to utilize the support team to train me in areas where I could not figure out how to use the application.

Incentivized

didn't get all of our questions answered in the first go 'round

Incentivized

GiveSmart provides great training videos on their system. Not everything is covered with their videos but their support staff are very friendly and knowledgeable. I would have given them a ten but not everything is covered in their videos and sometimes you have to find the right word to search for in able to find the right training video.

Incentivized

DonorPerfect provides an extremely easy to use importing tool and the support team was awesome. You don't have to do it in house; for a reasonable fee you can get it done by them.

Incentivized

We just made the change using the band-aid approach. In other words, we just went for it and taught the users how to do it at our first event and went from there. 90-95% of people haven't used a mobile bidding software so most everyone was on the same stage of knowledge so implementing it was easy as people didn't have to re-learn anything.

Incentivized

Although DonorSnap was less expensive, it did not provide the same ease of use. I purchased DonorSnap because of the price and very quickly realized I made a mistake. We used it less than 6 months before I converted to DonorPerfect. Not all donor management systems are the same... you get what you pay for!

Incentivized

We used DonorPerfect and Handbid in the past and they lacked all the features we needed and their customer support was insufficient. The user experience on these platforms was always a challenge. GiveSmart is more streamlined and we have had better customer support when we run into issues.

Incentivized

[There have been] only two outages since we have started using it and they were extremely information proactive. This should scale easily based on your internet connection.

Incentivized

For what GiveSmart is designed to do, the software works excellently. We haven't found something GiveSmart cannot do when it is used as designed. However, when GiveSmart is tried to be used as a total CRM, it doesn't do that but that is okay as it wasn't designed to be a total CRM but rather a mobile bidding software.

Incentivized

• I can't imagine doing my job on a daily basis without DonorPerfect, so the ROI is tremendous for me and my organization. Not only does it store our records and data succinctly, it is a one-stop shop for staying organized and on-task with the personal Dashboard feature, recording data (no matter how obscure), and generating reports.
• DonorPerfect is a huge time-saver for me, as it allows me to schedule tasks for myself and set specific reminders related to donors that populate on my daily Dashboard. I don't have to leave DonorPerfect, open up a calendar program, and duplicate my entry of data or tasks or reminders. I can do it all within each donor's record without leaving DonorPerfect or having to navigate elsewhere on my PC.

• Our donors always want an easy method to donate before, during, and after our event—GiveSmart definitely gives them that flexibility.
• Retaining the information that GiveSmart allows us is important, especially when we compile statistics and reports based on what was processed through our GiveSmart event site.

Incentivized