Greater Giving vs. NGP VAN

Greater Giving is well suited for an organization that is looking to save money on their event software and need a full service solution. It is not as sophisticated as others on the market, but it will allow you to get everything you need done for a reasonable price. This is meant to be used by nonprofit event professionals.

Incentivized

Well suited when we have to run lists of those already canvassed or need to be canvassed. Not Well suited when the phone bank and MiniVAN does not work together. As it could cause someone to canvass someone who has just been phone banked or vice versa. Also, need to better provide emailing options.

• Greater Giving is very user-friendly for both staff and volunteers
• Greater Giving sales and receipt generating features are well received by the guest at our event
• Greater Giving provides excellent customer support - in particular, their "night of" event support

Incentivized

• gives current addresses
• gives phone numbers
• comments regarding issues
• voters by districts
• lists other party voters

• Love to see more places to log expenses, so you can run a total report of net income.
• It's often a bit wide for my screen, which I can work around.

Incentivized

• Geo tag outside of USA on MiniVAN
• Convert counts into Pie or Bar charts
• Synch MiniVAN canvassed with phone bank canvassed

As long as I’m an active Democratic volunteer I will use it, unless the Dems quit using it. I enjoy using NGP VAN and discovering more capabilities as I spend more time with it.

Greater Giving is very intuitive. It’s easy to set up in the backend and change as needed. Anytime we couldn’t figure something out on our own, our customer service representative was always available and super helpful!

Incentivized

I think you have to have understanding of computer basics to master NGP VAN. I doubt a non-computer person, or someone who is hesitant about technology could do much with NGP VAN. It helps if you’re sort of a computer nerd (as I am, despite my old age) because then you don’t worry about experimenting.

Online support was one of the worst customer service experiences I've ever had (I would give them a 1). Phone support and implementation support were very nice and knowledgeable.

I can hardly remember since it was years ago. Various individuals have also coached me since then. If I can actually play around with it myself that’s the best way to increase my proficiency.

We currently use Eventbrite for our pre-event ticket and sponsorship sales as they have a much more streamlined webpage that is customizable, they allow us to pass on the fees to our purchasers, AND they do not charge an annual fee on top of the processing fees. However, they do not have the ability to let you swipe a credit card in advance - you need a membership to Bidding for Good to do so. We tried using Eventbrite and Bidding for Good for only 1 event before we switched back to Greater Giving. Neither platform allowed you to send out tax receipts and the on-site event management was subpar compared to the ease of Greater Giving.

Incentivized

I have no other experience.

• Having one system that can manage online donations, ticket purchases, online auction, donor tax letters, etc. has created efficiency for my org.
• Reports are flawed and lack of data integration with other systems causes me to do a lot of unnecessary manual work.

• Cost effective for a campaign to have