Bizly vs. Greater Giving

1. Bizly is well suited if you're short on headcount resources and are looking for a platform that can assist with the lift of sourcing venues and managing logistics of a venue.
2. Bizly is also well suited when there are pre-defined agreements your organization requires a venue to sign/adhere to. I really appreciated being able to upload those agreements and attach them with any sourcing requests.
3. Bizly is an excellent source of unique ideas and a database to get a sense of properties prior to booking.

The teams functions of Bizly could have been better. Setting up people with different payment options or granting other users permission to utilize the tool was very much a growing pain when we were piloting the program. I'm not sure if those have been addressed since. Their database could be much bigger and would love to see this in international space (at least Canada and the UK for sure).

Incentivized

For our organization, Greater Giving is the best option because of the credit card swiping, the ease of the registration, and the tax receipts alone. I do wish that it would allow us to pass on the credit card fees to the purchaser, but for that reason, we don't use it for registration. For an organization NOT needing to swipe credit cards at the event for on-site purchases or using their tax receipt software, I do think that there are more affordable options.

Incentivized

• Sourcing unique location ideas for events
• Managing numerous bookings on one platform

Incentivized

• Website design is really easy and looks very professional.
• Data uploads and downloads are generally pretty easy.
• Process flows are nicely organized and easy for a non-technical person to figure out

• Slow response rate at times (concierge service)
• No international presence at the time of use

Incentivized

• [I feel the] auction system is not as sophisticated as other systems
• Staff support structure
• Doesn't come out with updates very quickly [in my experience]

Incentivized

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

The Bizly team bent over backward to make sure we were taken care of. As we were one of their larger clients at the time, they listened to product feedback and implemented many of the changes we were hoping to see. They were also quick to respond when I reached out directly.

Incentivized

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.

Bizly's concierge service was the differentiator here. The ability to simply send a message to the concierge team with a date, area, headcount, etc. and have them respond with several options was a godsend on numerous occasions

Incentivized

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

• Reduced sourcing time
• Saved research time in looking for locations

Incentivized

• The reporting improved our abilities to provide accurate information more timely to the finance department - a plus when completing the annual 990 or other information for our auditors.
• We saw an increase in collecting on pledges when we switched from a "text-to-give" platform (from another provider) to incorporating all event elements into Greater Giving. We were able to capture over 95% of gifts within 48 hours of the event compared to less than half that amount in previous years.
• The reports generated by Greater Giving are better received by our board of directors - easier to digest and provide meaningful analytics

Incentivized