Classy from GoFundMe is a Public Benefit Corporation that aims to create meaningful connections through giving by empowering nonprofits to take advantage of every opportunity to connect with donors and build lasting relationships. By connecting motivated donors to the causes they care about most through technology, Classy aims to transform giving intent into measurable impact. The vendor states that since 2010, GoFundMe and Classy have helped individuals raise over $30 billion.
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Guidebook
Score 9.9 out of 10
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Guidebook is an event management software system offered by Guidebook.
Well suited for organizations with large fundraising programs or many recurring donors, especially those who have the staffing to devote to reporting and fundraising data analysis. Variety of payment options is good for mobile-first or younger audiences who may be taking more frequent advantage of payment methods like Venmo and Apple Pay. Most useful if it is used in tandem as an event registration/event hosting platform (Classy Event Registration or Classy Live) as attendee data and fundraising is kept in a single place. Less appropriate for smaller organizations, or folks that will not be doing crowdfunding/peer-to-peer/events. There are other platforms that do standard donation pages well that have fewer bells and whistles but are accordingly cheaper.
Most of our meetings are too small to bother using it but it is great for our larger workshops. If you have a complex schedule or agenda it is better than a paper agenda and allows you to adjust changes live in the agenda during the meetings. We only use it a few times a year because we only have a few larger meetings.
Campaigns lack customization options which can be limiting- while you can add code to make some changes, there is a basic framework that you can't always override.
Slow to roll out some donor payment options like Venmo.
Not inexpensive price point and on an annual contract, so the software is definitely an investment.
VERY easy to use, but lacks flexibility. But very easy to learn and master, even for someone with technical skills. They offer live chat which is a great help for on-demand support. At higher call volumes, you may wait 10 minutes, but I’ve never waited for more than that and the support if 90% of the time very helpful.
Classy's team was very helpful as we transitioned over, and helped us get everything set up quite easily. The few times we've had issues or questions, their online chat feature has been a quick way to get answers. On Giving Tuesday last year, the site went down, but Classy was quick with communication to its clients and had the problem resolved in about an hour. I know that if we have any problems or questions, the company and its team will be responsive and helpful. That makes a difference to me and our small team. We don't have time to troubleshoot or stay on hold for a long time waiting for support.
I have not used any other platforms like Classy. Given I came into this organization after Classy was already chosen, I was pleased with how easy it was to learn the platform and how user-friendly the entire thing is. Although I haven't used any other platforms like it, I would highly recommend it.
We use both but for completely different reasons. We use Guidebook to manage our attendees and communicate with them during large workshops. We use Airtable as a spreadsheet type database for tracking things.
This has been nothing but positive. We use the basic version so there is no fee associated with it other than a percentage of each transaction. So everything that comes in is added revenue where the only investment is staff time, but there is no monetary investment.
