Likelihood to Recommend Specifically, the customer service is one of the best of any online service we have used. The staff is respectful and speedy, and I have never had any occasion to be disappointed in their help. The silent auction tool we have used for the past two online silent auctions has been excellent. We are about to use the new service. I've been working on setting it up, and so far, so good. We would really like to track our volunteers in Network for Good somehow. Not to do recruitment or volunteer forms, as we don't use public recruitment of volunteers for our use. However, volunteer hours are very important as we do fundraising and grantwriting, as they show our excellent relationship with the community. I'd like to be able to track the volunteer hours... especially if they are also donors. I sure would appreciate a REAL text-to-give, where it's not 10 numbers to text-to-give but just 6 or so. We have tried using this and the feedback we have gotten is "This isn't so easy." To be able to say: "Text MITTENS to 123456" is a lot cleaner than "Text MITTENS to 888-888-8888." Granted this is a small thing, but this is what people ask about.
Read full review GoFundMe is well suited for personal appeals where a story can be told and donors feel an immediate result or effect. It is less appropriate for larger mass appeals that are not targeted directly to a specific cause. For example, not good for companies to ask for funding for operating expenses.
Read full review Pros Top-notch customer service! The Network For Good team is responsive, genuinely courteous, and knowledgeable about the product. Communication options are available for all donor preferences, from good old-fashioned direct mail to email, text, and video. And all are easy to use! Creating forms for surveys and other data capturing is very easy, as is construction of reports on donors and donations for management use. Love the format options and drag-and-drop functionality -- including embedding videos -- for newsletters and email engagements. Read full review Peer-to-peer fundraising Fundraising pages Read full review Cons Individual contact listing being required before the company or business causes some business to be dropped if the individual leaves the business when you have a donor who donated both as a business and as an individual sometimes one or the other does not come up in the listing when you search for an amount for the year FaceBook donations being identified by at least who did the fundraiser, not the donors. I do a birthday fundraiser every year for Caring Carroll and there is no indication that it came from me. The money comes in but we do not know where it came from who held the fundraiser. The fact that the FaceBook donations go into our Network for Good database before we even have the money is confusing. Read full review Need a clearer picture of your campaign status, especially around publishing (making it live). Processing rates are not horrible but not great either - If we used our own processor our fees would be cut in half. Read full review Likelihood to Renew We are still learning and rebuilding our nonprofit using this platform, so this year is a trial run to see how we can increase our network and our donations. So long as we are able to see a significant return on investment in terms of donations received through the platform, we will renew for next year.
Read full review Usability It's very easy to use and customizable.
Read full review GoFundMe is very easy to use and does a great job allowing us to share insights and stories to leave a lasting impression on donors. From setting up the account to ending the appeal, the entire process has been very user-friendly. I'm very impressed with the experience so far and plan to continue using it for future campaigns.
Read full review Support Rating Bonterra customer service is slow and terrible. They take forever to address the actual issue, constantly making incorrect assumptions about the issue. I have spent more than 45 minutes on hold, just to speak with a customer service representative when the chat function was unable to provide assistance with my issue.
Read full review Crowdrise has been great with their customer support. They have always been helpful and available. They also have several resources on their website that has been useful to other areas of our non-profit. Their relatability has been positive for us and has made us feel taken care of and considered.
Read full review Implementation Rating NFG is great and the process was smooth. thank you.
Read full review Alternatives Considered For us, Bonterra Guided Fundraising offered the best overall bang for the buck. There were cheaper options that didn't over the features we needed and more expensive options that we felt didn't offer features as good as the ones we were seeing at Bonterra. For an overall option that did more of what we wanted to do, Bonterra was the best choice for us.
Read full review Since GFM was selected for us I can't give the rationale behind that. However, I do think that
Qgiv and Salsa are more internally user-friendly and provide at least the same amount of functionality. That being said, the other two (I think) require CRMs to use whereas GFM can just integrate with others, making it a better choice for one-off campaigning.
Read full review Return on Investment We signed up with Network for Good in the fall of 2022 & had a last minute end of year giving campaign using videos we made in Network for Good & emailing them. We also used giving pages & listed a variety of giving amounts that a donor could select. We experienced at least a 20% increase in giving. Increase in our communication with donors because there are tools in Network for Good that make it easy. Our organization looks more professional with the giving pages & it accommodates ways to give. Read full review Brought in new donors from outside our solicitation area. Appeals to younger audiences. Great way to include client testimonials and stories. Read full review ScreenShots Bonterra Guided Fundraising Screenshots