GoFundMe acquired CrowdRise in 2017 and offers it now offers GoFundMe Charity, based on the former product, a fundraising platform emphasizing the needs of non-profit organizations rather than individuals.
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OneCause
Score 9.2 out of 10
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OneCause, headquartered in Indianapolis, offers their fundraising solutions supporting mobile bidding for auctions or peer-to-peer giving, Text2Give, and support for ticket sales for fundraising events. OneCause pricing plans support various service levels, including feature breadth for large giving organizations or smaller entities.
OneCause seemed to include a lot more of the functions we were hoping to see that were specific to charitable fundraising. Ultimately we choose OneCause for the price and ease of implementing the software. For instance, MemberLeap definitely had a much higher learning curve …
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.
After having used Greater Giving before switching to OneCause, I'd highly recommend OneCause for any event or fundraising management. The ability to see a company's support over multiple events is great for a snapshot or quick numbers for reporting. It's easier to navigate than most systems, and truly is a one-stop shop for your needs. I look forward to using OneCause for all our future events.
Auto-numbering items in auctions need to be editable. Right now, when you add items, they are numbered consecutively, and you can't edit them. I want all of my items to be numbered together by item type. We always have last-minute additions, but there is no ability to renumber.
We are a very small non-profit and are actually looking to use another service just to cut costs, but we may not stay with them and will coming running back to OneCause if we can't make the other option work! The ONLY reason to move would be to reduce the over-head cost of the platform.
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.
Use of the software is generally fine, but the setup and implementation are not always intuitive. Though the knowledgebase is robust and covers a lot of areas (and the support team is pleasant and knowledgeable), the event setup process (particularly when setting up payment and bank information) can be a bit cumbersome and should really be streamlined
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.
OneCause has the BEST customer support I have ever experienced. They are patient, and knowledgeable and always help me when I contact them. Whenever I have inquired how to use a feature or asked about how to do something, they give me the answer but also go above and beyond with additional info that I ended up also using.
Very thorough and made sure I understood the process. Staff were very patient as well listening to my questions and understanding certain procedures. As an older person, I can be scared of technology, but this process was very easy to understand and I feel very confident using it.
I don't know if my insights are key but I can say that implementation was done in-house without any outside support for the solution. The staff influencing the solution had very little technical expertise and ability as well which showed just how easily the software was to implement.
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.
We used Auction Star one time. It was not as user-friendly for our donors. Prior to that, we planned event logistics and auction components without any specialized software. Everything was done in Excel and Word. OneCause allowed us to organize tables, registration and auction packages a lot faster and more effectively.
Definitely saved us a fair amount of time in terms of individual ticket sales and managing guests on the back end. Did not save us that much time for sponsored tables as most of our guests did not purchase their sponsorships through the site.
OneCause doesn't seem to have a function for entering a "Reserve Value" for auction items--i.e., while it allows for a minimum bid, it doesn't allow for having a minimum sale value, which meant that a few of our auction items sold for far lower than their value, which was unfortunate.
Having the support package on the night of was critical for our organization, particularly as ALL of the full-time staff had very limited experience working with OneCause/Bidpal. Knowing that there were experts there to help liaise with the auctioneer and to troubleshoot with any guests experiencing issues was really essential.
