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GiveSmart

GiveSmart

Overview

What is GiveSmart?

GiveSmart, a Community Brands company, offers a full-service event management platform supporting event website, event registration, attendee tracking, donor management and data insights, and full customer service for entities wishing to raise funds via an auction or charity event. The…

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Recent Reviews
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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What is GiveSmart?

GiveSmart, a Community Brands company, offers a full-service event management platform supporting event website, event registration, attendee tracking, donor management and data insights, and full customer service for entities wishing to raise funds via an auction or charity event. The platform…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.givesmart.com/plans/

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

A Tour of GiveSmart

givesmart.wistia.com
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Product Details

What is GiveSmart?

GiveSmart is an online fundraising and donor management platform designed to elevate fundraisers. From mobile-friendly silent auctions to dynamic peer-to-peer events and guest management to donor engagement, the solution helps to turn mission into something that moves donors.

The vendor states that their software has helped thousands of nonprofits raise $6.2+ billion. The full GiveSmart suite of solutions and expert support helps exceed fundraising, event, and donor management goals, and helps users focus resources and make an impact all year round.

GiveSmart Screenshots

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GiveSmart Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesCanada, United States

Frequently Asked Questions

GiveSmart, a Community Brands company, offers a full-service event management platform supporting event website, event registration, attendee tracking, donor management and data insights, and full customer service for entities wishing to raise funds via an auction or charity event. The platform also integrates technology from Community Brands brand Gesture to provide a comprehensive suite of services. GiveSmart replaces the former 501 Auctions, a platform to support charity auctions, mobile bidding, and general event management with automation for nonprofit fundraising.

OneCause, Greater Giving, and Eventbrite are common alternatives for GiveSmart.

Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 8.5.

The most common users of GiveSmart are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(196)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-2 of 2)
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use GiveSmart for our fall annual fund campaign and our spring fundraising gala.
  • Easy to use; intuitive
  • Robust; had everything we needed
  • Great support team
  • Things are not as clear/intuitive since the merger with MobileCause
  • I'm not always sure which side of the platform to use since the merger
Great for all kinds of fundraising in a private school setting--annual campaign, peer-to-peer, crowdfunding, auctions, etc. Can't think of a scenario that wouldn't benefit from it.
  • Increased our overall revenue
  • Increased annual fund giving
  • Most money ever raised for a fundraising gala
More robust, more visually appealing, more user-friendly; it has more options for visual design, live and silent auctions, etc.
I am sure this would be higher once they have the merger kinks worked out. Last year when we used MobileCause for our annual fund campaign and GiveSmart for our auction, they both worked well individually.
Excellent support! Very responsive, quick turnaround time, very thorough.
Excellent customization; feels very "on-brand" with our school; we can easily use our logos, colors, etc.; because of the customization options within the visual design, we are easily able to upload our logos, designs, etc.
6
Head of School, Director of Finance and Operations, Business Office and Finance Associate, Director of Community Engagement, volunteers on the day of the gala. I am the Director of Community Engagement, and I use it the most. I design our banners and images, create and manage the campaigns, execute campaigns, plan and execute our fundraising gala, manage our donor database, etc. The Head of School primarily uses it to check on how the campaign and fundraising is going. The Director of Finance and Operations use it from the money-handling perspective.
1
I am really the main person that uses GiveSmart for all its features. I think GiveSmart would work well for people in development/advancement, alumni relations, family outreach, finance, etc. As far as skills that are required, it's extremely helpful if the user is fairly technologically-savvy. It's also helpful to know a design program--I use Canva, which is extremely easy to use. But Adobe Illustrator, In Design, etc. would also work. Database management is a good skill as well, even if on a basic level (like me!). Some knowledge of fundraising is helpful.
  • Building and maintaining our donor database
  • Running our annual fund campaign
  • Planning and executing our fundraising gala
  • With our previous fundraising software, it didn't have the ability to handle galas. It was great to be able to use GiveSmart to build the silent and live auctions, sell tickets, assign bidder numbers, sell items, etc.
  • Managing recurring donations is easy! It's nice to get the monthly reminder that someone has donated so we make sure to say thank you a few times a year.
  • We are considering adding a Fun Run as a fundraising opportunity, and it's great to have the peer-to-peer option for that.
  • Adding a fun run in the future
  • Fostering alumni relations
  • Planning a Grandparents Day
Overall, I love GiveSmart. It has all the elements we need to run a robust annual campaign and a super-organized gala. My only issue at the current moment is that they seem to still be working out kinks from the merger with MobileCause. When I used it last year, it was just pre-merger so we used MobileCause for the annual campaign and GiveSmart for the auction. Now I'm finding it difficult sometimes to figure out which platform to use for what purpose, and to figure out how the two combine. There are some things that are clunky and unclear. But once the kinks are worked out, I'm sure my answer will go to 10.
Yes
OneCause. It didn't have as robust a platform. We didn't have the same options for branding, use of logos and colors, etc. We also love the text-to-donate feature and the ability to run the auction from a mobile device, which OneCause doesn't have. We appreciate being able to match our school's exact Pantone colors, to customize the ordering forms, etc.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Product usability and features were the most important in our search, with money being close behind. We wanted a product that could help with our annual campaign, our fundraising gala, and our donor database. The ability to customize all our forms and web pages is terrific--it blends seamlessly with our website. I like that we can choose our suggested donation, suggest that they cover the handling fee, and other features that help us keep as much money as possible. The fact that the gala has such a strong mobile experience is great. I love that people can text and be brought directly to the auction site, bid on silent auction items on their phone, etc.
There is little that I would change about our decision to go with GiveSmart. With the other programs we considered, GiveSmart was the clear winner. I suppose the only thing that would have been helpful would be to have known more about how the merger would happen.
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
I was not in my current position when we used to use OneCause, so I didn't have to "unlearn" that and then learn GiveSmart. I was and continue to be the only person that really uses it for all its features, so change management was minimal. If I had to do it over again, I would have watched more tutorials before starting to play in the system.
  • My own excitement! I wanted to get going right away because I was excited about the product. In retrospect, it would have gone more smoothly if I'd watched the tutorials and such before starting. But that was really the only issue with implementation.
Watch the tutorials before starting!
  • No Training
Yes! GiveSmart is very intuitive for someone who is pretty tech-savvy. I don't know what it would have been like if I didn't have much computer experience. If you're not tech-savvy, I would definitely recommend getting the training.
GiveSmart is very easy to customize and configure the way we need it to work. I assume that's what you mean by configurability?
No because I'm not entirely sure what is meant by "configuring".
Yes - we have customized the interface extensively
It was very easy to customize and make GiveSmart work with our organization. I created logos and banners in Canva and it was easy to make the visual design details support the theme of our annual campaign, the theme of our fundraising gala event, etc. I knew our Pantone colors and was able to utilize them in the online platform.
No - we have not done any custom code
The customization was one of the biggest factors for us in choosing GiveSmart.
We did not purchase the premium support. Ours is a small, independent, private school that is non-profit. Our budgets are always tight, especially in the last few years because of COVID. I knew we could always add the premium support if we needed it, so we just went with the basic support with our initial purchase.
No
During the last few weeks as our spring fundraising gala approached, I had a lot of questions pop up that I hadn't anticipated. I had to reach out several times to the support team at GiveSmart, and the issues were time-sensitive. I was so pleased with the speed they responded, the thoroughness of their response, and the care they exhibited with my concerns.
  • Designing the online giving forms is very easy
  • Building the silent auction was very easy
  • Printing reports after fundraising was helpful and easy
  • Only because of the merger, I have found it challenging this year to figure out how the keywords work together for the annual campaign and the fundraising gala event
  • We had billing issues through all of last year. We had paid in full, but kept getting billed, they threatened to cut off our access and accounts, etc. Our bookkeeper, Director of Finance and Operations, and eventually our Head of School had to get involved and it tooks months to solve.
Yes
Extremely well! I used it to donate myself, to bid on auction items, etc. I also used the desktop version, and they are virtually identical. Very easy to use. We did have some older patrons at our gala that didn't like having to use technology, but we got them on board with it.
We are a small, independent, private, nonprofit school. GiveSmart is very flexible and works extremely well for us. But I could also see it being equally efficient for larger school systems, large or small nonprofit organizations, etc. I never feel like the product is too "big" for us to use.
We never experienced any issues with outages, the system being down, etc. It's extremely reliable. That's very important when you're dealing with financial and personal information! We want to make it easy for people to give, and it's great that we've never had to worry about service issues making that more challenging/
Pages load quickly, the interface is very streamlined, reports are essentially instantaneous. No issues at all with performance and reliability.
  • None
  • Not at this time
I'm sure they would!
None
None
The sales people, demos, and technicians were great during the sales process. I felt like I had a very clear idea of what the product was and a basic idea of how to use it. All the information they presented was clear, transparent, and straight-forward. I could tell they wanted my business but weren't stretching the truth to get it.
I didn't have to work with the vendor after the sale but I feel confident they would have been accessible and thorough.
I'm not sure. We went with what was suggested to us; I wasn't aware that haggling or negotiating was an option!
No--I think they do a great job!
No
  • We haven't upgraded
  • We haven't upgraded
No
No
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We needed an online/mobile bidding software to handle our silent auction and other fundraising events. We created a special program that need remote users to access a silent auction instead of the traditional paper and pen. We also wanted to be able to open the auction to have as many possible eyes on our items we were auctioning off.
  • Mobile bidding.
  • Online donations.
  • Online ticketing.
  • You can't use items that have cents involved, only whole dollars. It needs to be able to handle cents but currently can't.
  • In kind data doesn't always copy over from one campaign to the other. You have to re-enter information when you have the same donor for multiple campaigns.
  • Adding or subtracting tickets to a company isn't possible once the initial purchase has been completed. To fix this is a pain and requires refunding the entire order and starting over. That is annoying.
For most things, GiveSmart is an awesome software and company to work with. Creating campaigns, adding items and handling the mobile/online silent auction is very easy and doesn't require much training. Anyone with half a brain can pick it up really quickly. For ticketing it makes it really simple but still has some upgrades that are much needed like being able to add or subtract ticketed people once the ticket has been purchased. So many times at nonprofit events tickets need to be changed because life is busy. Currently GiveSmart doesn't allow that so you have to delete/cancel the entire ticket order and start that sale over.
  • GiveSmart increased our Silent Auction revenues by 40% in our first year.
  • GiveSmart has allowed us to create unique fundraising events that didn't require actual attendance. This allowed us to create new events that raised over $100,000.
  • GiveSmart has a great function that allows for a great online visual for people to see silent auction items allowing us to market those easier via social media.
We haven't used any other software besides GiveSmart. As I was trying to decide between three different online software platforms, I created a potential ROI and Cost/Benefit analysis to help me figure out which mobile bidding/online platform would give us the best overall value for our money. After I put all the information in and analyzed the data, the final difference between GiveSmart and the other top contender literally came down to $3 in total difference in costs over a period of 3 years. The way we made the ultimate choice to use GiveSmart is talking with one of our donors whom had used GiveSmart before and since that person was donating the first year cost of the software, we went with what this person was familiar and comfortable with. We believe that we made the right choice and have been thrilled with GiveSmart.
For the most part, GiveSmart is a great software to use. We just wish that some things like being able to change a ticket after purchase, using dollars and cents and not just dollars. These seem like easy fixes but haven't been upgraded so far.
I call, they answer and help me fix what went wrong. What more do you need?
I love the fact that GiveSmart allows us to completely customize the look and feel of our campaign based on what we are doing. We are able to change backgrounds, add videos, customize the layout, text and overall feel of each campaign. We customize each different campaign to evoke different emotions based on whom our attendees are while keep a consistent branding across all the campaigns we run on GiveSmart.
4
Development/Fundraising
Marketing
Executive Director
Bookkeeping
1
We really use only our Development Officer as the principal person that uses GiveSmart. This person is responsible for creating the campaigns, maintaining the data base, reporting and executing the campaigns. This person also designs the look and feel of each campaign, entry of all the items and dealing with the customers when they have an issue. This is typical of a smaller nonprofit.
  • Silent Auctions
  • Ticketing
  • Donor Management
  • We use this as a way to enter information for pledge drives
  • We have started using it to replace our CRM
  • We'd like to use it to replace our current CRM but the full functionality of it isn't there yet
For the most part, we are very satisfied with GiveSmart. There are some additional functions we'd like to see it have and GiveSmart has been responsive in the past to add new features that nonprofits are looking for. Their support teams and account representatives are very friendly and helpful. The ease of their system allows a competent person to enter the data and create campaigns without having to have much technical knowledge.
No
We reviewed and compared/contrasted two other mobile bidding software systems when we made the purchase.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
We compared and contrasted GiveSmart with another competitor when we made the purchasing decision. We did a complete ROI and it turned out the top two systems we compared (along with GiveSmart) came within $3 difference in a period of a year when all the known costs were figured into the equation. The functionality of each system were very similar and each had one or two "special features" that each claimed. However, in the end, for our needs, these "special features" really didn't matter. Our decision to go with GiveSmart literally came down to selecting the one that one of our top donors were used to using since we hadn't had a mobile bidding system before.
We actually vetted each potential organization through a comprehensive ROI process. We also followed up with each organization's references that each supplied and they all checked out. For us, what it really came down to in our initial decision is we talked to all our stakeholders and the person that donated the purchase of this system was used to using GiveSmart so we went with GiveSmart. Honestly, we wouldn't change the way we evaluated the competing mobile bidding software systems as we were quite thorough.
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
We just made the change. We didn't have a mobile bidding software to begin with so there wasn't anything to change let alone managing the change.
  • None
We just made the change using the band-aid approach. In other words, we just went for it and taught the users how to do it at our first event and went from there. 90-95% of people haven't used a mobile bidding software so most everyone was on the same stage of knowledge so implementing it was easy as people didn't have to re-learn anything.
  • Online training
GiveSmart provides great training videos on their system. Not everything is covered with their videos but their support staff are very friendly and knowledgeable. I would have given them a ten but not everything is covered in their videos and sometimes you have to find the right word to search for in able to find the right training video.
Yes, the training is very easy to learn without training. They use common words versus technical words so even a non-savvy tech person can figure out how to use their system. I'm sure that we are only utilizing less than 50% of GiveSmart's total functionality but that is fine with us as we are happy with our results. I'd recommend this as a way for a company to use.
We didn't have to do anything to configure the software. It was already user ready so we just had to pay our invoice and go.
We do not. We didn't have to configure GiveSmart.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
None, sorry.
No. I didn't even know it was an option. However, even if it was an option we wouldn't have purchased it anyway as we are very satisfied with the level of support we get for free.
Yes
The issue was resolved within 24 hours which is very acceptable.
I tend to come up with some unique ideas for fundraising that tests the limits of their software functionality. GiveSmart has been very responsive and send the idea/issue up their change even to the VP level to get it figured out. That is impressive especially considering I never even had to escalate an issue or idea. They just solve the problem.
  • Creating/designing campaigns
  • Entering items
  • Reporting
  • Changing a ticket once it's paid for
  • All thank you letters and statements come in one PDF for everyone versus for each person when you run the single report.
Yes
The mobile interface works excellently. You can't even tell the difference between the mobile and the computer based.
For what GiveSmart is designed to do, the software works excellently. We haven't found something GiveSmart cannot do when it is used as designed. However, when GiveSmart is tried to be used as a total CRM, it doesn't do that but that is okay as it wasn't designed to be a total CRM but rather a mobile bidding software.
We have had GiveSmart for over 2 years now and haven't had any instances where the program wasn't available during working/event hours.
We haven't had any issue regarding performance or reliability with GiveSmart. We don't integrate it with any other software so that issue isn't relevant. The pages load quickly and reports are completed almost as soon as you hit the "run" button. Overall, the system works as designed and is pretty quick when people use it.
  • None
N/A
  • None
N/A
None
We haven't integrated GiveSmart with any other software.
N/A
When we were trying to decide which mobile bidding software to purchase, our sales rep took an hour and a half answering any and all my questions. He showed me the features and then as I had questions, he shared his screen and showed me how to do what I was wanting to do. He also recorded the entire session and then emailed me the recording so I could go back and compare that to their competitors.
Working with GiveSmart is great. We have our own dedicated account specialist who helps with any issues/questions that arise and if she can't answer my questions, she loops in her boss and both of them help me get to where I want to go. I haven't met one person at GiveSmart that isn't friendly, knowledgeable and responsive.
We didn't. We bought the package as is.
Honestly, you don't need any tips, everyone at GiveSmart is very friendly, knowledgeable and accessible.
No
  • n/a
  • n/a
No
No
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