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NGP VAN

Score7.8 out of 10

9 Reviews and Ratings

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What is NGP VAN?

A suite of organizing, fundraising, and digital tools used by labor unions, nonprofits, political parties, presidential campaigns, and state and local campaigns. NGP VAN is a Bonterra business unit.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about NGP VAN.
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Thank you NGP VAN

Thomas Christopher Famous JP MPView profile
Manager at Progressive Labour Party (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

NGP VAN is the life blood of our campaign efforts. Whether on the ground, phone banking or data keeping. We simply could not function at this level without it.

We have employed NGP VAN for the last 17 years.

Every so often we have small teething problems and are able to get support from the help desk. We realise it is election season in the US so at times we have to wait a little bit longer than usual to get things sorted.

Pros

  • Retain data
  • Ease of printing walking lists
  • Constantly upgrading MiniVAN
  • Fairly quick support

Cons

  • Geo tag outside of USA on MiniVAN
  • Convert counts into Pie or Bar charts
  • Synch MiniVAN canvassed with phone bank canvassed

Return on Investment

  • We could not put a dollar figure on what the NGP VAN brings us
  • Worth every dollar plus more

Good product

Dave LittleView profile
Chair at LD2 Democrats (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are able to target voters who might be interested in the candidates or issues that we are promoting. We can plan our phone calls and canvassing such that we know approximately how much time will be involved in each effort.

Pros

  • Identify voter demographics
  • Map out turfs
  • Quick look up

Cons

  • Non-descriptive labeling of functions
  • Name look up
  • Phone numbers

Return on Investment

  • I have been helping others with votebuilder
  • I can generally create a list within 15 minutes

I'm Happy with It

Verified User
Employee (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I work for the Democratic Party. We use this as our database for everything. I have been using it since 2008. This solves the search for people of a certain demographic in a certain area, certain groups of people—like your volunteers—and certain subsets of volunteers—like volunteers who like parades. You can make phone banks and walk packs to your heart's content for the demographics you choose. Basic training is fast. It is impossible to lose information, and it never deletes any data you delete. You can always undo it.

In-depth training will take longer. I am still learning tricks after all these years.

Overall, I am very happy with NGP VAN, I have some suggestions for tweaking it but as someone who uses it daily. I can't complain and easily can walk through someone to find something or do something over the phone.

Pros

  • Detailed searches
  • Storing data
  • Creating walk packets
  • Creating functional, easy to use phone banks

Cons

  • Dark Mode (volunteers have requested it)
  • Volunteer Management to automatically come up first. It is no longer training to come to come up first
  • Being able to enlarge the screen without losing the stuff on the screen especially in the VPB
  • Intergrate Turbo VPB or similar autodialing platform
  • Voice Command features
  • NGP VAN app . We organizers are on the go and not always on our computers

Return on Investment

  • Cost effective for a campaign to have

Other Software Used

QuickBooks Online, Endicia

NGP VAN useful in political campaigns

Verified User
Employee (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I’ve used NGP VAN since 2015, to generate walk/mailing/phone lists for my campaigns and for others’ campaigns. It makes targeting voters much easier than using municipal voter lists. I especially appreciate the ability to lay turfs for walk lists. The miniVAN has been a super improvement since I campaigned in my own races because one no longer has to tangle with clipboards, paper, and pen. My county Democratic Party will be using NGP VAN this summer to list locations for installing large signs and to turf convenient routes. Plus the usual uses.

Pros

  • Lets user design and map out efficient walking/driving route
  • Users can use filters to designate the exact voters needed
  • MiniVAN makes canvassing so much easier

Cons

  • Accurate data depends upon people updating in a timely manner.
  • Sometimes I’ve had trouble putting lists into miniVAN, maybe a training need
  • In the past, had issues getting right permissions from state Dems to access NGP VAN

Return on Investment

  • NGP VAN helped my county turn the county board blue this year.
  • Access to NGP VAN has encouraged progressives to join the Democratic party
  • MiniVAN has reduced the need for data entry volunteers.

Other Software Used

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft 365

Usability

Very Helpful platform

Verified User
Board Member in Finance and Accounting (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I used NGP VAN to collect Democrat names for petition signing, then later for canvassing in the district I cover. It's great in that you can see ages, phone #s, party, etc.- very helpful. It's also great that you update the NGP VAN information for next time, and write down any problems that manifested.

Pros

  • gives current addresses
  • gives phone numbers
  • comments regarding issues
  • voters by districts
  • lists other party voters

Cons

  • takes some thinking to figure out how to excerpt info
  • need to learn how to send to fellow canvassers
  • takes time to understand NGP VAN more clearly

Return on Investment

  • helped with campaign
  • saved records for the following year
  • assisted all involved with campaigns

Other Software Used

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