Yes, We Can Do This!
May 26, 2021
Yes, We Can Do This!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with GiveSmart
I joined our Rotary Club in June of 2020, during the lockdown phase of the pandemic. The club is small and they had always had 1 large fundraiser, a wine tasting during the holidays. With the pandemic, many of the folks thought we wouldn’t be able to raise money. I was made Director of Fundraising and with my committee’s assistance, one of whom owns a restaurant and lounge, we ended up selling sponsorships and wines.
We needed a platform to make sales online and to track and display ads for our sponsors. GiveSmart was perfect. We ended up making close to $15,000 more than we had hoped for.
We are going to keep the platform for this next year and are planning a few fundraisers that can be handled entirely online and a few that will involve in person aspects now that the pandemic is lifting. One will be a concert in which we can sell tickets using the platform, another will be similar to the wine sale but will also add an in person wine tasting event.
Although I am the primary user, I do register a couple of other members to be administrators, for back up. Their tech savvy levels vary, but it is a user friendly platform and what isn’t easy, you can find a video tutorial, or write up in the help section for it. The staff are also excellent at getting beck to me quickly if problems arise.
We needed a platform to make sales online and to track and display ads for our sponsors. GiveSmart was perfect. We ended up making close to $15,000 more than we had hoped for.
We are going to keep the platform for this next year and are planning a few fundraisers that can be handled entirely online and a few that will involve in person aspects now that the pandemic is lifting. One will be a concert in which we can sell tickets using the platform, another will be similar to the wine sale but will also add an in person wine tasting event.
Although I am the primary user, I do register a couple of other members to be administrators, for back up. Their tech savvy levels vary, but it is a user friendly platform and what isn’t easy, you can find a video tutorial, or write up in the help section for it. The staff are also excellent at getting beck to me quickly if problems arise.
- Provide a platform for self help to purchase items
- Allows a lot of personalization to make the web page consistent with our Rotary brand.
- The interface is easy to use and provides plenty of options to get help if needed.
- We trust the vendor they use for credit card processing.
- There are no hidden fees or “gotcha” moments with this company.
- Sometimes the wording in a help subject, or video uses a different title of a section, or instructs you to use a tool that is labeled differently on the site itself. This is rare and has never completely stopped me, but it can be confusing at times.
- I wish I could upload pictures or images that are larger than what they have the limit set to. This has been a problem several times.
- I wish I could use the platform as a Customer Relations Database and add to it for a user fee. I don’t want to contract with another group to do this and we are using Excel.
- Definite better ROI than we anticipated.
- We were able to capture information about supporters in a way that was streamlined.
- It has brought a level of professionalism to our very small club, without breaking the bank.
I like the broad use for our fundraising efforts, as it helped us get creative when we needed to. I would like to be able to upload data that isn’t brought in by a sale, or event and I don’t think this is an option.
As a Rotary club, we have certain logos, fonts, colors, etc... that we are encouraged to use for consistency with the Rotary brand. This platform is highly customizable and I haven’t found anything that stopped me from being true to the branding. This is an important aspect of why I chose this platform and support our club’s continued use of it.