Item: GiveSmart
Rating: 10
Author: Angie Pometto

Overall Satisfaction with GiveSmart

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use GiveSmart to seek out donations from attendees at one of our biggest events of the year. The event is funding entirely from donations from participants (80%) and corporate sponsors (20%). Without GiveSmart, it would much more challenging to meet our annual goals and be able to continue offering the event.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Text to give option that allows for credit card giving.
Text to give option that sends reminders to incomplete forms.
Fundraising Thermometer to help engage participants in the process.
Ability to keep good records of donors and collect appropriate personal information that is used in thank you cards.

Cons

No suggestions here. It's a great program!

Return on Investment

Met financial goals for largest event of the year.
Positive engagement of constituents with the work of raising funds.
Smooth logistical transition from pledge to receiving funds in bank.

Alternatives Considered

I have no experience with any other similar programs.

Usability

The initial training is a little complicated. However, once you begin, it really is a very user-friendly system. It is easy to make changes and create the platform that is needed for the various programs and ministries this is used for.

Support Rating

I contacted support this past summer. It did take a bit to explain the problem and get the appropriate solution. However, their team responded quickly and was willing to jump on a call to help walk me through the process.

Key Insights

Do you think GiveSmart delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with GiveSmart's feature set?

Yes

Did GiveSmart live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of GiveSmart go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy GiveSmart again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

This is a great way to solicit funds in a variety of scenarios. The largest income we see through GiveSmart is connected to one of the biggest events we hold where people come and are invited to support the event through the text-to-give option. We are also starting to use GiveSmart to solicit funds to support the work of our college campus ministry programs. This is an ongoing fundraising program, but GiveSmart has still been a great fit for this sort of fundraising work as well. People have responded well to the ease of the text-to-give option, and that helps us in the process of soliciting funds to support various projects and ministries.

Comments

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GiveSmart as instrumental to success of ministries and programs