OneCause (formerly BidPal) Software

Our auction was easier to manage, create and execute.

Pros

Ease of use. Once I got past a couple hiccups, the system was great and the customer support from both tech support and client account manager was excellent

Cons

A few Minot, less intuitive actions like uploading packages vs items and processing transactions (not easy on mobile, had to get on a PC to properly function).

The time saved with the OneCause product is really like having extra employees/volunteers. Can't imagine doing it without them.

Pros

The software did everything we needed it to and more - from selling tickets and foursomes to silent auction and day-of fixed price items...simple to implement and a nice customer facing mobile app. But what really makes the product different is the incredible support you get from their team. Regular check-in's and calls - by the time our event rolled around, they knew more about it than I did. Although it was my first year running the multi-day events, I felt extremely comfortable and confident due to the support I received from OneCause.

Cons

I have only one complaint, and that is that there's not great-looking templates for the landing pages, and when we built our own, it was kind of a process in that it has to be stored on a website rather than uploading to OneCause. I believe they're working on improving that.

This has been a GAME CHANGER for our charity. We went from labor intensive registration, to pen-snatching melt downs during auction, to no less than 40 hours of payment reconciliation post event to a beautiful, easy, online platform that brought us efficiency of time and money. Worth the investment.

Pros

It's hard to pick a MOST...but I'm going to go with the efficiencies gained on entire event process (planning, execution, payment) and ease of use (complete training and support every step of the way).

Cons

I wish we could route money to two separate accounts within the same event - general and gaming.

Pros

I loved how easy it was to learn the software, and knowing that I could chat with the support team at any time with specific questions! They always helped identify the best practices, and or event was an overwhelming success, due in a large part to the organization, support, and fussy experience via Onecause!

Cons

That you could not drag and drop tables to reorder.

Pros

My agency used to handle our auctions for our large events (800-1000 people) on paper and it was a nightmare. OneCause has streamlined the process, with the added bonus of having check-in looped into the software. We love having the option of texting our attendees at our events. The OneCause team is amazing. From the pre-event consultants to the onsite techs, we have only had wonderful experiences. They are always available, respond extremely quickly to questions, and are a joy to work with.

Cons

We wish that there was the capability to add guests' plus ones into the system without adding "Guest Of..." as a separate entry for each plus one. Having to type this in, open the profile, and change the information at check-in adds a little bit of time and can create a line of people waiting to check in.

Support team was ultra helpful and made me feel like they cared about the success of our auction just as much as I did!

Pros

This year was my first year running our school auction. OneCause software was extremely easy to use despite having ZERO experience.

Cons

Honestly, everything was a pro. If I had to make one change, I would request a way to keep a database of companies that donated items for the auction to facilitate sending out thank you cards and to make it easier for a new person in charge to pick up where I left off.

Pros

The customer support and lack of paperwork following checkout. 98% of the event was wrapped up when I went home the night of. That was amazing!

Cons

The creating of your own pages wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I am not well versed in adjusting pictures to create banners, etc. but that being said, our marketing manager had no problems with it.

An excellent money raising event

Pros

Intuitive, many videos for help and explanation, good on line support, good timeline for getting to the end point, good support at the auction itself, decreased the check in time to less than a minute/person, the attendees loved being notified when anyone out bid them, functioned well with fixed bid items, games, wine pull, the reports were good, and most importantly we ended up with most profit we have had in the last eight years.

Cons

Several areas have been upgraded since the auction leaving only the thank you notes for major contributors not being integrated into the package. It is a better program today, than when we used it with the improvement which may put it up to a 5 star for quality and ease of use. We will definitely use it again.

We get benefits from OneCause of making our silent auctions more accessible and look great!

Pros

I love the customization and features of OneCause that make each event feel personalized. We love being able to add our auction sponsor logo on the Giving Center along with pictures for the event and change colors on the site itself. When entering itmes/packages the features make it easy to enter and package together.

Cons

You can't have multiple events open in a window at the same time. If you are reusing descriptions/features/wording from one event to another event it's hard. We have multiple auctions and like to keep wording consistent for check out/text messages/ specific recurring items.

Pros

How easy to use it is and how there are helpful hints within the program to help you use the software to the best of its ability.

Cons

It reloads often when searching, which is frustrating in a pinch. If you are patient, it will load properly.

Pros

It is so incredibly easy to use for attendees of all ages! It is easy to understand, and made our event a roaring success.

Cons

The backend website reports could be easier to understand. I work with several reports in different databases, and they are just harder to navigate to find what I am looking for.

Pros

The ability to pull reporting immediately is excellent - nice range of existing reports, everything I could even think of needing. Adding the payments or making adjustments was very easy for the user and the customer. Adding the products and pictures was very easy and loved the upload from spreadsheet option. Overall, I totally love this product and would recommend it to anyone. It was a gamechanger for us this year.

Cons

Least favorite thing was constantly having to preview the Giving center to see my work as I was doing input. Also, the Giving Center custom Banner upload function wasn't as easy as the rest of the site. It would be nice if that area of the site was as esy to skin as the rest of the site is easy to use.

Pros

This software has been very easy to use. I like how it keeps all of our event information organized in one place. The event website and mobile bidding functions look very professional.

Cons

Some of the reports are not very easy to customize. I wish there were more options available for setting up pages and sorting information.

Pros

My organization signed on with One Cause just 2 months before our annual auction. One Cause did did everything necessary to help us prepare and keep us on target for planning our event and it was so successful! The software is very organized and helps track your project timeline and progress. Our event attendees loved bidding with One Cause on their mobile devices. Plus, moving to an online bidding platform made our check out process run much more smoothly and quickly - which everyone is a fan of! On top of all of this, their customer support is outstanding. They are incredibly patient and always happy to help. I never felt like my call was an inconvenience, no matter what time I called. Our organization has nothing but positive reviews for One Cause's product and services.

Cons

There is a lot of good information on the site to sift through, but sometimes without some guidance from support it can be a bit difficult to track down exactly what you're looking for.

Our guests can monitor and place bids on the convenience of their cell phones

Pros

It's so easy to upload your guests, silent auction items, photos, etc., and the support team is there to help you every step of the way.

Cons

This software can be a bit tricky if you do not have great cell service. We live in a rural area so cell service is not always reliable.

It made tracking, organizing, and check in and out so much easier than the last program we used!

Pros

I love how intuitive the entire process is to set up and run an event. And the reports are awesome! I actually had fun running different reports to see the information available to us! Check in and check out were super easy for our guests and our volunteers which made the event stress free.

Cons

Probably the only thing I would like to see there be a way to email select guests with a link that they could use to upload their guests names as the event gets closer. We have many supporters who purchased a table before they had their guest list complete.

Our silent auction proceeds doubled.

Pros

We found that OneCause was very intuitive and easy to use. When we did run into questions, we found on-line chat and other support was excellent. The technology was also easy for our guests to use.

Cons

We would like to have a software that was more vigorous for a live auction. We found that because the software was geared toward silent auctions, it was lacking in some of the functions we needed for our other points of purchase.

Pros

It is very user friendly - and the reports are amazing! Whether it is getting the most recent statistics or running table lists, or packaging auction items or donations or ads, it's there. And communicating with our donors and guests at the event was literally as simple as one click.

Cons

The software has some very specific auction based language that we would have liked to not use in some places. It also forces some numbers like the number of items left to sell, that in some cases we would rather have not used - like selling ads or sponsorships - fixed price items. The ability to eliminate or choose when to use some information or labeling visible to the donor would be better.

Pros

It is very user-friendly, especially when navigating post-event. I can very easily see who won specific items, who donated via fund-a-need, total amounts per person, and overall amount raised.

Cons

It took a while to figure out the best way to upload photos to set up our main pages for the customer view (i.e. Welcome page)

Pros

BidPal has great customer support from day one to post event. With their helpful staff, we were set up and ready to go live within a few days.
Easy set-up and user friendly for guests.

Cons

I wish there was a cheat sheet for reporting and a wording on some successful text messages that have been used.