HIGHLY satisfied customer for over 5 years now. Amazing customer support!

Nearly full event management by using this software.

Pros

Easy to use, customize and edit and update. Features offered have improved each year we have contracted with Givesmart. "One stop shopping" for event and auction management. We have utilized more features each year. What started as just utilizing auction management capability with limited effort into making the online auction site attractive has evolved to guest ticketing, table assignments, a highly customized auction site that reflects the event theme and with real time auction progress and bids scrolling on large screen ad televisions throughout the event venue to increase people's competitive bidding nature. After action information has been vital to determining what auction items had the most interests and highest profit margin. Has enabled us to better focus solicitation efforts for the next year.

Cons

Really very few cons for the software. Only limitation observed was limited printing options for auction item description for printing on card stock. There needs to be several options for the size and information/photo of the descriptive card tents.

The best campaign based fundraising tool on the market!

Overall, we were very happy with our decision to move forward with GiveSmart. We recently renewed and extended our initial agreement for an extra two years.

Pros

The flexibility and detail that is offered with in the GiveSmart interface to admins is truly custom. We were able to set up our auction event and run multiple raffles, instant buys, and silent auctions along with our oral auction. The seating/reservations module was an amazing addition to the transparency and planning of our event. In the end, the team support from Givesmart made this transition and the overall event set up so easy.

Cons

The donor receipts are one per item and are not very custom or adaptive. This created additional work that should be captured in the software package.

First-time mobile bidding user

Online technical troubleshooting is minimal and mostly limited to references to existing articles. Introduction to our on-site event lead was too late, and staff/volunteer training was therefore delayed. More pre-event communication and training with our direct event lead would have been helpful. The customer service provided by GiveSmart staff at registration was poor according to guest feedback. There was little effort in trying to understand the purpose and scope of our event and our intentions in how to use GiveSmart to facilitate our vision. Many guests had trouble with mobile bidding, but did not receive adequate support from GS staff. We instructed on-site GS staff about specific check-in procedures that were ignored; GS staff had pressured guests to provide credit cards despite our instructions.

Pros

Relatively easy bidding, data readily available for auction items, ability to import registrant data with custom fields

Cons

Page customization is relatively inflexible given our organization's needs. Any changes to auction item description input and packaging is tedious given that you have to un-package items to make more extensive changes to individual items. The donor recognition is automated so it's prone to errors. Auction item restrictions are not readily visible on the mobile site for bidders. Item photos can't be saved from the platform. Item certificate and acknowledgment letter formatting is inflexible and flawed. Funds to account are not easily distinguishable between auction and donation, which does not help our accounting.

GiveSmart Review

Boys & Girls Clubs of Larimer County uses GiveSmart frequently for events and other giving campaigns. It is super easy to set up campaigns and run them yourself. The GiveSmart staff is incredibly helpful on event days.

Pros

User friendly Clean, presentable look Unlimited events

Cons

Setting up new users with passwords tends to be difficult for us

The best product I have found in the online event fundraising market

I've worked with GiveSmart for many years -- from the time they were Auctions By Cellular, Gesture and now GiveSmart. I have also worked with competitors and GiveSmart is the best product on the market due to their easy-to-use platform, staff support throughout the event planning process, and their onsite staff teams.

Pros

GiveSmart has excellent staff support and they are always quick to respond to questions, timely with email responses, and most importantly their onsite staff is excellent.

Cons

Not a great platform for live auctions - still not good enough to substitute for an "old fashioned" paddle raise. Lack of customization (font size, spacing around images, content) opportunities for the auction displays.