The good stuff...

Gesture offers excellent professional software with outstanding customer service.

Pros

Gesture's software is user-friendly, fun to utilize and has a clean, professional look. I thoroughly appreciate Gesture's frequent software updates. They are continuously in search of even better ways to improve upon the customer experience, which they communicate through their Gesture Innovation Center emails. I believe that they value customer opinions and implement suggestions, accordingly. As an event planner, other companies often approach me, but none offer the experience Gesture has given my clients over the years. Our account manager, Allie Erickson is on top of our every need, patient, accessible, friendly and helpful. Our on-site manager is thoughtful, communicative, professional and kind. The Gesture team is trustworthy, diligent and fully dedicated to their customers. Every year, our attendees highly rate Gesture in our post-event survey. We have remained loyal to Gesture for many years and will continue for many more to come.

Cons

I would like to remain logged onto the system longer, but I understand that the system logs me off for security purposes. I really don't have any complaints.

Virtual Auction Support & Success

Pros

GiveSmart allows you to retain auction item and participant information from year to year, saving significant time on data entry.

Cons

The label printing functionality needs to be expanded/further developed.

Great platform for events

Givesmart helps us to make attractive fundraising event pages that also allow for smooth communication with our donors.

Pros

The event landing page is very customizable and looks very high quality. On the back end it is easy to get the information you need plugged in for fundraising events. You can have an event page up and running in only a few hours time.

Cons

Some of the back end features such as table assignments and ticket purchasing do not always function together smoothly. If a person purchases tickets or donates offline it is not always easy to get that plugged in nicely on the event site.

Perfect Addition to Our Events

We looked around for awhile at a lot of different products before we settled on GiveSmart. Ultimately this one provided everything we needed with the perfect value for our money. So glad I found it!

Pros

Very user friendly, all of the features we were looking for in a software program.

Cons

There are certain things we cannot change/update ourselves. We have to contact support and have them do it.

Improving their platform more and more each year!

GiveSmart makes it easy to enjoy an event/fundraiser by taking care of all customer needs and questions.

Pros

The event page was a very clear and concise hub to drive people towards our silent auction. I loved the customization that allowed you to match the design of the link to your event, in addition to the generic donate button.

Cons

The fact that the back end of the items tab didn't show a photo preview icon on each line. Also, that there isn't a comprehensive final report you can direct download all at once. Instead, you must click into each category of results you want to see one by one and download.

GiveSmart is great

Fantastic. Highly recommended.

Pros

Fantastic customer service. Like, seriously, the best. Better than any other vendor we use. The product is loaded with features, most of which we take advantage of -- auction items, auction packages, raffle tickets, event tickets, paddle raises, donations, users, registrants, etc. It's very intuitive to use; not difficult to set up a new event; very thorough and reporting capabilities; easy to process credit cards and receive payments...

Cons

The visual design is a bit bland. Could be more pretty.

Great customer support

I loved the platform and the interface. The customer service it fantastic - especially that they have people come out and help with your events that truly care about the nonprofit sector. They really went above and beyond to help us close the auction and get the data inputted correctly!

Pros

I really liked the salespeople and the way thy helped you with anything you needed. This is the best customer support I've seen from all mobile bidding sites.

Cons

My only negative is the price for small nonprofits. If it were more affordable, I would use them again and again!

GiveSmart helped us to Pivot!

Our overall experience with GiveSmart was amazing. It was what helped us raise money right when the pandemic lockdown had started. We chose GiveSmart because of the good reviews and one other person we knew having used this product giving a good review. We had to make a decision quickly and chose GiveSmart and it was the best decision! I have referred several nonprofit organizations to this product.

Pros

GiveSmart is user friendly. We had approximately a month before our annual auction and we were able to pivot from a live event to a virtual event DIY style.

Cons

There were a couple of features that we would have liked to see; a customizable graphic that counts our "paddle raise" (which in our organization is a reverse auction), and being able to highlight our larger sponsors (give them more visibility for their sponsorship)

Creat Experience

It was a much better program than our previous auction software. And the customer service is top notch! They even went above and beyond this summer with a webinar series that helped us share best practices across the country.

Pros

It is very easy to use, both on the admin side and for the users. It was very easy to customize on the back-end.

Cons

There are some glitches in entering donation items and I had some photos disappear after loading them, but they were minimal.

GiveSmart is a smart choice!

Pros

GiveSmart is a great platform for events -- either DIY or staffed by their team. I've worked with them for many years in three different organizations. They are solid, professional and goal-focused.

Cons

There are some limitations with customization for displays, but that's minor, in my opinion.

JBWS GiveSmart Review

Our experience with GiveSmart has been extremely positive and I would (and do) recommend them to others. I would like to see more proactive information from GiveSmart for event planning in our new virtual world - the competition is in my email daily with free webinars and informative tips.

Pros

Indefinite access to past campaigns Reports and analysis Attractive event website Ease of use by participants (in most cases) Ease of uploading items (in most cases except for raffle items) Excellent support

Cons

- Inability to stratify sponsors - We have 5 tiers of sponsors but are limited to only standard & premium categories. Would be optimal to highlight them at their exact levels, especially title and top tier sponsors. - Inability to bulk upload raffle items. - Inability to bulk upload images. - Inability to reorder campaigns on the Campaign page. All our 2021 events appear first - I'd like to view active/current campaigns first. - Inability to copy an individual item from one campaign to another. - No log of sent text/e-mail blast messages. - Item title character limit is too short. - The term "User" for event participants/donors is confusing - they should be titled as participants/donors in their own category. It's confusing when every GiveSmart staffer who provided help is included in the list of event participants and donors. - If you are on the dashboard page of a specific campaign and want to get back to the main Campaign page, you have to click on your name in the top right corner. When you click on this, it gives you the options of Profile, GiveSmart Events, JBWS, Logout. "GiveSmart Events" is the intuitive choice but you have to click on the name of your organization (which for us is JBWS) to get back to the Campaign page. - Please add an option for guests to choose to be invoiced for donations. We have many donors give through foundations that need an invoice for the donation to be processed. We need to let them give through GS without our manual intervention.

Gesture is the real deal for mobile fundraising; intuitive to use, with great customer support.

Pros

The software is intuitive to use and streamlines so many of the processes that eat up your time when you have to do them manually; we eliminated so many Excel spreadsheets, thanks to everything being easily captured, managed, and tracked right within the software - from auction packages to ticket sales to even the seating and meal requests. Beyond the software, Gesture's customer service was incredible; from the initial sales call all the way through to the event itself, every single Gesture representative we worked with was attentive, helpful, and genuinely interested in helping us have a successful event - which we did. In just the 48 hours since the event concluded, I've received multiple compliments from guests who expressed how "smooth" the night ran and how "seamless" their experience was, from check-in to bidding on auction packages to purchasing raffle tickets to checking out when they won auction packages. We will definitely be using Gesture again, for next year's event!

Cons

Since our event is coordinated by a mix of paid staff and volunteers, it would be helpful to have an administrative access level in Gesture that is "view only" - currently, it's all (full admin rights) or nothing. It would also be helpful if raffle winners could be "drawn" right in the software, rather than needing to use a random number generator on a third party site.

Amazing event support

GiveSmart provides much needed day of event support as well as an easy to use interface for auction bidding. Reporting has helped ease the closeout process and assure everyone receives their items and we receive payment. They send continuous follow-up to donors for payment post event. You also have access to crowdfunding for 6 months after your event has ended.

Pros

Easily create auction website to link to your website. Bidders receive texts when they have been outbidded. You are able to create endless silent and live auction items for your page. Event support is so responsive and you are able to customize your support needs for in state and out of state events. Their team arrive to your event with ipads to complete donor bidder profiles on site. They will come to your booth in exhibit hall and encourage people to register for bidding. They are super friendly and outgoing and are great as live auction spotters. They raise far more than their cost and double our giving. You are able to even enter in different pledge amounts as donation items on the auction site.

Cons

They are a little costly however it's worth it for a smooth, successful event. I do wish the website was a little more attractive and grouped the silent and live items together. The items appear kind of small and cramped together.

Fundraiser Support

Easy input of our items & images, because of the Excel sheets provided. Really happy with the reports available.

Pros

We have used GiveSmart for almost 3 years. Everyone I have been in contact with has been helpful, will go that extra step to make sure I understand. I'm including the Resource area, I have used it several times and if I need more help I use chat. We usually have a large Fundraiser set up each year with Sponsor Recognition, Silent & Live Auctions and we have GiveSmart provide us with 6 GiveSmart support. They help with Registration and Checkout, which makes the fundraiser very streamline. This year is different, we have had two Virtual Fundraisers, which was a very quick transition for us. GiveSmart was a great help and the first one was a great success and we are currently doing the second one now and so far no problems.

Cons

The only problem is that we do not have an easy connection between GiveSmart & our accounting system. Our Treasurer has trouble with what she receives from GiveSmart.