An Awesome Resource Network

CharityTracker is a shared database of client assistance, its a way to communitycate with other assistance agencies, its a way to set client goals and work on them together to track and schieev shared outcomes. Its also the tool to use to track outcomes for a Getting Ahead in a just gettin' by world program, with it's own module customized to match the assessment and turn out progress reports, stability scores and Return on Investment.

Pros

Navigation of the software is as easy as navagating a common webpage. History of modifications eliminates the chance that another agency might update (and loose) an address or phone number that you need. The Alert system is very helpful for quickly communicationg to other agencies.

Cons

That every agency in the whole community isnt using it!

CT Occasional user

We extract monthly information from CT to keep track of the number of clients we are seeing on a monthly basis and to share with board members and other community members. I have someone else pulling that information for me and would like to see more options for creating reports that are easy to read.

Pros

I like the fact that the software is very easy to use and understand. We currently use two versions of the software to keep track of our own information but also link into other available resources in the community. Customization of the software for our own needs is also a great advantage of using CT.

Cons

As an administrator of our own version of Charity Tracker, it can be a bit confusing trying to navigate the different programs to find the information I am looking for. This may be a matter of more training to work with the program more effectively.

Lack of training was the challenge we faced and are still dealing with nine months later.

Ability to run reports, for individual agencies or for the entire CoC has been vital. NOTE: As far as the questions about our industry. We are an agency who serve both the vulnerable and homeless in our community and we serve as the lead agency for homelessness for the county. You industry list does not have a social services category.

Pros

Ability to view and cancel gives new users confidence to 'look' through the system. For folks that only have to input new and/or update data, the users feel confident because the software is not written in 'computerese'. Although I cannot get all the reports that I want as an administrator, the system has a large a variety of reporting options.

Cons

The lack of auto-population affords more opportunities for mistakes/keystroke errors. There are nuances to every software and because we did not have adequate training there has been too much 'learning on the job' when we are dealing with reports and data that impact grant requirements. There is verbiage that is confusing and used in different ways i.e. 'Show Assessments' in Projects versus 'Assessments' and Services/Assistance/Categories (with all three overlapping/conflicting when using). There are categories that have to be reflected under and agency's services which are (either one or both) used when you want to request or input an Assistance.

Great Software and the Awesome Price is a BONUS

Overall experience... GREAT! Excellent tech support. The website rarely gets disrupted. Easy to use. AWESOME

Pros

this software is NUMBER 1 in user friendliness. That is what I like most about this software. The reporting functionality is also pretty excellent. On top of that, there's the HIPPA compliance aspect. You put all of this together, and this is probably the single most useful database for non-profits.

Cons

I don't think I dislike anything about this software. If I were to ask for one thing to be changed, it would be to be able to set reminders in the future for follow-up outside of the goals section of the database

Great System!

We are finding that we can easily identify when people are giving us false or conflicting information. During searches or intake, we can see where someone is already in another household.

Pros

You can search and find what you're looking for easily.

Cons

I don't think I have any complaints. It's much better than Client Track.

keeps you in the loop

We use Charity tracker to keep track of what services clients that come to us are receiving in the county so that we can make sure there aren't people abusing the system. We love it!

Pros

I love using Charity Tracker. Our agency has been using this software for years and it has been a lifesaver. I love that Charity tracker allows you to see services that clients are receiving from other agencies in the network. This has helped us tremendously in keeping down the amount of persons who abuse social services in the community.

Cons

Charity tracker freezes a lot! I mean at least 4 or times in an hour of use. Some days we can't even get into the software and getting someone to assist you is almost impossible. They make you put in a request which sometimes it's a week before we get a response. Anything that needs to be updated or worked out, you have to go through this lengthy process and it's just annoying.

Volunteer Use Extremely Helpful

Pros

I am retired and not terribly computer savvy. Charity Tracker is so easy, it makes my volunteer work, which is serving hundreds of needy in my area, possible. The others in my group can easily see what I am posting, and likewise I can see their postings. The storage a retrieval of historical data is simple and is critical to our being able to offer the assistance to our clients.

Cons

Sometimes the choices in the drop-down boxes available for posting do not fit what we desire. Yet we do not advocate for additional choices. The advantages of the simplicity of having the choices there are outweigh any benefits we would gain in having additional choices.

Review of Charity Tracker

Having the ability to do a monthly report by category helps so much in keeping on track and with being consistent. If I could handle that report writing part better this software is perfect for what we do.

Pros

Very valuable to be able to see what assistance an applicant has had before. Helps tremendously with decision making. Also very valuable to be able to look up what help, if any, GCC has given to an applicate.

Cons

Adding new people is very east. Updating existing applicants is very easy. Report set up is a little difficult.

Staying connected

Charity Tracker has been a very useful tool. I have been able to catch clients being dishonest when I ask about their income. This is why I say it is so important to update client's income.

Pros

I like that I am able to access charity tracker to see where clients have received assistance from other agencies throughout various counties. Sometimes clients do not tell agencies where they have received assistance from and charity tracker lets you see where clients have been seeking assistance whether they received the assistance or not.

Cons

The software is great, I just wish everyone that uses the software update information when possible. Ex. Too often the clients income is not updated.

Charity Tracker

This software helps us use our charity monies for people with actual needs and helps weed out those who abuse the system

Pros

I like the connecting of local charities to help those in our area with their needs. It helps prevent so much abuse of charity organizations by habitual takers who have not interest in bettering themselves and just want others to pay their bills.

Cons

This software functions very well. From my prospective there are no negatives with the software.

Charity Tracker For a Network of Providers

We are attempting to address a multiple issues by implementing Charity Tracker: 1. Provide a useful tool for our non-profit, government and faith-based partners to track the assistance they are providing in our county. 2. Providing them a simple way to report on the assistance they are providing in our county. 3. Connect organizations to each other, across a network, to better serve clients with varying needs in a more holistic way. Organizations can make direct, electronic referrals to each other across the network for assistance they are not able to provide. 4. We are asking all organizations using the system to input program-level detail to ensure that the referrals that are made are "qualified leads". 5. Offering organizations a way to better goal-set and track outcomes with their clients, with multiple organizations having the ability to assist/participate in the goal-setting and outcome tracking. 6. We are seeking to understand gaps in assistance as well as reduce duplication of service. 7. We are streamlining the intake process by setting a minimum level of information that organizations must record during intake, which will also ensure that all organizations assisting a client have the information they need in order to do so. 8. We will utilize the collective data to bring more dollars into our county to help support the organizations in our county that are providing assistance.

Pros

What I like most about the software is that is easy to use, user-friendly for a variety of skill levels and intuitive. Also that the system is web-based, because that means I have access virtually anywhere.

Cons

What I like least about this software is that it can take upwards of 15 minutes or more to pull a CSV file report. Also, while I like the variety of reports available, the amount of options/combinations can make it confusing to know which information to pull and how to pull it.

Very dependable. Help is always available for the program in a timely and professional manner.

Pros

It is easy to get input for programs that is specific for the need of our organization. The programs as administrator are easy to edit. As administrator I can edit funding sources, I can make any necessary changes by just clicking a save change button. Like the reports sub-tab where I can go and run all the reports that pertains to this agency. I can customize agency reports. Running the reports could not be easier. I can filter the reports, I can choose the fields for the agency reports. I can easily get data for demographics reports. When using search it is not complicated. It will list all possible duplicate cases if any exists. If it is a duplicate case you can merge those cases, which is an excellent tool.

Cons

I would like to be able to go back into the relationship tab and make corrections as to if it is a dependent or living together without having to go all the way back to the beginning and edit the relative out and input again. I need this feature because I have volunteers that will not always input this data. I am not sure if it's my fault or the input of area we serve as the crisis. I have not been able to change that. For instance pantries- We have 5 pantries I would like for a heading to be for each pantry with the sub heading name of pantries. I don't know how to do that. I would like for the listing of our assistance program to be revised. I am not sure if I can do it, I have not call nor asked for help with this issue. I believe rearranging things that will best give us a more accurate count. I am not sure how to get a count from the sub heading of agencies, that is confusing to me. Again I have not spoken with anyone lately about it.

Charity Tracker makes networking with other organizations quick and easy.

The collaboration with other agencies assists clients better. Donor and funders like to see that partnerships happen because of this program.

Pros

Charity Tracker is easy to use, regardless of your computer skills. Someone who has very little knowledge of computers and data entry can easily be trained on this software. This is very handy as a non-profit, because many times an unpaid team member is using the system, and they are not always well trained. Charity Tracker makes tracking of services for clients very easy as well. It is great to see what services the client has already received in the community. This helps to better assist the clients overall, and makes connecting them with services much more efficient. Also, Charity Tracker's tech support is fabulous. Anytime I have a question, or need help running a report, I call their help desk. Within minutes, I am in contact with a technician, and they stay on the phone until my issue/need is addressed. The value for the amount you pay can't be found with most software.

Cons

Although Charity Tracker can run reports, the reports are not as sophisticated as I would like to see them be. We use the data collected by Charity Tracker to assist in grant writing, and there are times that I can not manipulate the data in the manner needed to get exactly what I need. Also, the data is only as good as the quality that is entered. I would like to see a feature that tells you when data is missing in a client's file. For example, if entering a new client, if you miss the DOB box, I would like to see a box pop up that says "You forgot the DOB for this client. Would like you to enter it or ignore it?" I know that sometimes it's not possible to enter ALL the information, so an ignore button would be nice. If this popped up every time you enter that client's file, it would be annoying enough that you would enter it to not have to have the box pop up anymore!

I have found Charity Tracker to be easy to learn, very transferable and an invaluable tool.

We were a start up non-profit and the benefits are staggering. Affordable case management, easy to administrate and wonderful customer service. I have also benefited and appreciate the webinars provided. This software has helped link our faith based community. Get's us beyond denominational lines. We only have 5 paid staff. The rest is volunteer (company Size)

Pros

We are a faith based non-profit that with partners that extend county wide. Charity Tracker offers a framework to track assistance given among many churches, community agencies etc. Excellent case management tool as well as being able to track stats for reporting purposes, grants, etc. We have many ministries under The Hope Center umbrella and this offers us the opportunity for the right hand to know what the left hand is doing. It is simple to utilized even if the individual user is not computer literate. We utilize the alerts often and also use the caution, chronic, danger specifications that help us stay on track with so many different volunteers that may be serving the same guest.

Cons

With the number of volunteers that benefit from access to Charity Tracker, the cost of bases. Also, because of the amount of users on our network, we do end up with a lot of duplicates that go undetected. Would their be a way for a more pronounced alert to be developed that would even prevent a user from going forward until they used the search tab? Also, it is sometimes difficult to know what fields to select( or not) when running reports. I've learned most by trial and error and it seems like it is clunky. Perhaps it's just me and my inexperience but I wish the reports were more user friendly and as easy as the case management arm of Charity Tracker.

Wonderful, amazing, beneficial, easy to work with

Being in a Rural community - resources are often hard to find and locate. Often times in case management we run into a benefit that is not offered by any source in the community. Charity Tracker allows for communication to the community to ask for help on a case by case basis. Charity Tracker opens the lines of communication between community partners, increasing knowledge and awareness of what each community partner offers in the way of assistance. Charity tracker can be used to track individual assistance or total assistance given on a community level - offering a chance for funding opportunities, such as grant writing. Charity Tracker allows community leaders to see what services are being used the most, what services are least likely to be used and what services are still needing to be added. I can not stress enough how much this program means to our community! I was watched our community use this program from the beginning and I have watched it grow. Our United Way pays for this program in our community and it is money well spent. I support this funding effort and hope it is something we continue to achieve each year!

Pros

Charity Tracker is valued asset to any community willing to put forth the effort into making the program work in their community. As a case manager for 10 years - Charity Tracker has been a part of our community for the past 4 or 5 years, paid for through our local United Way office and it is money well spent! I was fortunate to be on board when Charity Tracker was implemented in our community and still fortunate to this day to work in the same community. Charity Tracker makes it easy to get information to community members or even get information from the community. Charity Tracker allows for key community members to collaborate about new ideas. Along with new ideas - Charity Tracker allows for all community partners to track and follow assistance given. This information on an agency level or community level is valuable information allowing for discussion topics to open up about funding or bringing in other resources into our community. With Charity Tracker we are able to see what we do well as a community and where we need to improve - what needs are being met and what needs still need to be met.

Cons

Limited to service areas - all communities should have this program - would be helpful to be tied in with other Charity Tracker communities across the state.

Being Good Stewards with CharityTracker

I was once asked to help with a married couple's back rent. They owed more than $500 and were scheduled for eviction. That was a big amount of money for our small charitable organization. A quick glance at CharityTracker revealed the couple frequently asked area agencies to pay their rent, but more importantly, they had been counseled numerous times on their excessive use of cable TV pay channels. They were defiant in their refusal to disconnect because they wanted access to all the premium channels. I rarely turn down a request for assistance, but I did for that one. Without CharityTracker, I wouldn't have known they were routinely taking advantage of other people's generosity.

Pros

CharityTracker is an excellent way for charitable organizations within a community to share information. It allows those of us trusted with donation dollars to be good stewards of other people's money. Most everyone seeking assistance is honest and forthright, but CharityTracker gives local agencies the opportunity to work as a team in stopping those who try to abuse the system.

Cons

If I could change one thing about CharityTracker it would be to only list money, material goods (clothing, food, etc.) or services with a dollar value under the heading of Assistance. Oftentimes, I'll see an applicant with a VERY LARGE number of Assists only to find out that a great many of those Assists were for prayer or spiritual tracts. Don't get me wrong -- prayer is very important and greatly needed, but I don't think it should be added to the number of times a person receives Assistance. It makes that applicant appear to be a frequent flyer, so to speak -- seeking too much help. If our goal is to make sure no one is abusing the system by duplicating funding efforts, why track prayer? Prayer is free and unending and always available in abundance. Donation dollars are what we should protect against abuse.

Charity Tracker is very straight forward, easy to use, and fairly thorough.

We use it as our primary case management tool. It is also a major component in our reporting activities.

Pros

I like how easy it is to use. We utilize a lot of volunteers at our organization, many of which are with us one day a week or even a month. The straight forward nature of the software helps to ensure these volunteers have little difficulty using the software even if they have not accessed it recently. I also like that it is a shared case management software so members of our organization can not only see assistance and notes entered by our organization but other local organizations as well.

Cons

I wish there were more layers and higher capabilities related to the report pulling functions. I do most of the reporting for our organization and very often I have to pull multiple reports, export them to excel, merge them into one document, and edit them to get the report I need. More detailed and higher level reporting options would make this task less cumbersome. I also wish it was HIPPA compliant. We provide some medical services at our organization and because Charity Tracker is not appropriate for health related information we are required to do double entry. Also very often if a medical clients is accessing outreach services or vice versa you do not get the full history since some information is in Charity Tracker and some is in our medical software.

Love CharityTracker

CharityTracker has been wonderful to work with. They have great customer service and have always responded quickly.

Pros

We have used CharityTracker for several years. I love that we are able to share information about how we have helped people in our community as well as see how other organizations have helped too. The alerts and notes are great tools. I can't imagine running a ministry that assists approximately 40 families per week without CharityTracker.

Cons

Nothing. We love CharityTracker and would recommend it to any organization or church that is doing benevolent ministries in their community.

Charity Tracker

It allows me to see how other agencies have served a client before I decide what our level of support should be. It also helps me refer clients to other agencies for assistance if I don't have what they need. As stated above, if I could gather data saying that our combined agencies are helping a specific number of clients on a monthly basis, that would be very helpful. We don't know if we (as a community) are helping 1 client six times, or six separate clients. I would love to be able to pick out duplicates so that we knew the true need in our community.

Pros

It is simple and connects many of the agencies in our community by allowing us to see shared data on clients in need.

Cons

The ability to roll up and create reports is exclusive to the administrator, and I need this same option at the user level. It would prevent duplicate reporting that I do for my own agency, and allow me to see how other agencies are using the system. My organization pays for many of the agencies in our network to participate in Charity Tracker. The intent was so that we could evaluate how the clients are being served but I do not have that capability as a user.

Review of CT

Pros

I like that all of the buttons are easily identified and large enough to see to access different parts of a client's file. I like that you can link profiles together so we can keep track of multiple people who use our services who are connected or identify potential problem people linked to a client. I like how the client's identifying information is easy to read as soon as you look at their profile.

Cons

I don't like the way the Release of Information feature is set up. I wish it was a fill in form that we could input who the ROI is filled out to, so that if someone calls into the front desk they know whether they can confidentially speak with that person or not versus having to pull the physical file and call back. It would be nice to be able to either fill out a form format or scan in our ROI form. The one CT uses isn't appropriate for our clientele and business. I also don't like that there can be SO many options/fields under the different tabs. I know that has to do with the way our office person helped set it up, but it would be nice for the CT person to offer some advice regarding what information needs to be put in and deleting unnecessary fields that take up space. I also wish that when you type a name in the search field and previous search entry pops up that you could arrow down to it and just press enter once to have it search instead of having the press enter twice.

I cannot say enough about how helpful Charity Tracker has been to our community!

Ease of retrieval, all information available at the touch of my finger, people are able to access the information from their offices rather than calling me all the time, it is very hard to take advantage of our program now that we have Charity Tracker.

Pros

Previously, we were keeping all our assistance applications in notebooks and carting them around in a big cart from place to place so we could refer to them when clients applied for assistance. They were big and bulky and not always dependable. With Charity Tracker, everything is accessible with the touch of a finger and all involved can access it from various places at the same time. The ease and dependability of this program has revolutionized our Caring and Sharing program. I value the Notes section greatly because we can include information that we could never pull from memory down the road and it has saved us from being taken advantage of many times.

Cons

Actually, I can honestly say there is nothing that I dislike about this software. It fulfills all our needs and more. People from various organizations have visited my office to check it out.

A Reliable Way to Track and Share Client Data

The ability to record data, remember our case notes, share across multiple organizations, create reports for internal and external use.

Pros

I like the functionality of what we can track, reports, and client data. This program tracks names, DOBs, household members, visits, amounts given, income and expenses, relationships, and services received. We use this data to collect demographic information on what our needs are, how we are serving these needs, and comparison to other organizations, comparison from year to year, and reconciliation with our financials. This also allows us to keep notes on clients and repeat visits to see if our programs are making a difference long-term, or if we are seeing the same people repeatedly.

Cons

Sometimes the server crashes. I would also like to see the addition of a feature that would bring up potential matches of data when things are misspelled. Right now, typos mean that a case might not come up even if there is already one created.

CharityTracker is a phenomenal tool to help bring a community together.

It helped bring our community together as we serve those in need and help them move forward. We can track progress, collaborate and provide updated information to the community efficiently and effectively.

Pros

CharityTracker is very user friendly. Most people can use the software. The HELP desk and customer service are amazing and provide everything you need. It has an excellent reporting feature and the flexibility of customized reports is very helpful. The data it can provide has helped our community make many program decisions. The Bulletin Feature provides a very efficient and effective way for us to communicate community information. It can be used during a disaster to get information out to the community about where services are available. It has an incredible capacity!!!

Cons

I believe there is much more we could do with CharityTracker. It would be great to see how other communities use it and what features have been created for them.

We love using Charity Tracker in our community! It is easy to use & customer service is amazing!

Pros

We love Charity Tracker because it allows us to streamline the tracking of services throughout our community. It is easy to use. The standard features paired with the customer service team allow us to manipulate the program to fit our community and agency needs. We also really enjoy the photo feature paired with the ID card. This allows our clients to easily use services but not be assigned just a number. The program has also helped to reduce abuse of services and increased communication between local partner agencies.

Cons

There are very few things I dislike. However, it would be nice if we had more access to surrounding communities as we have many clients that migrate into our town from other areas across the state. See past history with other agencies outside our network would be very helpful. Also, it would wonderful to have a way to assign and track case loads to a particular case worker.

Very easy to transfer old accounts into. Easy to add new clients. From beginning, excellent support.

Organized all of our historical, current, and new data on clients and the services they have received and for how long.

Pros

The ease to customize to our agency needs and ease to use. Extremely supportive staff and tech people. Knowledgable. Able to adapt and make changes as our agency needs and services have grown. Affordable. Ability to network with other local service providers has strengthened our partnerships and ability to recognize clients with multiple needs.

Cons

The reports are not as adaptable, changeable, or as flexible as needed when making statistical reports for multiple funders all requesting different information. Not all networked agencies are as professional as others and not always confident they are confidential or nonjudgemental with clients. Would be nice to select which members in a network see all of our information, while limit what some others can see. Feel the need to protect those seeking help from judgement .

Charity Tracker

This software is very benificial to our Personal Ministries department and is used daily in our office to check on Food pantry assists given as well as for new client information. We use it everytime someone applies for assistance to determine if they have already received their yearly allotment and also on intake days to inform clients of their eligibility before they begin filling out the applications.

Pros

Charity tracker enables our department to safeguard the effective use of our resources to meet the needs of our community because we can easily accessthe information regarding how we have assisted a client in the past as well as important information on the resources which have already been provided by other local agencies.

Cons

The search process is not as effecient presently as it has been in the past making it necessary to sometimes search through 15-20 pages of names to find a name which should have popped up when the name was typed into the search box.

Overall, it's an easy program to use and allows me to track most of what I need to track.

It's a great paperless way to keep up with information and I can pull reports for church administration when needed. It helps when creating the budget at start of every year.

Pros

It's easy to navigate. I can pull up clients easily as well as see how much we've given them and when. It's also easy to edit client information, especially since addresses change so much with the people I work with.

Cons

I would love to be able to link accounts so that I can keep up with family members who come in separately, but live in the same address. Because resources in my area don't connect with each other, but I know people have used them I would love to have a place to keep up with where and how much they've used from other resources. (This is information we track with our application for assistance applications). When it comes to tracking client income, more options would be helpful, even if it's the option of a drop down box to add that information.

Biggest time saver for us in 6 years

I have been working with my agency for six years and nothing has saved us more time than converting our paper file system into our online database. The training seemed overwhelming and scary to staff and all 170 volunteers but when the time came, it worked fine. We had most volunteers comfortably trained within a month. (Around 25% of these volunteers had no prior computer experience.) We had a few kinks along the way but Charity Tracker staff has always been easily accessible and willing to help. We couldn't have had a better experience.

Pros

Everything! Couldn't ask for better quality service from Simon Solutions.

Cons

Over the past several years we have suggested small changes and the changes were made. So I don't have any complaints. But I wish we could get everyone in Transylvania County on board. If all agencies were also inputting data into Charity Tracker we could get better statistics about gaps in services. I think the price is a barrier for some of the smaller non profits.

Case Management

Pros

There isn't much I don't like about Charity Tracker, I wish the outcomes tab was more user friendly because I would love to track my client's outcomes. Also, we should be able to change the date of assessments to reflect the date the assessment was completed. Case Managers don't always have the time to submit the assessments the same day they were completed.

Cons

Assessments. Please allow for us to enter the same date the assessment was completed, sometimes that means back dating the system

Charity Tracker Transformed our Non-profit Agency and our Community

We have solved a huge communication and coordination issue in our community related to client needs and securing available resources.

Pros

Charity tracker is easy to use and easy to teach to our volunteers who have limited computer experience. We have not only used it as our in-house client data base but are administrating a Network in our community with several other non-profits. It has made it so much easier to share information with other agencies about clients and immediate needs.

Cons

We would like for other agencies in our area to join our network and use this software, however, the current software some are using for this purpose is either written or endorsed by a parent company for their use. Using Charity Tracker would require them to double enter their records.

CharityTracker Review

Great! We are glad to have switched to it and continue to find out new ways to maximize our experience with it.

Pros

It is a comprehensive way to track all services provided to a client across organizations in our area. The system is user friendly and easy to learn through the training. The reports help pull various information needed for grants, Board presentations, and other reporting needs.

Cons

The reports function is not nearly as user friendly as the rest of the software. Also (and this is essentially just the nature of the beast), having so many users from so many organizations use the same database does mean that there is not nearly as much consistency in entering information as would be ideal. (For example, some people put notes in the notes tab, while others put it in alerts, and still others include notes in the assistance section.)

Excellent Facilitation of Inter-agency Coordination of Services

We use CharityTracker to assist coordination of services and resources for our clients. It has helped us quickly locate needed services and resources for our clients.

Pros

My favorite thing about this software is the efficiency in connecting with other agencies to coordinate services and resources for clients. We used to spend hours on the phone tracking down assistance for clients, with CharityTracker the same services can be found in a matter of minutes. When you post a need, CharityTracker instantly emails the bulletin to all users alerting them of a needed service or resource. The time saved by this software cannot be overstated. It allows us to spend more time working with clients and less time on the phone.

Cons

I honestly cannot think of a single negative aspect of this software. I fully recommend it!

I love Charity Tracker. Great tool for non-profits to communicate and stay aware of community needs.

Communication with other non-profits and benevolence programs.

Pros

Charity Tracker is a great communication tool with other non-profits & benevolence programs in the community. We have volunteers and seniors that work in office and program is easy to navigate and use for our part-timers. The reports we can generate have helped tremendously with grants and board reports. We do have outages sometimes but the support and time down has been amazing.

Cons

The signature pad that is compatible with software is not good. Very hard for me to sign and our senior citizens really struggle with it to sign. You can't see when signing pad and the pen is easy to push button at bottom of pen (right where you hold it) and messes up. Not user friendly at all. I have small fund set aside to purchase new one as soon as available!

Great Choice for Integrated Data Management

We use this software to share data with other organizations about our client usage, to get information regarding needs in our communities and how we are meeting them, to track case notes, visits, and client household data. We then use this client demographic information and tracking to report to our donors, board members, and community about the services we are providing.

Pros

I like the functionality of the software and its ability to add sections and features or disable them as needed for the organization. The ability to report by various datasets is crucial to our processes, pulling case history by client, by household, or by service.

Cons

The software could use some work as it pertains to looking up accounts, which can be lost and duplicated when typos are present (no suggested results occur if there is a space where there shouldn't be, or a misspelled name).

Non-Profit review

Overall it is a great program just wish that the reports worked a little better and were a little more user friendly.

Pros

We like that it is easy to use and is pretty straight forward on entering information. It is very user friendly and as a non-profit it is very affordable. The Outcomes section is a great easy way for us to track our clients success. We love that we are able to print it out so that they can have a reminder at home of what goals they are working on. We also love that we can choose what information we can keep private to our agency. We also love that we could personalize assistance records to fit our needs.

Cons

Reports are sometimes inconsistent which is difficult when you are trying to get accurate information to use when applying for grants.

The best case management software I've used

Any issue I've ever had (and there's not very many) have been handled as a priority and I always receive immediate feedback from their support staff. This software requires very little maintenance on my end as the network admin.

Pros

I love how user-friendly this software is, it takes be about 30 minutes to train new users and they are ready to go. Our agency uses this software to prevent duplication of services, and this is the best software I have found. It takes just a minute or two for case managers to look up client records and add new assistance records and usually can be done while the client is still in the office. The flexibility of real-time data has helped with accountability to our donors.

Cons

Nothing. Everything is great and Rep is the nicest person to talk to on the phone.

Charity Tracker

Pros

I like being able to see a clearer picture of client info- such as who helped, for what, and when (for instance - the client received assistance 6 months ago on rental, now back for assistance with electric - Charity Tracker provides a visual as to what other agencies have assisted, and also when assistance was not given. This is a positive snapshot that I can use to help determine where to go next. The versatility provides opportunities for better client assistance.

Cons

The Charity Tracker software for "SEARCH ENGINE' is cumbersome to actually search for clients with common names and is prone to allow duplicates to be added constantly. Sometimes confidentiality can become a concern when it come to clients personal info.

Amazing

A lot of our non-profits have been taken advantage of when clients go from agency to agency. In the past agency didn't know if people were being helped. Now with Charity Tracker, we are informed if they have been helped or if their "friend" is trying to also get help down the street. With Charity Tracker being live we can tell if they are being help right away.

Pros

How easy it is to use and how easy it is to teach someone to use. It is a forgiving program, but the best part is that the only person who can delete anything is the Network Admin. Also it help non-profits be better steward with the funding they receive.

Cons

Sometimes we don't get all the information that we are needing from a report. It might be user error or the system is not giving us the information we tell it we need.

Charity Tracker is very useful and generally quite easy to use.

It makes tracking the assistance clients get from various agencies very easy to track and access, its a crucial part of what we do.

Pros

The ability to track clients relationships, services received, and dates of visits with a quick and simple search is extremely helpful. Also, creating reports is simple yet comprehensive. These features allow us to work with our clients efficiently as well as to work with other agencies to help solve more complicated problems.

Cons

1. Sometimes when you search a persons name they are not the first (or even among the first) people to show up. Even if their name is spelled correctly, for some reason other names come up, its weird. 2. When you enter the name, date, ss#, etc. in a search, then use that information to start a new account, some of the information you inputted into the search doesn't automatically populate on the fields for making a new account.

Data Entry

There are some days I seem to spend much more time searching for a client than necessary.

Pros

If you have enough information you can find any of our clients. It's much easier with DOB, if that has been entered correctly.

Cons

Your program brings up a clients with DOB or Name;however , if the name must be exactly the same as entered with lower and upper case. If a mistake is made using a lower case instead of upper case I may have to search through several pages of similar names. I wish it was programmed so that either case was pulled up to the top of the list. Also it would be helpful if it could bring up similar spellings. People often change spellings of names today;again, this has to be exact for no match at all.

It is God-given for our ministry--Next Steps--because in Outcomes we track goals and next steps.

In Outcomes, we track the goals and next steps of the people we help.

Pros

Outcomes allows us to track goals and next steps of the people we serve. Everything is easy to access and fast. It is succinct. Having a photograph is very helpful. We appreciate that it is password protected. The email five days before a next step is due is very helpful. We like being able to limit some Notes just to our organization. It is free because Trident United Way pays for us to use Charity Tracker Plus. We have about 100 users.

Cons

The reports section is very complicated and we don't think it helps us measure progress in Outcomes and relate Outcomes variables to other variables such as those in personal Data.

I use Charity Tracker everyday in my case management job and I love how easy it is to use.

I get the benefits of case history and case management. I also get the benefits of having a better idea of the types of clients I serve and what services are most used. Based on this information I can tailor programs and services to make sure I'm being an effective service provider to help the most clients. I also get the benefit of training and great customer service when and if I have a problem.

Pros

The functionality is so easy. Its always up-to-date. System manipulation makes me efficient and keeps my funders happy. I love being able to generate reports right on the screen. It really does help me do my job that much better.

Cons

The only thing I don't like about the system is the search feature is so matter of fact. I wish it had a built in smart system like google.

We really like the software. It is easy to use and understand.

The ability to track our benevolence help we provide to the community. We need to keep accurate records of who we help and how we helped them in order to be good stewards of the funds we have available.

Pros

Ease of use. Search capability is great. Being able to access the data away from the office and also update it makes it great for our needs. We entered all of our case history into the program and use it exclusively for our benevolence tracking needs at church. We like it so much we have two accounts. One for our own church records and also belong to the local group.

Cons

I could see where a little more customization would help us. Customer service was able to help meet most of our needs and made some changes for us.

Charity Tracker has been perfect for our organization. Right functionality and right price!

We got a case management system that was managed in the cloud, at a price point we could afford. This system is the foundation of how we manage our foundation's business of giving out grants.

Pros

The ease of use and the price. I was able to train my fellow board members easily and get them up to speed quickly. Also, the price is scalable and affordable for our organization. We are 100% volunteer, so we don't spend money easily, but it has been a great investment for us.

Cons

There are a few modifications that I would like for us to have, but I don't want to get the software customized as it won't be easily upgradeable. Also, the reports are not quite as easy as I would like, so we don't use them as much as we could.

The site seems to be up almost all of the time. I haven't run into any software glitches.

More information about the clients that are asking for help as well as the clients we have helped.

Pros

Having it available 24/7 and having it available on phones as well as computer. Being able to track clients across conferences boundaries. Being able to make notes for the next time a client calls. Being able to see what client other volunteers are helping. Getting reports on what we have done during a month for bulletin notices (letting our donors know where there money is going).

Cons

I would like more explanation about the meaning of fields in the report. For example there is field that is called Total Assistance but it isn't the total of the dollars spent so what is it?

Charity Tracker has done everything it promised and more.

We are able to help more people because we are able to see at a glance the needs our clients have. And, we get to see who helped them and what they helped them with.

Pros

It is very user friendly. We can communicate without getting bogged down with the details. They are already available. Other agencies can benefit from the information we receive on our clients. It's not just a weeding out process but it is a better way to help those in our community.

Cons

When only a few agencies are actually entering data on Charity Tracker. Sometimes putting all the information on CT is time consuming. Maybe a QR code segment where agencies can take a simple application and load it onto CT.

I like the ease of the use of charity tracker. It is a great system that keeps client's notes.

Pros

I like that you can attached items and connect across client files. I like the assistance tracking. It is easy to record notes.

Cons

I wish there was a way to keep track on how much the assistance the client has. Like a checking account. This would allow us to us the barcode system with our food pantry without clients going into negative if they do not have the money there. We give our clients factory dollars that they can use for our food pantry. While we record the amount we give them, there is no way to record that they have used that at our food pantry. Such as know what their balance is. I also would like the assessment piece to be separate for each individual. I have noticed when family members are connected and we use the stability scale for one individual it automatically attaches to the other family members that are connected to that individual. It shows as a second stability scale when I put another one into assessment for another family member.

The most affordable, accurate tool we have ever had!

Great reporting capability, easy to use instructions, online access from anywhere

Pros

This software allows our organization the ability to keep track of who is receiving services and why they are returning for additional support. We are focusing on breaking the cycle of dependency and this is the most affordable, accurate tool we have run across to help aid in this goal. Worth every penny we spend and then some. Everytime I need help or have a question, their staff is available and extremely friendly. I'm not looking for any other product at this time or in the near future because I truly feel we have found the best tool available.

Charity Tracker Review

Charity tracker helps with knowing what kinds of assistance your client has used in the past and whether or not you could provide services that would benefit them more. It solves the problem of chronic assistance which helps your business save time and money.

Pros

ease of use and information quality.It can give you other resources in the community that you may not have otherwise been aware of.

Cons

having to put in same info for minor children that is not needed since most children are not employed.Most children live at home with parent so it is time consuming to put in all the same info as you do the parent.

We have been Very Pleased with the ease of use and the responsiveness and support

The ability to track what services or items have been given when evaluating a need and the ability to issue alerts when location is needed or welfare is questioned or other concern.

Pros

The ability to track services given to an individual when evaluating a need as well as the ability to locate an individual by adding an Alert to his information.

Cons

The inability to interact with other organizations out of our specific network - a real barrier when we cover an entire area the size of the DFW - Very Frustrating, a WISH would be a statewide network - we deal with a transient population daily and this is a real need for us. Thank you for the added 'Next of Kin' field we requested.