OneCause (formerly BidPal) Software

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.

Pros

I think the customer service is great with OneCause. I have specific people assigned to help me but if it is out of normal business hours I can call the support line and they will help walk me through any process. I also really like the mobile bidding feature, this has become 1st hand to all of our donors and really make the process easier for everyone.

Pros

OneCause enables nonprofits, schools, churches and more to use several different fundraising tools to raise awareness about your mission and organization. Not only is their software simple to use (my tech skills are minimal!), their customer support is amazing. You might think you cannot afford this type of software if you are a nonprofit but by using very 'a-la-carte' pricing model, it is now affordable to raise the fundraising bar to meet your goals! I am a strong advocate for this product!

All the details of my event in one place, ease of creating reports, great organization of a silent auction, ability to assign (and change right up to the even time) bidder numbers, a nice-looking site to promote auction items ahead of time, support onsite at the event and after the event, and -- perhaps most important-- support whenever I needed it on the phone.

Pros

The customer support. They have a team that is nearly always immediately available, and can answer almost any question. If they can't they figure it out with you on the phone, or confer with others and call you right back. They are wonderful.

Cons

The complicated way that money is handled. It's not their fault, though. It is simploy complicated. I think they have a gret product. It is up to the user to be sure they fully understand what to do during and after an event -- and this is worth going over with support before the event.

Pros

Ease of use. End user friendly. Variety of reports to review your results. Stock letters, forms, print aids are great!

Cons

Would love to see a button that adds all silent auction item proceeds as bids are placed. We were able to come up with an easy work around for it though.

Everything is pretty self explanatory but before inputting data, you must make sure your excel data sheet is perfectly up to date or data will be uploaded incorrectly.

Pros

I like how hands on the staff at OneCause are, they consistently check-in to make sure you are prepared for your upcoming event and are diligent about reviewing the data entered into your page to make sure the day of goes seamlessly.

It helped us set a record for our annual fund raiser. Initially we were concerned about the cost, but in the end the program allowed us to make more than enough to exceed past years numbers and pay for the license.

Pros

The support was immediate, detailed and with caring followup. The support staff was very professional. The accounting features, the sign in procedures and the software for the silent and live auctions were superb. We were extremely happy with the program.

This software was invaluable in providing the timely access to bidding on our fundraiser. We had over 500 packages available and over 5000 total bids. The scoreboards were easily integrated into the video displays and AV equipment. This software assisted in a volunteer group pulling off a very professional silent auction and live auction.

Pros

I appreciate the checklist and the tutorial videos. The tools to build an engaging fundraising interface are intuitive and capable.

Cons

The import tools are very handy but they do not yet contain full functionality. A second import of updated supporters actually creates a second entry rather than an update to an existing entry.

I think we raised more money because of this electronic solution.

Pros

easy to use. support was great. having someone on site was critical. when the scheduled person couldn't make it a back up was right there

Cons

the software took some training but made sense once trained. loading and learning the registration process was confusing, smartpay anywhere was confusing.