All CanadaHelps Reviews

1-19 of 19 Reviews

Sort by

Reviews are by default sorted by Recommended to software buyers, driven by our proprietary algorithm reflecting the depth and quality of the review, recency of experience, and other factors. As a neutral reviews platform, the star rating of the review is not considered in the "Recommended" ranking, and there is currently no voting mechanism that would allow site visitors to influence the ranking.
User Profile

Alistair

Verified reviewer

Higher Education, 11-50 employees

Used weekly for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2021

Another Home Run for CanadaHelps

The CanadaHelps team has been an incredible partner and a significant resource for our charity. They are personable, responsive and capable. We feel privileged to have a partner that truly "gets" the charitable sector, understands our challenges and promotes our causes.

PROS

Modern, intuitive, powerful, backed by a technical and customer service team that is second to none.

CONS

The Opportunities tab has lots of room for development as a recurring grant management tool.

Reasons for switching to CanadaHelps

We had been early adopters of Silent Partner. It was getting old and clunky. It had been taken over and improved by Sumac but, as delighted users of the CanadaHelps charity platform, we wanted to leverage its benefits into a new DMS. Further, we were able to do a historic (20 year) data conversion into the DMS.

Vendor Response

Thank you for leaving a review Alistair, our Product Team always appreciate your thoughtful feedback. We are so happy to hear that you regard us as a partner and the feelings are mutual - we look forward to our continued partnership!

Replied September 2021

Roxanne

Libraries, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2021

CanadaHelps DMS review from The Children's Book Bank

I was part of the planning and the beta-testing of the DMS. It was a fun experience and really great to be a part of this new feature of CanadaHelps from the start.

PROS

So far the DMS has been very helpful for our team to organize and execute fundraising campaigns - including the MailChimp integration. We also like being able to process a cc donation, issue a tax receipt and know that all the information is already logged into our system.

CONS

It would be nice to have a monthly payment feature for the DMS - the once a year payment can be hefty, especially for smaller organizations. There are still some bugs - duplicate contacts from importing our original lists. But over time these kinds of bugs get worked out.

Reasons for switching to CanadaHelps

We weren't using Sumac enough and it was not terribly user-friendly, especially when it came to pulling contact lists.

Vendor Response

Hello Roxanne, thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We're happy to hear you found the DMS helpful for organizing and executing your fundraising campaigns. We have noted the demand for monthly payment options and are looking into ways to make the DMS more accessible in this regard. Thanks again for leaving your feedback.

Replied November 2021

Maude

Non-Profit Organization Management, 1 employee

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

1

EASE OF USE

1

VALUE FOR MONEY

1

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

1

FUNCTIONALITY

1

Reviewed January 2024

CanadaHelps helps itself

My experience with CanadaHelps has been that I feel that they help themself more than they help our organization. Their automatic grab of a portion of any donations to the organization doesn't help us at all. Once a year, they 'share the wealth' with organizations that push their giving platform. However, if they can afford to do that once a year, they could reduce/eliminate their fees to organizations by asking for donations to their platform as other platforms do. We are moving our fundraising to another platform altogether.

PROS

It is a trusted name in fundraising for Canadian non-profit organizations. As such, Canadians, as a whole, trust it to be legitimate site to donate to various Canadian organizations.

CONS

The customer service was completely lacking. Any attempts to reach customer service have resulted in poor response.

Vendor Response

Hello Maude, We are sorry to hear you have not had a good experience. We try our best to resolve any difficulties charities have. If you have any outstanding issues or specific concerns, please let us know at info@canadahelps.org or (877) 755-1595. In regards to fees, we charge 2-5% for donation processing, (including all other fees such as credit card etc.), depending on the type of donation. We try to be as transparent as possible about the fees and they go towards helping to sustain CanadaHelps so we can continue to provide charities with affordable access to online fundraising and educational tools. Occasionally, we run promotions to support giving in Canada such as a 1% top-up etc. We're sorry we didn't meet your expectations but we wish you all the best in your future fundraising!

Replied January 2024

Kimberley

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2021

Quick customer service

Sending out our newsletter to over 1400 people is easy and efficient. This is much improved from the system we were using before.

PROS

This software is easy to use. It makes sending out our quarterly newsletter fast and efficient. Responding to donors from the Donor Management System is a breeze as is the ability to customize letters. I would highly recommend the CanadaHelps system to colleagues.

CONS

It can be difficult to customize reports and the information I have to sift through is very extensive.

Reasons for switching to CanadaHelps

We wanted a product that we could use for multiple uses. Donor management, mailings, custom group emails, accounting.

Vendor Response

Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review Kimberley! It's great to hear that we're helping to make things like donor communication easier for your organization and that you would recommend the DMS. We have heard your feedback and improving the reports is in the pipeline! Thanks again for this feedback.

Replied September 2021

David

Defense & Space, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2021

Guild of the Royal Canadian Dragoons

We looked at commercial software and we stumbled across the DMS after asking CanadaHelps if they knew of a a provider. Perfect solution for our charity given those who work for us are located across Canada. We needed something simple to understand, cloud based and flexible.

PROS

Ease of use, cost, flexibility and support .

CONS

Took a little while to become comfortable using it - takes time to learn anything!

Reason for choosing CanadaHelps

We looked at commercial software and we stumbled across the DMS after asking CanadaHelps if they knew of a a provider. Perfect solution for our charity given those who work for us are located across Canada. We needed something simple to understand, cloud based and flexible.

Vendor Response

Thank you Dave for leaving a review. We're proud to be serving Canada's charitable sector. We look forward to continuing to support you and the Guild of the Royal Canadian Dragoons.

Replied October 2021

Marta

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed July 2023

This is the product for your organziation!

PROS

What I liked most about CanadaHelps is its user-friendly platform that makes it easy for individuals and organizations to donate to a wide range of Canadian charities. The website provides a simple and secure way to contribute to causes that matter to me, and I appreciated the diverse options available, allowing me to support various charitable initiatives with just a few clicks.Furthermore, CanadaHelps offers valuable resources and information about the charities they partner with, enabling users to make informed decisions about their donations. The platform's transparency and commitment to accountability also gave me confidence in the legitimacy of the organizations listed.

CONS

Firstly, the transaction fees could be seen as a drawback, as I wished more of my donation would directly benefit the charities I supported. Secondly, the search options sometimes felt limited, making it challenging to find specific or smaller charitable organizations I wanted to contribute to. Moreover, while CanadaHelps provides information about the charities, I desired more comprehensive profiles with detailed impact reports and financial breakdowns to make more informed decisions. Lastly, occasional technical glitches or interface issues affected my overall user experience, and I preferred a smoother donation process.

Danielle

Sports, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2021

Happy with the switch!

We're really enjoying it and look forward to the improvements that are to come that we don't even know we need yet. We are so happy with the way Canada Helps has taken our feedback to make the system better and I would recommend it to any small charity in a heartbeat.

PROS

As a charity that uses CanadaHelps.org to collect donations, I love that the Canada Helps DMS has a seamless connection to the .org. Our previous CRM did not interact with CanadaHelps.org which led to a lot (I mean a lot) of manual inputting of gifts (including every recurring monthly gift). We also love that Canada Helps DMS is a lot cleaner than our old software, it's relatively user-friendly, and only gets better with time. We have greatly benefitted from the support of our main contact who onboarded our team to the system, and continue to ask questions as they come up. Canada Helps DMS is eager to make our experience as a charity better, and are very open to feedback/suggestions of how to make the product better for charities.

CONS

As with anything new, it took some time to get on board with the DMS, and Canada Helps was still tweaking things to make the system better. It is in a much better place now after working on some improvements, and was WELL worth the time to switch from our old system.

Reasons for switching to CanadaHelps

Our old system was clunky, impossible to get a hold of someone when you needed support on any given issue, and it was too expensive for how we were utilizing it.

Vendor Response

Hi Danielle, thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We're so happy to hear you're enjoying our fundraising tools and DMS. We've definitely come a long way and will continue to take feedback from our charity partners! We have many features and improvements in store.

Replied September 2021

Cecile

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed December 2021

Excellent donor management system for charities

The DMS from Canada Helps is very user-friendly and has all features a charity needs to have in order to manage donor information and to support communication regarding donor stewardship. The DMS team members provide excellent training and outstanding customer service. They are friendly and attentive, respond promptly on questions and concerns, and go above and beyond to help find a solution. We have received exceptional support, even outside of business hours!

PROS

The great things about this software are the donation forms, emails can be sent out of DMS (individual and groups), the ease of batch adding contributions and issuing tax receipts.

CONS

Managing groups is a bit tricky when it comes to combining some groups as one group, but we found a way by creating a "smart group" and setting ‘parent’ and ‘child’ groups. There is no integration with Quickbooks Online and regarding tax receipts - it is a challenge in the back end to have to cancel a tax receipt (e.g., if an address has changed), then re-add every single contribution, then re-issue a new tax receipt.

Reason for choosing CanadaHelps

Interaction with the CanadaHelps team over the years and in comparison to other systems this DMS provides us everything we need for a great price.

Reasons for switching to CanadaHelps

CH DMS has more features to manage our donors properly.

Michaela

Hospital & Health Care, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed March 2023

Townsend Smith Foundation Review

Overall, my experience with Canada Helps has been positive. It is a great system with many tools to help us with our events, fundraising and operations.

PROS

One of the positives of Canada Helps, is the customer service representatives. I find that they are amazing at helping you navigate the system, and they get back to you very quickly. I like how easy it is to use the system and keep track of all of the donations and donors.

CONS

There are some things that could be improved. We have challenges with consolidating two contacts that are the same. I think it would be helpful to have more tutorials available on your website. When it comes to event pages, I think the ability to Link a P2P to the event page should be clearer as an option. I think that the welcome page for the organization can use some improvement as well, maybe more options for visual representation.

Vendor Response

Hello Michaela, thank you for taking the time to write us a review. Happy to hear that you find the customer support helpful and that the overall experience has been positive. We are working on building out more learning resources and features for the DMS and your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Replied March 2023

Arienne

Fund-Raising, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed October 2023

CanadaHelps

PROS

I do really love this platform. It is really easy to use to track and record donations. It easily allows you to communicate with your donors as well.

CONS

The reporting can be a bit challenging depending on your experience and expertise in exactly what you need and want to pull.

Vendor Response

Hello Arienne; thank you for leaving a review! We're glad you're enjoying the platform. Let us know which parts of reporting you're finding challenging and we can look into making resources around this or simplifying the process. Do reach out to us at charitylife@canadahelps.org to continue the conversation.

Replied October 2023

Zeeshanali

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2022

Acceptable but as a complementary service

It is a great platform however cannot be the sole system to manage all the needs of a not-for-profit.

PROS

Simple to use and easy to customize. Easy for receipt management!

CONS

Less donor management and customizable CRM.

Reason for choosing CanadaHelps

This is one source amongst using our own credit card processing system and online platform.

Vendor Response

Hello Zeeshanali, thank you for your review. We are happy to hear you find our platform helpful for managing your receipt management. We understand you are looking for more features to bring our DMS to the next level - we hear you and we are constantly working to improve our solution.

Replied December 2022

Kathy

Public Relations and Communications, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2021

New to DMSing

We are able to start generating regular newsletter and fundraising campaigns with greater ease. The on boarding process was longer than expected but the support staff have been great in helping us get to where we need to go.

PROS

It is great to have all our contacts in one place. There is a steep learning curve but I am hopeful it will be worth all the effort! I am grateful for the super support staff helping us along.

CONS

We are working to create new business processes around the DMS. There are a few key part of the software that I would like to see improved including uploading new contacts in bulk (without having to use another email communication program). The placement of 'unsubcribe' feature of the bulk email templates needs to become more flexible so people are unsubscribing to communication without taking the time to even scan it.

Reason for choosing CanadaHelps

We chose CH DMS because we were already using CH for our donations.

Vendor Response

Hi Kathy, thank you so much for leaving us a review. We're happy to hear our support team is helping you with the learning curve, that's what we're here for. Also great to hear that newsletter and fundraising campaigns have gotten easier with the CanadaHelps DMS. The feedback you are providing us is very useful. I'm happy to share that we are working on a bulk import tool for the DMS in the near future and the placement of the unsubscribe position should be fixed this or next week so stay tuned! Do reach out to us if you have any other feedback. Thanks again for taking the time to leave a review.

Replied November 2021

Theresa

Food & Beverages, 11-50 employees

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed October 2023

A Great Platform for Attracting Donors

PROS

Ease of use, a lot of free resources (webinars, online features), being non-profit

CONS

It's not easy to find some menu items. Some of them are in the menu bar at the top (e.g., Donation Management), and some of the items are on the page (e.g., Profile). It would be nice for them to be in a single menu bar.

Reason for choosing CanadaHelps

It was widely used, and it is non-profit.

Vendor Response

Hi Theresa, thanks for taking the time to leave us a review! Great to hear you are enjoying the free resources; our team works hard to produce webinars, blogs and whitepapers for charities. Thanks for the feedback on the navigation. I'm wondering which page you see this on so I can pass this on to our product team. Could you reach out to charitylife@canadahelps.org?

Replied October 2023

Tyler

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2021

Great for tracking donors

PROS

The software is able to track and organize donations of individuals who contribute to our organization. In addition, the simplicity to send thank you messages is great along with sending taxable receipts.

CONS

However we are still learning how smart lists operate and there ability to automatically add individuals to the lists. Finally large donor importing is not available at this time so you must manually enter one individual at a time. We are looking forward to CSV data batch input when that feature is available.

Vendor Response

Thank you for the transparent feedback Tyler! We look forward to supporting you and your team with the CanadaHelps DMS. We have batch imports on the roadmap and are excited to work on the best importing solution out there.

Replied September 2021

Gracia

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed November 2021

DMS Review by a staff of CareImpact

It's been a great tool to communicate with our donors consistently

PROS

It was easy to migrate our existing contacts and it's very easy to contact the helpdesk with my queries. Also, I really liked the existing articles and videos to help with the use of the DMS. It has really educated me on how to use the DMS and what I can use the DMS for.

CONS

I think adding contacts into the DMS can get tedious when there is more than 1. Maybe a feature where we can import in contacts using a csv file would be useful. Also, having different tiers of access would benefit our organization as we don't want all our staff to have access to the entire DMS.

Vendor Response

Hi Gracia, thank you very much for leaving a review. We're glad that you find the support for our DMS helpful. We are working on more content to support charities using our DMS and spreading the word so more charities know how a DMS can benefit them! We hear you on the cons and we are thinking about these pieces - I can let you know a bulk import tool is on our roadmap. We look forward to continuing to support you and your team at CareImpact!

Replied November 2021

Natashia

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2021

A great Donor Management System

PROS

The site is easy to use, and looks very nice. I like how the donor management system is organized and how I can easily view a donor past contributions with the the click of one button. The automatic contribution reports are easy to read as well.

CONS

I like everything this Donor Management System has to offer, and have yet to find an option that doesn't work for me.

Vendor Response

Hi Natashia, thank you for leaving a review! It's great to hear that you are enjoying the use of the CanadaHelps DMS. We appreciate our partnership and look forward to continuing to support you and your organization.

Replied September 2021

Pat

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed July 2023

Nice Product

Great and I have recommended it to another non-profit board of directors

PROS

Using Canada Helps saves time for our employee as well as our volunteers that help out.

CONS

I would like to see a monthly report of what was given and a comparison to either last year same month, or overall

Vendor Response

Hi Pat, thanks so much for leaving us a review and recommending CanadaHelps to other nonprofit boards! We're glad it's saving you time. You can actually access monthly reports and other donor information inside your Charity Account by going to "Donation Reports" and then "Donor Insights." Please reach out to us at info@canadahelps.org if you need further direction on accessing that.

Replied July 2023

Oralee

Museums and Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used monthly for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed July 2023

Great tool for non-profits

We have been able to attract a couple of monthly donors which we've never had before.

PROS

The Canada Helps site is easy to use and very helpful. Lots of features even if you are not paying. It has made it possible for us to get repeat donors more easily.

CONS

I wish there were some downloadable and printable templates and instructions to give people for automatic donations

Vendor Response

Thank you for leaving a review Oralee! We're glad you're finding CanadaHelps easy to use and have even attracted monthly donors which can provide more steady revenue for charities. We will definitely look into creating more resources that charities can send out to donors and are hoping to launch a learning hub full of charity resources shortly.

Replied July 2023

David C

Arts and Crafts, 2-10 employees

Used monthly for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2021

Converted from homegrown legacy system which has become outgrown.

Excellent support for our conversion.

PROS

Ease of use, integration with our Accounting System (Sage).

CONS

Just beginning to explore, now that we have converted history.

Reason for choosing CanadaHelps

Focused on Charities and ease of use. CRM's do not have ability to handle donations of securities.

Reasons for switching to CanadaHelps

Flexible enough to provide tools to integrate with our accounting package. No Interfaces necessary, since we found homes for critical linking data fields.

Vendor Response

Hello Dave, thank you for leaving a review! We are glad you are enjoying the use of the CanadaHelps DMS and the donations of securities feature so far. We look forward to supporting you and your charity as you continue to grow and explore our DMS.

Replied September 2021

Showing 1 - 19 of 19 Reviews