Greater Giving Reviews

Review of Greater Giving Software

Comments: This software has allowed us to take our annual auction to the next level and it has allowed us to grow our bidder pool to include people who aren't able to attend the live event. It has helped increase our profits.

Pros:

I like how easy the software is to use and our guests find it easy as well. The customer support is wonderful.

Cons:

I am not a fan of how the image downloading is set up. We shouldn't have to do so much to configure our images to fit. I also would like to see a feature added that would save time when entering packages. I would like to have the option to enter in an item number when adding items to packages, not just words. When you have multiple people getting packages ready, not everyone uses the same wording and it is putsy and annoying to have to go out of Packages and into Items to find what I'm looking for if I don't use the same words that someone else used to identify an item. If you are going to have us assign numbers, maximize that. Elsewhere in the software, you have the capability to look up package numbers and item numbers.

Great Asset to our Auction!

Comments: There was so much to learn as auction manager/admin but using the help and taking it step by step was a remarkable journey. Our event is biennial and coming back 18 months later was much easier knowing the staff and help center were prepared to assist.

Pros:

The help videos, links, and articles are essential and extremely well put together. Help chat was helpful too but mostly satisfied by the self-help videos and articles. Software is very well organized and not difficult to learn and manage; help chat is always there with a quick solution to your problem.

Cons:

I found absolutely nothing wrong with the product.

Hard to use and expensive for nonprofits

Comments: If you can afford GG and the additional assistance, it can be worth it, but for small nonprofits I would not recommend.

Pros:

Customer support was useful when we needed help and there is an option to pay to have someone on site who can do a lot of the day-of work for you **for an additional cost

Cons:

GG is difficult to use and not very intuitive. It is also expensive when compared with competitors.

Great tool for our annual GALA fundraiser

Comments: Overall, great experience. I have used Greater Giving for years and specifically, appreciate the customer service. Questions are answered in a timely fashion by knowledgeable representatives. This makes my job so much easier when we are in the throes of putting on a GALA! Thank you Greater Giving.

Pros:

Very helpful that we can go back to this product each year - our database is maintained. Our employees are trained on the product and able to pick it up quickly or train new volunteers.

Cons:

The sales/payment reporting function is cumbersome. Wish the details were itemized on the emailed statement rather than having to log in and pull reports.

Would recommend!

Pros:

It's user friendly and the donor-facing software is intuitive even for less confident users. Of all of the software platforms I have used, Greater Giving by far has the best help/support features and chat. I don't think I've ever waited more than 2 minutes for a response to a question.

Cons:

It would be nice to have a little more customization opportunity in the event building on the back end. But overall it works for what we need.

Greater Giving Event Software

Comments: Overall it is a still a great software that has great functions and so far is the best I have used to run a large silent auction 50 items plus.

Pros:

The software purchase covers features dealing with ticket sales, silent auction bids, community partners, sponsorship purchases and can safely store credit card information. Also, if your organization hosts more than one event per year you can add several events and track for no extra cost and store all donor information for those events.

Cons:

The ease of use of this program is lacking. It is a bit confusing to run reports. It also doesn't make it very easy to set a Max capacity for an event and have it close down automatically. Someone has to go in and do so, or at least this is the experience we found. Also, you can only attach one checking/banking account to the software so if you have two large events and two separate accounts for them in order to use the software without having to repurchase you must stick to the one account.

Greater Giving Review

Comments: Like stated before Greater Giving is an amazing software and it makes it very easy to run your event through it. You are able to easily track ticket sales, input silent auction items, sell silent auction items, store vendor/partner information.

Pros:

I love the easy access to those working with you (staff) and later for those using the Silent Auction feature the ease for those that sign up to be able to see the items and receive notifactions.

Cons:

Overall it is a great product. There are a few kinks for example while adding your credit card via picture for those participating in the silent auction the information doesn't get put in exactly correct which causes for the process to take longer and the registration to be more difficult. At an event in which people are moving around and with an older crowd making the registration as easy and less time consuming would be more beneficial.

Easy to use and awesome system!

Comments: Our overall experience has been wonderful.

Pros:

Greater Giving is pretty great. We have used it for a large annual fundraising event for several years. It helps keep all attendees and donors organized, helps us run night-of-event tasks smoothly (check in, check out, charging cards, etc). My favorite part is that volunteers who work the event are able to be trained in less than five minutes to check in attendees, enter sale, and check out attendees. Extremely user friendly.

Cons:

There is a cost, but there would be a cost with any system used to accept credit cards. The added benefit of using Greater Giving to run the event has allowed us to grow our fundraiser, and this year we set a record for the event, in terms of number of attendees as well as funds raised.

More features this year...they seem to be focusing on Auctions

Comments: It's getting better as an auction platform. They recently added a lot more functionality and updated the look and feel. They are also doing a better job with training and calls, esp. they quarterly update calls.

Pros:

We use Greater Giving for our online and in person auction. Auction software is such a niche market, we had to purchase this for fundraising purposes.

Cons:

No longer use it for other fundraising since it was cumbersome and clunky. While they have templates there are SO MANY screens to click through to get the data you need.

A solid product but expensive

Comments: Overall, Greater Giving is a solid event management platform for beginners but if you do multiple events a year or are advanced in this type of software, I would pass and look for something else.

Pros:

This software is fairly straightforward to use for event management. It is pretty intuitive for a beginner user but anything moderately advanced requires some additional training. Customer service is pretty responsive and help articles are informative and easy to find the topics you are looking for. I particularly like how easy it is to assign people to tables on the back end.

Cons:

Overall, this software feels outdated to me, compared to other software. Some things- like logo placement on an event page- cannot be changed. In fact, I feel all the functions on the event page are not as customizable as they could be. It doesn't follow the flow or feel of our website and looks out of place. Payment processing fees are high. The back end is fairly simplistic.

Nearly always intuitive to use, outstanding customer service for the times that it isn't.

Pros:

Like many non-profits, we transitioned to an online platform during COVID but are now 'hybrid' with an online silent auction but live in person event. I was not on the team that selected GG for our first COVID/online event, but it was a wise choice. Honestly, I only use it now for the 4-5 months leading up to our annual event so there's always a little bit of time relearning things which have slipped from memory! It can be tricky to remember all of the operational details when you're not using it on a routine basis. As the title of my review says tho, for the times when operations aren't intuitive, customer service is always VERY helpful and gets me back on track in short order.

Cons:

At first I spent loads of time searching online help which I found wasn't very specific, so now I go straight to online support which took care of that problem : )

Grateful for Greater Giving

Pros:

I appreciate all the features offered by Greater Giving for managing our fundraising events. It’s user friendly and makes my job easier. I have used it at a small non-profit and large organization, it works well for all sizes of events too.

Cons:

The fee structure can feel expensive on smaller events.

Recommend Greater Giving for nonprofit events management

Comments: I have used Greater Giving for the past three years to manage our agency's gala. Last year, we added the mobile bidding component. When we jumped from 'paper' to Greater Giving in 2012, our goal was to make our guests' experiences at the gala as painless as possible. We also wanted to make it easier to manage for the volunteer leadership in our cash out room. With the help of Greater Giving, our gala has become one of the best in Rochester, NY. We have over 700 guests that register quickly and easily, and most who choose to pre-swipe a credit card, making the check out process no longer a necessity at the end of the evening. Our auctions have grown, and the return on value as gone from 55% to 78% last year - the first time we used mobile bidding. The Greater Giving service team has been exceptional, often responding the same day when contacted, always by the end of the next business day. Greater Giving has many layers and takes time to truly understand all that it can do to help with your events. However, it is easy to understand, and the time invested will pay off with happy attendees and volunteers and significant growth in amount raised. I highly recommend this product for anyone looking to increase revenue at an event and enhance the experiences of the attendees

Great Software for more than just Auctions

Comments: Overall, it has been a very positive 10+ years working with Greater Giving. As the years have gone by it has become more and more value added.

Pros:

I love the capability to produce websites where tickets can be purchased and it can be used for so many different platform. We use it for T-Shirt Sales in the summer, Golf Tournament in the Fall, Donation Tracking, and for our major Fundraising Auction yearly in the spring.

Cons:

There are some Day of Auction Glitches, like logging people out of the system and screens freezing during bidding.

Greater Giving is not so great.

Comments: Frustrating.

Pros:

The best part of Greater Giving for auctions is the cost; but you get what you pay for.

Cons:

Trying to pull out the reporting information needed is very difficult. It is very evident this software was not created for auctions!

GG review

Pros:

relatively user friendly, basic functionality, good value for the low cost of the product, customer service was prompt

Cons:

customer service answers varied in accuracy and helpfulness, software is somewhat clunky to use, dated looking

Simple Event Software

Comments: We have used this company for years and will continue on.

Pros:

Greater Giving made the event process so much easier with transitioning into an online event during Covid. We were still able to host a fundraising event and families could still participate from the comforts on their home.

Cons:

We have not had too many issues with Greater Giving.

Greater Giving Review

Pros:

I like the Customer Support and I like the standard reporting otpions.

Cons:

I think it is VERY hard to navigate and very hard to set up a set. I feel the program is outdated and needs to be more admin user friendly.

Greater Giving is great for nonprofit fundraising

Pros:

We use Greater Giving to track our events and it is very convenient. The card readers and system help us keep track of and charge donors immediately.

Cons:

It isn't as intuitive as I would like but still works well.

Great auction platform

Comments: The customer service is very friendly and timely, the auction platform is superior to many others.

Pros:

The auction portion of this product is really great. I've used this for many events and it is very efficient. Ticketed events are easy to set up, and you can really customize your event pages to your liking.

Cons:

The reporting and export features work ok, but could be more robust. They have a mobil bidding platform, but that could also use more advancements as well.

Too difficult for average volunteers

Comments: Greater Giving is very feature-rich. Too feature-rich for my needs, it turns out. We are a small private school and used Greater Giving for 2 years for an annual gala with an auction as well as a Fun Run fundraiser. I liked the flexibility to customize reports and printed materials, but the way it handled auction items was extremely time to consume. You are required to enter each thing as a single item, then create a package. It didn't matter if it really was a package of 2 or 3 items or if it was just one thing - everything had to end up a package. That basically doubled the amount of data entry for me. I found the program far too difficult to use with volunteers - way too much of a learning curve. I did really like the event-night software and found it easy to use, even with the volunteers.

Another great event with the help of Greater Giving!

Comments: I have used Greater Giving's Event Software and mobile bidding platform for the past several years and just finished my largest gala event yet - with over 400 people attending - and I don't know how I could have done so without it! From tracking all of my items and packages, to assigning guests to tables, viewing their purchases and organizing mobile bidding and a text to give campaign, it makes me look like a pro. My volunteers love it, my guests appreciate the ease with which they check in and check out, and I find the system itself to be very user friendly. And for those rare times when I can't figure it out myself, chat support is fabulous! I have recommended this software to several colleagues and will continue to do so.

Greater Giving has helped make our event process easier.

Pros:

It helps keep us organized when we plan for events and the online auction feature is fun to use and helps us raise more money then we could if we did it with paper bid sheets.

Cons:

The reports are hard to use and hard to customize and the event website it limited in what you can do with it. I wish there was more flexibility in the design aspect.

Great Event Management Software

Comments: Greater Giving provides all the functionality we need at a very reasonable price. The event registration and check-in/check-out process is easy and much appreciated by our guests. Silent auction online bidding has become very popular, and we've seen a dramatic increase in the amount of money raised through the auctions.

Pros:

Nice set of features for the cost. Online auctions have been a tremendous benefit for our organization

Cons:

Admin interface is sometimes difficult to work with, and could use a redesign. Reporting is also a bit cumbersome.

Made an impression on our guests!

Comments: Using Greater Giving Express Pay allowed our guests to have a more seamless experience at our silent auction. Guests commented on how easy it was to participate in all aspects of the event using their bid number and not have to worry about standing in a checkout line at the end of the night. I wouldn't go back to using anything but this! As a small nonprofit, we are always looking to save money, so the price tag is a hurdle - but once you think about the gained revenue because your guests are focused on giving and not worries about check out - the price is worth it in increased revenue.

Pros:

Makes checkout seamless at silent auction event. You don't loose revenue trying to hunt down someone who bid but didn't pay at the end of the night.

Cons:

I'd love for it to be cheaper!