I began working with Giveffect from the very beginning when we were working on selecting a new CRM. Therefore I have worked with their sales, training, implementation/migration, and now support team. While there is a lot to learn with Giveffect due to how comprehensive the product is it has been an overall good experience with very minor hiccups.
Pros
The features that are the most impactful with Giveffect is that the volunteer and donation platform integrate seamlessly. I can easily look at a supporter's account and see how many hours and dollars they have donated to our organization. It's also very helpful that the event software and forms are integrated into the platform. The donation forms are easy to use and you can set up campaigns very quickly that will help increase support for your initiatives. We have also been impressed with the reporting feature - it has allowed us to track a lot of different analytics quickly that we weren't able to do with our previous CRM.
Cons
The feature that I like least about Giveffect is their email marketing - this feature needs serious attention and upgrades. It is lacking a lot of features that would really allow us to communicate better with our volunteers and donors. I'm hopeful they will implement drip campaigns in the near future. You also cannot embed videos into emails which is a huge downfall for storytelling.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
My overall experience has been great. I have a very lean staff and we all multitask. The software is intuitive. As a busy executive, I can login anywhere to get information. I wish I had more time to spend with the software. Currently I'm working to set up the data structure to better integrate with Quickbooks.
Pros
I found Giveffect in an online search when I took the new role of Director for Institutional Advancement at Los Angeles Community College District. In my role, I serve as the Executive Director for the non-profit auxiliary Foundation for the Los Angeles Community Colleges. Giveffect has been a life saver. It is easy to use and I love that the software has email capability, online giving, relationship management tracking and great reports.
Cons
The main downside it that at the basic price level, I don't have access to many of the other great processes. Wealth screening for example. I also wish the Spark Post was integrated a little better. It works well but requires signing into two accounts to manage.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
Since the membership system in Giveffect isn't as robust as we need, it is not the all-in-one solution we expected.
Pros
This software is easy to use, intuitive, and the knowledge base and on boarding are well done. After orientation and with the help of customer support, our team quickly got a handle on our average tasks. The CRM features are very easy to get at a glance overviews of donors & I feel that we have a better handle on our prospecting since switching to this software.
Cons
The data migration progress for us was glitchy in our membership. Their automation was one of the reasons we wanted to switch, however, their automation when it doesn't work correctly can be a nightmare. During migration, their system encountered a glitch that ended up emailing over 700 donors with information about their membership expiring, even when it wasn't. While you're given a 2 week review to make sure your data is correct, it is useless if something like this happens as the database is "live" and will communicate with donors for a glitch like this.
Our other issue is the membership module is quite basic and does not meet our needs. During our trial, we asked our sales rep about membership tiers to address the issue and she believed it was an easy fix. When we got to our transition in June, we questioned work arounds with our client success team. For 5 months, we have been chasing them down for answers. Their client success team and a separate feedback team keep promising that product team is working on a fix and deadlines pass with no communication and no fix. They have actively ghosted us on the issue now and it is appalling. They were promoted as incredibly responsive and were until we encountered a problem and now it just feels like we are being strung along for the duration of our 1st year contract. While software problems are to be expected the lack of customer service is awful and our biggest issue with this system.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 1/10
Giveffect has enabled me to attract and retain more volunteers than I ever thought possible.
Pros
I started used Giveffect with the start of a new job and was basically on my own to "get up to speed" and use the software optimally. It is really intuitive in its design and after viewing the relevant training videos, I was able to apply it's use to my daily workflow. For the first time, the branch I was working for was able to have volunteers sign up online, check in and out on an iPad, and have their hours tracked in real time. Anytime I needed a little help, the customer service team was available through the "Chat" feature and incredibly responsive and patient.
Cons
Honestly, I have suggested several changes or additions and often they implement the change with their next update. They are very open to suggestions and adopt them! Amazing!
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
GivEffect has been a tremendous time, energy, and cost savings to us over the past 5 years. I look forward to the new features and functions that they build out over the next 5 as we scale our organization.
Pros
We have been with GivEffect from the very beginning in 2015. We took a leap of faith with the platform and have had the opportunity to see it grow over the past 5 years from a simple software to something much more robust that more than fulfills our organizational needs. We are most impressed by the CRM and peer-to-peer fundraising features. With the CRM, there is so much capacity customization, automation, and segmentation. The peer-to-peer fundraising also allows great flexibility and automation all while still aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly.
Cons
The email WYSIWIG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) email editor is lackluster but it's understandable as GivEffect is not an email platform. I anticipate that they will make make the editor more customizable in the future.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Enterprise: from $1299/month
Ultimate: from $2299/month
Ultimate Plus: from $3999/month
All plans are billed annually.