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Bonterra Guided Fundraising vs SmarterSelect: Which is a better fit?

Updated on December 22nd, 2024
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Summary
Key features rated by users
Features selected based on 4,368 reviews from Nonprofit users.
% Fit
High performer
Feature ratings
For Nonprofits
4.8
Credit Card Processing
4.6
Electronic Payments
4.7
Donor Management
4.7
Fundraising Management
4.6
% Fit
Missing features
Not enough reviews
Feature ratings
For Nonprofits
--
Credit Card Processing
NA
Electronic Payments
--
Donor Management
NA
Fundraising Management
NA
User satisfaction
4.6
User reviews928
Ease of use
4.4
Functionality
4.4
Value for money
4.4
Customer support
4.6
4.4
User reviews233
Ease of use
4.1
Functionality
4.2
Value for money
4.5
Customer support
4.5
Price starts from
--
Monthly subscription
Free version
Free trial
Yearly subscription
Free version
Free trial
Best for

Bonterra Guided Fundraising (formerly Network for Good) helps small and growing nonprofits build strong donor relationships that advance their missions with simple, smart fundraising software.

Community foundations, private foundations, education foundations, associations, higher education organizations, corporations, etc.

User reviews
pros & cons
1 / 4
View Reviews
1 / 4
View Reviews
Video reviews
Melissa P
Executive Director
5.0

Melissa: Hi, I'm Melissa, executive director of Townspeople, and I would rate Bonterra as a five out of five. Before Bonterra, we were using Salesforce, which just was not user-friendly for what we needed. It required too much the customization and development. We wanted something that was more intuitive and Bonterra met those needs. We chose Bonterra because it was incredibly easy to set up. The team that was assigned to us was super friendly and approachable and accessible. It's really easy to use and also very affordable, and we're a small nonprofit, so that was huge for us. Getting started with Bonterra was incredibly easy. I've looked at other systems before and they project out two months implementation, and we were ready to go in less than a week. They mapped out all the steps for us and were willing to hold our hands through each one, and it integrates with a lot of the systems we already used. And so, it was easy to complete those integrations and watch the online trainings and make sure that the teams were all ready to go to use it. My advice for anyone looking to check out Bonterra would be to talk with their customer service and their team. They're very open to talk to you about whether the product will work for you based on your needs, and they're really honest with us, and I appreciated that. I've talked with other systems that try to talk down about other systems, and they weren't like that at all. They appreciated the good and what everyone has to offer, and really we're trying to make sure whether they were a good fit for us. So that went a long way for me and for Townspeople.

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video-817d730d-c581-4a34-7570-08d87f8b69ee
Darla S
Executive Director
4.0

Darla: Hi, I'm Darla. I'm the Executive Director of a nonprofit and I give SmarterSelect a four out of five. We were using online papers for our scholarship application process, and we wanted to go online. So we had also reviewed Academic Works when I was also reviewing SmarterSelect, and Academic Works was more expensive and didn't quite have everything I was looking for. We are a small staff of two, so that means we wear many hats on a daily basis. And as you can imagine, saving time and efficiency is very important for small non-profits, so SmarterSelect offers the Scholarship Matching Questionnaire feature. This 20 question feature allows our applicants to be matched to more than 80 scholarships that we offer. So this was a very valuable tool that really attracted me to SmarterSelect. As you can imagine, matching those students manually was very time consuming. So that was one problem that SmarterSelect helped solve. Another problem that we have is, reaching our college students consistently. They're not very good about replying to emails, so SmarterSelect has the messaging feature. Not only does it offer the email messaging, it has the option for us to text message our students and reach them more quickly. So that's huge for us to make sure we're able to stay in communication with them. And another problem that SmarterSelect solved was, as we were wanting to go online with our application process, and especially during COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to have the students apply online for the scholarships. And as our staff was working remotely, we were able to review and process and communicate with the students. One thing I liked about SmarterSelect was, they offered a free trial. So I enrolled for that and was immediately connected with a technician, I believe his name was Roger. Roger was so helpful. He talked with us. He helped us with the online preparation of our unique programs, helped answer our questions, and the integration of taking our application from paper to online was very customizable. And their customer support really helped us in the initial stages and even throughout. This is year four for us using it and each year it seems like we have different questions and they're always able to help us through that. So the integration has been wonderful. Most scholarship programs are very unique in their own programming and the nice thing about SmarterSelect is that it's very customizable and you can develop the application however you need it to be. You can ask whatever questions that you need to ask and having the Matching Questionnaire as an option to help in the process of matching the student to specific scholarships was a huge selling point for me. And I would highly recommend that if you are in a scholarship program and you have several different scholarships to award with all different types of criteria, SmarterSelect is very workable, very customizable and very affordable.

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User interface
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Bonterra Guided Fundraising

Top Features
36/45
  • Accounting
  • Committee Management
  • Dues Management
  • Fund Accounting
  • Grant Management
  • Membership Management
  • Recurring/Subscription Billing
  • Social Marketing
  • Website Management
  • Access Controls/Permissions
  • Accounting Integration
  • Activity Dashboard
  • Activity Tracking
  • Alerts/Notifications
  • API
  • Attendance Management
  • Budgeting/Forecasting
  • Calendar Management
  • Campaign Management
  • Communication Management
  • Contact Management
  • Credit Card Processing
  • CRM
  • Customizable Branding
  • Customizable Fields
  • Customizable Forms
  • Customizable Reports
  • Customizable Templates
  • Data Import/Export
  • Document Storage
  • Donor Management
  • Electronic Payments
  • Event Management
  • Event Scheduling
  • Forms Management
  • For Nonprofits
  • Fundraising Management
  • Member Database
  • Mobile Access
  • Real-Time Analytics
  • Real-Time Reporting
  • Registration Management
  • Reporting & Statistics
  • Third-Party Integrations
  • Volunteer Management
See All features
Hide Nonprofit Software Features -

SmarterSelect

15/45
Show Nonprofit Software Features +
Bonterra Guided Fundraising
Deployment
  • Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
  • Desktop - Mac
  • Desktop - Windows
  • Desktop - Linux
  • Desktop - Chromebook
  • On-Premise - Windows
  • On-Premise - Linux
  • Mobile - Android
  • Mobile - iPhone
  • Mobile - iPad
Support
  • Email/Help Desk
  • FAQs/Forum
  • Knowledge Base
  • Phone Support
  • 24/7 (Live rep)
  • Chat
Training
  • In Person
  • Live Online
  • Webinars
  • Documentation
  • Videos
SmarterSelect
Deployment
  • Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
  • Desktop - Mac
  • Desktop - Windows
  • Desktop - Linux
  • Desktop - Chromebook
  • On-Premise - Windows
  • On-Premise - Linux
  • Mobile - Android
  • Mobile - iPhone
  • Mobile - iPad
Support
  • Email/Help Desk
  • FAQs/Forum
  • Knowledge Base
  • Phone Support
  • 24/7 (Live rep)
  • Chat
Training
  • In Person
  • Live Online
  • Webinars
  • Documentation
  • Videos
Bonterra Guided Fundraising
  • By Bonterra
  • Located in United States
  • Founded in 2014
SmarterSelect
  • By SmarterSelect
  • Located in United States
  • Founded in 2007
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