GiveSmart vs Hubilo: Which is a better fit?

Kierstin: My name is Kierstin. I am the donor relations and event director. And I give GiveSmart a two-star review. And for more reviews, you can check out the link below. So before GiveSmart, we were using 501 Auctions. And we were looking for something that would give our guests the ability to bid on their phones. So we wanted to go away from pen and paper and have more user functionality during the event on the phones for guests. So we chose GiveSmart because you could upload all of the auction items through your computer and guests could view them from their phones and we no longer had to have pen and paper bid sheets. In addition to that, they had a lot of other event management functionality that I really liked. Some of that was that you could set up a text-to-donate number, which is a six-digit number that they could text during the event itself. You could set up individual fundraising pages per campaign or per event. And they had great attending management so I could track the different audiences when they were coming in, communicate with them directly. All of these reasons made GiveSmart a great choice. GiveSmart was fairly easy to onboard with. I didn't have a whole lot of issues getting set up. The dashboard itself was really easy to navigate and it was fine. So for someone looking to purchase GiveSmart, I would recommend that it's good for really simple fundraising events. And if you have needs like peer-to-peer fundraising and auction and text-to-donate, it's great for that. They really encourage you to use all of the functionality. So I would be very upfront with your needs and your timeline. In the beginning of the planning process, we had a situation where they were trying to push a lot of functionality on us really late in the planning process, causing more stress, trying to set up phone calls and meetings I didn't need. The auction features were okay. We actually ended up not using it at all. I think we went back to pen and paper that year because when I actually got into the platform I saw that it was not what I was expecting. It wasn't presentable to a guest at our really nice event. So again, it's great for a really simple fundraising event if it's like for a kids-focused nonprofit or something, but for a more upscale event that needs a little bit more build-out, probably not your best option. We had a lot of seemingly simple functionality that had to be built out on the fly. And so going back and forth with their customer support team wasn't very fun.

Marilyn M: Hi, my name is Marilyn. I'm an association director. I give Hubilo a rating of five. For more reviews like this, click below. Before we chose Hubilo, we looked at about 30 other software programs. And at the time that we chose Hubilo, our primary concern was engagement. We're a small association and we really want everybody to get to know everybody else and not meeting face-to-face is a huge issue for us. So we wanted some way that people could really get social, and Hubilo answered that. Hubilo has a lot of features which are social. Hubilo was able to offer us many different ways of interacting. So there's an event feed, which is like Facebook. There's the list of attendees with the pictures. But not only is it list with pictures, they also have a matching strategy, which they allowed us to customize. So our topic was very specific and we were able to put in exactly what we wanted, we thought people would want to match on. So that really helps, I think, for people to find others who are interested in the same things. And we're also able to have a lounge, and we looked at a number of others where there was a lounge where we can sit down and somebody else can see us sitting there and sit down too. But this lounge allowed us to have an almost infinite number of tables, I think 50 tables or something. So that's great because we don't think our customers can find a different room. So if they have to go to another room to find their friends, I don't think they'll make it. So we really wanted everybody to be in the same lounge. So that's why we chose Hubilo. We are still working with Hubilo because we ... our conference will be in May, but it's been very easy to use. The dashboard that I have to use is quite easy and clear. I think that they need some help in the writing side, they've described it just very directly. They don't actually answer questions. So obviously the person who's doing the writing thinks it is totally clear and obvious and doesn't need to write anything and it'd be helpful if they got some people in there that are confused to help them figure out why people would be confused at what they need to know. But it's a new system and they'll get that down pretty soon. But it's really got all the features we want, as long as we can find them and really understand how to use them properly, it's the features are there. I think for other people that are using Hubilo that they probably will enjoy playing with it and using the different features, and Hubilo is constantly adding features. So anything I say now is probably out of date by the time you hear this. But I think that there's an awful lot there that can be done. We've really explored the contests and where we think that that will help people to engage. So posting a picture of themselves, fun facts, talking about things that they're willing to share with the other conference attendees, I think will help people to get social. So we're really hoping that people will form good relationships through this conference, even though it's not in-person.