GiftWorks Nails It for Small Nonprofits
joel.schuman@gmail.com 
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[02/18/2009]  Mission Research says its GiftWorks product is to the not-for-profit world as QuickBooks is to the SMB world. The analogy is apt. Before GiftWorks I had no satisfactory answer when small not-for-profit clients asked me (I’m an IT consultant) to recommend a software package to help them out of the morass of spreadsheets, emails, and paper where they kept their records of donors, donations, and fundraising activities. I would mention several capable donor management and fundraising apps, but when I presented the TCO estimate for purchase, implementation, configuration and training, and support jaws would drop and brows would crinkle with dismay.

Now when I engage small NFPs it’s a no-brainer. GiftWorks fits the budget of even the smallest groups (and it’s often available for free from Tech Soup). It has everything that small NFPs need in a donor management system, including many features that most small groups probably never knew they needed because they were too busy groveling thru spreadsheets or piles of paper or could not imagine doing things like donor segmentation and mail campaign success tracking with the crude tools they were using.

But although GiftWorks offers much of the functionality of packages that cost ten times as much, it has two enormous advantages over those more expensive apps in addition to low price. First, it is easy to install and configure – you don’t need dedicated IT staff or even a consultant like me. Second, it is simple and intuitive to use. Most of my clients don’t read the manual (does anyone?), yet they find themselves immediately productive. As they begin to explore the new functionality available, GiftWorks’ excellent online help usually gets them over the hump.

Of course, everyone gets stuck sooner or later. That’s when GiftWorks users learn that they’ve not just purchased a software app but begun a relationship with a company that is deeply committed to their customers and that knows how to express that commitment with effective support: an online knowledge base, an active forum of end users and, ultimately, friendly and knowledgeable tech support staff.

I’ve been recommending and installing GiftWorks since the first version, and I’ve seen it mature in capability and sophistication without succumbing to the bloat or irrelevance commonly seen on the software update trail. Each new release adds features that really matter while retaining the ease of use and simple interface of the original. I rarely recommend that my clients upgrade most apps, as there’s little bang for the upgrade buck. Not the case with GiftWorks – you always get more than you pay for.
 
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Thanks for a great product!
Diane 
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[08/11/2006]  I just emailed a question to Support and received your response in a matter of minutes from Heather Parmer. While I don’t expect such an immediate response, it is appreciated more than you can know. I was entering a single gift, but was able to wrap it up AND know how to edit the few I’d already entered when I get more time. But why I’m really writing is to tell you one of the reasons I am so far SO happy with GiftWorks is that it is so adaptable! My “old” donor software was like living in a box—enter data their way or no way. Any adaptations had to be made by the company and then they had to be within the form or format that existed on-screen, which meant giving up something to get something else. While I have not yet had the time to move all my donor records over to GiftWorks, my experience so far has been very positive. I’m opening records in GiftWorks for all incoming gifts as they come in until I have more free time to do a full transfer. (I am not importing my records. My database is small enough that I prefer to manually transfer. I simply don’t trust my old software.) But so far, I am extremely happy with the adaptability of the program AND the clear, fast responses I get to my questions. The clear part is particularly refreshing! Thanks for making this process a pleasant one!
 
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Support is lacking
RES 
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[07/20/2006]  The software is very easy to use and priced right. The tech support leaves something to be desired. They appear to have difficulty in fixing glitches and seldom if ever returns e-mails or phone calls, the best you can do is leave messages. Getting info in is easy, getting it out is a different matter, for example when we wanted to do a broadcast fax we discovered the fax number is a non exportable field, so is the group name. This can be a shortfall if you want to use your data for other applications.
 
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GiftWorks
grannemannk@earthlink.net 
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[10/20/2005]  If your organization is a nonprofit that receives contributions and keeps track of donors and members, it's time to dump your homemade Access program and forget trying to buy the big bucks program. GiftWorks will solve your tracking problems once and for all. It's easy to use, logical, and inexpensive. And the people at the company are helpful and nice to talk with. With GiftWorks you can track people by groups (ie someone came to your event, volunteers for you and received a mailing) and by what campaign they donated to. You can make reports and do mailings. You can keep track of acknowledgments due and sent. You can export lists to Excel. You can even add new fields beyond the ones that are provided. The program is user-friendly, easy to learn, and surprisingly inexpensive. The company's mission is "to support your mission." That's what they do, and they do it well. As a Beta user of GiftWorks, and the executive director of a public library and community center, I wholeheartedly recommend this product.
 
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Ease of Use and Features
bob@familygivingtree.org 
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[10/19/2005]  I have tried or tested a lot of donor databases. The ones which are easy to use lack needed features. Those with adequate features are usually difficult to use and/or very expensive. Giftworks has great features and I learned to use it with NO training. There were some bumps importing data, but Giftworks suport was fast and accurate. What I really like is the live on-line support which is reached via a link from the application. We have a donor database of about 6,000 individuals and companies. Giftworks moves fast between screens and in creating reports, and in addition to a nice group of pre-made reports, it is easy to make our own. I found the letter writing screen to be a bit basic and would prefer to have the ability to write the letter in Word and then use it in the mailing application. Ackowledging donations is easy and flexible...you create different letter templates for different donor groups. These are easy to change to personalize for an individual too. I haven't tied Giftworks to our Quickbooks Professional for Non-Profits yet, but I will sure like entering data just one time. The Giftworks people are very helpful if you have a special need. I threw them a curve and they hit it out of the park.
 
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