OneCause Reviews

We used OneCause primarily as an auction management software. Our team loved how streamlined it made the bidding process, the close out process, and collecting payment. We are looking forward to next year's event now that our guests' information is already entered into OneCause because the check in process will be quick and easy, and we've learned a few things about how the software works best for us.

We are dismayed there is no way to share links to each individual auction item. We like to feature lots in our eblasts before our event, but it was frustrating only be able to share the link to the OneCause auction homepage rather than individual lots.

The back end where you could put in the auction items and didn't have to put them in a spreadsheet. I did put the supporters in a spreadsheet with table and bid numbers and that was easily done.

I think there should be a separated place for items/donors and supporters. I had trouble getting the export that I needed to do my thank you letters. The donor thank you offered had a document that wasn't able to edit the margins in order to use my letterhead. I was not able to get one export that had company name, name, description, address, value. I am not sure why this basic export was not available. I called and the person was unable to help me. I took two exports and had to merge them.

I love that I can see past events to reference what we did in prior years. I also like the reports that are available.

Custom pages. For a rookie, I find it cumbersome to add designs and links.

The end-user experience was seamless and fairly easy to navigate. Our donors were impressed and excited about the interactivity and the ability to participate in the silent auction and get reminders right on their phones. We hosted an event last year in-person and used the Mobile Bidding Software for our silent auction, and our revenue was significantly increased because of the engagement. We then used the Virtual Event Software for an entirely virtual event this year including a silent and live auction and appeal. The engagement was great, and our live auction went far better than expected.

The fact that the Mobile Bidding Software (MBS) and the Virtual Event Center (VEC) do not integrate and the VEC was still under construction make it hard to leave a review for what I liked least. But in terms of the MBS; the software is not very intuitive and there are a lot of areas where I didn't like having to duplicate my process (like in the item vs. package). The reports you could run at the end using the MBS were really helpful, but the VEC had hardly any options for reporting and we had to create a lot of our own reports, which was incredibly time consuming. The lack of ticketing functionality in the VEC led us to use the MBS for ticketing only and then we had to comp every single ticket individually because the VEC did not allow us to upload a csv file for all of our comped tickets. There are a lot of pieces that can be improved in the VEC but they are planning to improve them as they continue to build the software. More knowledge about the system in the "help center" and "knowledge bank" would have been really great.

I liked that the software was pretty user-friendly for the most part. It was nice how many different avenues they had to learn more about the software that you had purchased (OneCause University, shorter demo videos, help pages). I also loved the customer service. Any time I had a question, it was answered quickly and completely. We utilized BidPal the most for our Silent Auction fundraiser. It was very easy to understand, input items, add pictures, and price the items. The people at our event loved it once they got logged in and talked about how nice it was to know when you've been outbid, etc.

I didn't love the amount of emails they sent. There were probably 3-5 marketing emails a week. I'm sure there was a setting somewhere that I could've gone in and unsubscribed but it would be better if they didnt automatically send to you in the first place. The only other complaint that I had would be with the check-in/out app for Bid Pal. The SmartPay app was just not great. It was slow, didn't work very well, and logged us out after every customer we looked up.

In my past I have use the Peer to Peer side of OneCause and I am currently using the Bidpal feature. Both were so awesome and truly easy once you figured out the background. Both very different from each other but both helped make things so stream lined and bring in money for us. Definitely would recommend!

I don't like the look of the background of the website, but that's super minor. Lean into support they will help you figure it all out to make sure site look great and your event successful!

We've used OneCause for several years on multiple events and it's such an easy platform. The team is supportive and always provides best practices to help keep us on track and making things the most effective. They stay in touch throughout the process which makes the day of easier on everyone. I like the extensive reporting options and variety of ways to export the data. The onsite staff is crucial for event success - their team thinks about events in a big picture way often enabling them to be a step ahead. They manage so much behind the scenes that keep the nonprofit members able to focus on guests.

Integration was easy and I can't think of anything that's missing for my needs.

I have used this platform in my previous job and I found it to be very easy to use, like the newly updated features i.e. sponsors able to send a unique invite link to their guests. Our events team was able to jump in and use it right away. I also like that disbursements are made the next day after the event and the financial reports are easy to use or download..

Not being able to upload images directly on the site. I have to use a dropbox link to store the images I use for the pages.

Utilizing the event management feature is critical to the success of our annual fundraiser. It allows for even a small nonprofit like ours to make a big splash and look very professional.

The software doesn't exactly work hand in hand with our established donor software.