Foundation Directory Online by Candid vs. Greater Giving

Foundation Directory Online is the best foundation research software I have used. As a grant writing professional, it has come in very handy when I'm trying to get more information or context about a foundation and they do not have a website that I can research. The additional feature of suggesting similar foundations is very nice and can save lots of time when looking for new funding opportunities

Incentivized

Greater Giving is well suited for an organization that is looking to save money on their event software and need a full service solution. It is not as sophisticated as others on the market, but it will allow you to get everything you need done for a reasonable price. This is meant to be used by nonprofit event professionals.

Incentivized

• Grant research (best online database of grantmakers and grants).
• Grant management for nonprofits (you can track your progress and documents).

Incentivized

• Greater Giving is very user-friendly for both staff and volunteers
• Greater Giving sales and receipt generating features are well received by the guest at our event
• Greater Giving provides excellent customer support - in particular, their "night of" event support

Incentivized

• While FDO has an advanced search feature, I've found that sometimes it tries to be too smart for its own good. For example, if I'm looking for the Virginia Smith Foundation it will pull all foundations located in the state of Virginia with some sort of affiliated Smith and not the Virginia Smith Foundation that I'm actually looking for.
• I'm uncertain as to how often the information is updated on FDO.

Incentivized

• Love to see more places to log expenses, so you can run a total report of net income.
• It's often a bit wide for my screen, which I can work around.

Incentivized

Greater Giving is very intuitive. It’s easy to set up in the backend and change as needed. Anytime we couldn’t figure something out on our own, our customer service representative was always available and super helpful!

Incentivized

Any question is answered within 24-48 hours, professionally. If one person can't answer right away, they will seek answers within their support group and find the answer for you.

Incentivized

Online support was one of the worst customer service experiences I've ever had (I would give them a 1). Phone support and implementation support were very nice and knowledgeable.

CyberGrants is more of a grant request software so that's pretty different. Grantseeker by Fluxx is a good tracking software for keeping track of your institutional fundraising progress, but ultimately FDO's database of information dwarfs any other.

Incentivized

We currently use Eventbrite for our pre-event ticket and sponsorship sales as they have a much more streamlined webpage that is customizable, they allow us to pass on the fees to our purchasers, AND they do not charge an annual fee on top of the processing fees. However, they do not have the ability to let you swipe a credit card in advance - you need a membership to Bidding for Good to do so. We tried using Eventbrite and Bidding for Good for only 1 event before we switched back to Greater Giving. Neither platform allowed you to send out tax receipts and the on-site event management was subpar compared to the ease of Greater Giving.

Incentivized

• We don't apply for many grants, however; we use look for resources to direct nonprofit when looking for additional funding outside of our funding process.

Incentivized

• Having one system that can manage online donations, ticket purchases, online auction, donor tax letters, etc. has created efficiency for my org.
• Reports are flawed and lack of data integration with other systems causes me to do a lot of unnecessary manual work.