Virtual Event Platforms: Give Lively Review
How we would rate the platform:
Ease Of Use - 6/10 - Give Lively allows for a fairly straightforward approach to donation management with plenty of digital references and training to review. As a free platform, the customer success team is typically able to respond to any questions within 24 - 48 hours, with the exception of Giving Tuesday.
Customization - 5/10 - For a speaker series or a gala fundraising event the threshold of customization provided through Give Lively may not fit all of the requirements of a nonprofit organization, but considering the price point it may be worth the limitations.
Security - 6/10 - With the ability to stream through any third party platform (Zoom, Twitch, YouTube Live) the viewership security is put more on the streaming platform vs. Give Lively. That said, the payment security is encrypted and processed through Stripe which is both Level 1 PCI Compliant and utilizes AES-256 encryption for all Credit card information.
Integrations - 8/10 - For nonprofit organizations utilizing the nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) through Salesforce, the primary integration is well vetted. This opens up a multitude of other integrations. Since Give Lively is also API based there are plenty of developed integrations that could be created.
Price - 10/10 - The true highlight of the platform. Every dollar matters for nonprofit organizations, and Give Lively understands that, making its platform free to use for qualified NFPs.
Overall Rating - 7.5/10 - For a nonprofit organization that may be looking for a low-cost/no-cost option to host an event and accept donations, we would strongly recommend Give Lively, especially if the organization is utilizing Salesforce.
Who would use Give Lively?
Give Lively was created as a donation management platform for nonprofit organizations, and since 2015 has taken the Forever Free Pledge. This combined with an effective integration with Salesforce, positions them as a “low-threshold of cost” platform for donation management, especially for those organizations who are capitalizing on their 10 free salesforce seats through Tech Soup.
As a stand-alone platform Give Lively allows nonprofits to fundraise in a variety of ways including text-to-donate, peer-to-peer, event ticketing, and the latest addition, live display.
eGuide’s partner Truth Be Told, has been using the software for over a year and just ventured into the “live display” feature to host a story-time fundraising hour for the organization. You can hear more about the event in our video recap!
Technical Assessment
One of Give Lively’s virtual events platform's biggest advantages is the wide compatibility with different sources of video streaming or pre-recorded content including popular platforms like Youtube, Facebook but also including specialized streaming software and/or a multistreaming app that broadcasts to multiple channels. Examples of leading streaming software are OBS Studio, Streamlabs OBS, Nvidia Shadowplay and XSplit Gamecaster (which are reviewed here), as well as Wirecast, vMix, Lightstream and Vimeo Studio (the last two are browser-based software).
Embedding your video stream into your event website allows you to allow anyone without social media access the possibility to watch the content and engage with your event.
Streaming live video also comes with some extra requirements like a reliable high bandwidth internet connection (wired preferably), a HD camera, a computer powerful enough to handle the streaming and others activities like monitoring the event site and answering attendee queries. While the Give Lively team has done an excellent job putting together a guide for virtual events, we wouldn’t recommend to venture hosting your first virtual event alone.
Give Lively integrations also include platforms such as Salesforce NPSP and MailChimp allowing you to capture all the necessary information for donor management and future fundraising efforts.
On the security and privacy side, Give Lively processes all donations using Stripe or Paypal which are both PCI 1 compliant in addition to having all their web-based tools and widgets protected with end-to-end encryption and SSL.
User Experience Assessment
With many nonprofits not having the time or resources to spend designing a single event page, Give Lively makes it easy to plug in key branding components, such as a logo and one brand color, to make their out of the box event page transition into one that is specific to your organization and event without having to do much design work. This also means there aren’t the capabilities to arrange layout, change fonts, and manipulate other design elements to make it a truly customized page.
The Give Lively platform as a whole does have some interesting elements to aid with telling your organization’s mission and the impact of donations. On your core profile you are able to add in donation amounts and impact stories which allows donors to tangibly see how their donation is making a difference in the organization. On event pages there is also the capability of adding a “goal thermometer” onto the page to give donors the visual depiction of how close you are to reaching your fundraising goal.
One of the components of Give Lively that makes it a good choice for smaller organizations with a loyal donor base is their peer-to-peer fundraising capabilities. Donors are able to set up their own fundraising pages branching off of the main campaign page. With peer-to-peer capabilities donors can pull from their own social circles and create a fundraising team. You can also make it a friendly competition among donor teams with the largest fundraiser winning tickets to a gala or some organization swag.
