Virtual Event Platforms: OneCause

Overview:

If you can believe it, pumpkin spice lattes are available at Starbucks. Soon the shortening days will be noticeable, and before you know it we will be in the heart of fall. Fall for eGuide means a second round of fundraising events for nonprofits culminating in Giving Tuesday (December 1st, this year). Traditionally, we would be talking about gala dinners, silent auctions, and ancillary board events for larger nonprofits. This year is going to be different. 

We are entering into a new reality of hybrid events and the same holds true for nonprofit fundraising efforts as well. Transitioning a historically “live” event to a virtual landscape can be a daunting task. If your event was known to have the best silent auction or live auction, or your program was studded with performance that culminated into a paddle raise, how can you convert that to a digital landscape? 

Luckily that is where OneCause can enter the picture. Since 2007 OneCause (formerly BidPal) has been providing fundraising-centric solutions for cause-driven organizations. In light of the pandemic they have been able to quickly and successfully transition some of those key fundraising tools into a virtual environment.

How we Would Rate the Platform:

Ease Of Use  - 8/10 - OneCause is an all-in-one solution for multiple types of fundraising events. From charity auctions and peer-to-peer fundraising, even to DIY challenges, and standard online donations, OneCause provides a centralized hub for you to manage event sites, auction items, and trackable analytics of giving. 

Customization - 6/10 - The “Out-of-the-box” customizations of OneCause are robust but for those that may be familiar with the platform, there is a distinct look and feel for a OneCause event. While many of the components are designed in a way to maximize function and usability, the ability to really push the envelope of the platform would quickly be met with some developmental roadblocks. 

Security - 8/10 - OneCause utilizes two payment processors (First American Payment Systems, and 1stPayGateway) which are both PCI and DSS compliant. Video content can be pre-recorded or broadcast live through the platform via any major casting platform (YouTube Live or Zoom) leaving the stream security to the platforms themselves. 

Integrations - 7/10 - OneCause has the most important integration for nonprofit organizations, and that’s to Salesforce. For any organization capitalizing on their 10 free license of Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), this integration is vital to track and retarget donors. OneCause also integrates with Raiser’s Edge via a third party app. The key for integrations is API functionality and OneCause has it. 

Price - 6/10 - OneCause takes an annual subscription approach to pricing with an unlimited event threshold. For organizations who may do multiple fundraising events throughout the year, OneCause is built to support those events on all virtual fronts. With the lowest price point coming in at around $500 per year for text-to-give functionality, and larger annual fees running as high as $20K - $25K, we would encourage organizations to use OneCause in as much as possible if they are investing in the platform. 
Overall Rating - 7/10 - Since constituents of nonprofit organizations have been “trained” to engage with key fundraising activations (silent auctions, paddle raises, meter filling) this year it makes sense to embrace the familiar while converting the programmatic elements to a digital environment. We hope that OneCause continues to push the boundaries of virtual fundraising events, and having witnessed the developments they’ve made since the onset of the pandemic, have high hopes they will.

Who Would Use OneCause?

For nonprofit organizations that have cornerstone events (annual galas with silent auctions, 5Ks or fun runs, golf outings) OneCause is built to help bridge the gap of “live” to “digital”. Since licensing comes with unlimited events, we would recommend that organizations doubledown when converting to OneCause to maximize on the functionality and reduce the overall impact of the price.

User Experience

Without being able to play around in the backend of OneCause, it’s difficult to know exactly what the user experience is, but from our demo and reviews the platform seems to be pretty straightforward to use. With a basic template for both registration and the virtual event, it’s easy for organizations to customize their pages with their brand colors, logo, and some key images to the event. With the ability to livestream videos at the virtual event, it’s also easy to get creative with how to structure the event. OneCause even suggests hosting virtual fun runs (okay maybe not as fun alone) or a “push up challenge.” 

One interesting feature that OneCause has that we have not seen in other platforms is the robust features specifically geared towards fundraising. Similarly to GiveLively, OneCause offers the option of peer-to-peer fundraising, in which constituents are able to create their own fundraising pages to help the cause. OneCause also makes virtual auctions accessible with virtual “paddle raises” to keep guests engaged throughout the event.

Technical Assessment

OneCause platform is entirely web based making it compatible across a wide range of devices, easy to access and highly available, their control panel from where users can create, edit and manage events is very user friendly and allows you to create the ideal virtual event for your constituents without needing a web designer or an entire IT team.

Donations or auction payments completed through the OneCause platform are processed using First American Payment Systems, and 1stPayGateway, this provides a secure and reliable experience for both donors and nonprofits. 

Integrating prerecorded or live video content to your event is a very simple process, Youtube and Youtube Live are the preferred platforms for this purpose. This ensures that video remains compatible with multiple platforms and also provides you with the rich feature set from Youtube and its integration potential. 

Another very powerful integration available in OneCause is Salesforce, the ability to bring key constituent and donation information back to NPSP is very important for those nonprofits taking advantage of the nonprofit cloud services. For those organizations using a different platform, OneCause offers a variety of “.csv” reports that can be easily accessed and exported.

Overall this platform is backed by constant improvement and a solid technical support team, we first saw it early this year and were really impressed with it, 5 months after that first impression, OneCause has done an amazing job at improving the platform and adding new features.