Kindful Reviews

Lifesaving Software for Non-Profits

Comments: This software has changed our organization. Our board and staff have reduced the hours needed to track this information. We now have a spot for donors to track their own giving, update their information, and so much more. Last year was our biggest fundraising year to date, and I think it was largely because of the Kindful software and its ability to help bridge the gaps.

Pros:

Our organization went from five (5) different Excel document sheets - just for one year and three dozen from the past ten years to having everything in one place. We have since gone back and added in all of the past data. It feels like we moved to a whole new level. Our donors love it, the staff love it, and the board really appreciates the real-time data.

Cons:

It is hard to find software that does everything - but Kindful gets pretty close. The event area is pretty basic, with only a few options to customize, but I suspect that will continue to be enhanced in the same way they have enhanced other areas of the software. If you need a basic ticket for an event, then this will do the trick.

Glad we chose Kindful

Comments: We have been happy with our experience with Kindful. They offer monthly trainings that our staff have taken advantage of to learn more about the program.

Pros:

Kindful has been a great mid-tier resource for our organization to manage ~$500,000 in annual fundraising. We have approximately 10,000 contacts; Kindful integrates well with Mailchimp for our e-newsletter. Batch transactions are very easy to process, which has helped greatly.

Cons:

The search queries can be a little difficult to figure out how to access the info that you want, and I wish there was a little more that could be done with the queries and reporting.

Strong for "Cash" Transactions - NOT so Strong for "Non-Cash" Donations

Comments: Currently, our overall experience is rough to say the least - particularly with "non-cash" approach/needs. They have made the "non-cash" part of this software so cumbersome that it truly has become a "time waster" and not efficient for us. Their team has certainly attempted to be helpful - but most times it's merely referencing "blog" articles, link, etc... (which I've typically done BEFORE ever reaching out to the support team). And, suggestions don't really appear to be taken seriously - since no one follows-up with those, nor do they indicate any changes for upgrading and/or making significant changes based on suggestions.

Pros:

Ease of use is fine for "cash, checks, credit card, etc." transactions - but NOT for "non-cash" donations. Monthly subscription and pricing. I also really like the "interface" and virtual/multiple access for our entire staff/team. The "dashboards" nice - but missing a lot of detail - especially for "non-cash." I do like the "help" section which is part of the dashboard - which allows you to also ask direct questions and provide a related URL. Integration is nice - but even then the vendors have issues related in how they actually integrate with Kindful proper - adding more work in the end (ex: ClickBid).

Cons:

Kindful's treatment of "Non-Cash" donations is so far removed from the way "cash, checks, credit card, etc" transactions are handled - it simply works against us and makes to many "hoops" to jump thru in attempting to manage data for "non-cash" donors. Especially, since 85% of all our donations are "non-cash." If you have a lot of "non-cash" donations - this is probably not the best choice for you at this point. The "email editor" is archaic given today's need for appealing design and fast-paced email communication cycles - to all areas of donors. The "dashboard" is nice - but again is geared mostly to "cash, check and credit, etc" transactions and not "non-cash" - and limited stats. Attempting to prepare and issue "tax receipts" for ALL donors - has been extremely difficult and frustrating. The "reporting" approach is cumbersome and not instantly informative in regard to statistics, especially. Most reports have to be exported to sort and manipulate the data. Further, most PDFs and reports have to be "sent" later from Kindful - there's very little instant access/immediate download.

Using Kindful for over 6 years and I love it!

Pros:

Kindful has provided easy integration with all our processes and procedures. I enjoy the ease-of-use for the reporting and overall daily use. Though, over the last 25 years, I have used some more 'powerful' products, they were clunky, difficult to navigate, and nearly impossible to use without a week-long training. Kindful provides all the services I need with an interface that takes minutes to learn and begin using.

Cons:

There is very few aspects that I dislike about Kindful. If I were to nit-pick, there are some fields that are not searchable or able to be queried. Also, though you can 'household' accounts, the year-end giving statements are not able to be combined to a household tax statement. Neither of these are deal breakers, and I have found work-arounds as necessary.

Through kindful, we have raised funds to cover treatment & reintegration costs of over 100 patient

Comments: We were struggling to provide essential and proper care to poorer clients who could not cover the costs of their treatment, often resulting in premature discharge of clients needing additional care. Once we established our foundation to help raise funds for such cases, Kindful has been really great in helping us source donations, particularly from international benefactors. We are now able to reach a lot more of clients needing financial support than ever before.

Pros:

Unlike most fundraising platforms, Kindful provides very clear and concise pricing plans that do not conceal any hidden fees or fine-print clauses that trick clients out of funds raised. This is a very transparent process that allows us to be confident in the financial reporting of each campaign to our partners and donors without any impact on the trust they have in us. Also, Kindful makes the process of donation extremely easy by making contributions possible through multiple quick processing channels.

Cons:

Compared to other alternatives we tried, I find that their training resources are a little too narrow in focus. They could be broadened further to cover all other related elements of nonprofit management and financing.

a very personal touch to fundraising and donor management

Comments: Kindful has helped us manage our fundraising campaigns significantly better. The best part of working with Kindful is that it takes very little getting used to, and training new team members on how to integrate it optimally into their daily routines is not very complex.

Pros:

Kindful's payment processing tool works exceptionally well and provides all the security assurances that often have donors concerned about making payments online. Another favorite feature of mine is that multiple admins are allowed per campaign, making collaboration much more effective. Also being able to generate reports on each donor's lifetime of activity always adds a personal touch to our monthly and annual emails.

Cons:

Direct integration with major platforms and associated services is quite limited and can mostly only be achieved with third party facilitation. With confidentiality and trust being a very critical element in our relationships, the fewer the number of outlets with data on our operations, the better it would feel.

Kindful: Simple for somethings, but not very flexible

Comments: In general it has been good in that it enabled us to take payments from donors and recurring payments and ACH payments. But I feel that we are struggling to get it working the way it should or to fully meet our needs.

Pros:

I really like the fact that Kindful has a clean interface and makes certain things really simple: e.g. running a campaign, accepting donations online, setting up automatic emails to thank people, etc.

Cons:

Somethings just seem much harder than they should be. e.g. (1) designing reports to work the way you want them to. In most cases you have to export it to Excel and muck around with it there - even things like column ordering is non definable. (2) Integration with Mailchimp for instance works, as long as you do it exactly as they want. For instance, Mailchimp sets users Country to "United States", Kindful sets it to "United States of America". So, guess what - the contacts will not sync to Mailchimp! I updated all the country names in Mailchimp and it still did not work. Advice from Kindful= perhaps don't collect that information!? (3) Groups sound powerful (e.g. group all the people who live in a certain geographic area) BUT they are not dynamic. So you add a new user for that area and they don't end up in the group! Until you re-run the rules or manually add them to the group. This is super unhelpful - there definitely ought to be an auto-update option. (4) When you set up groups based on a set of rules, you can't go back and edit the criteria for the selection. I don't think you can even see what the criteria was...?? It's frustrating because the software has lots of great features and it works hard to be simple. It's just that somethings don't work as well as you expect them to. I don't think that this is a trade off of functionality for simplicity's sake - it just seems lacking in places.

No regrets switching over to team Kindful!

Comments: Very glad we found Kindful. We have had tremendous support. Response times are consistently timely. Appreciate the opportunity to access trainings and webinars quite regularly. I feel that this program is one we can grow with. Kindful gives us access to data in a simplified format to easily view and share. Looking forward to what is next with Kindful.

Pros:

Affordable, user friendly for us and our donors. Really appreciate that it allows our donors access to their own accounts. Compatible with multiple other apps/tools - and constantly expanding the list.

Cons:

More access to some of the data. Appreciate that their are some information/options but they are only for viewing and not reporting. There are some aspects that are specific to our needs so understand how some requests aren't common enough to justify a change. There are times when there are asks and I will get a very vague answer - this is where a user group could be very beneficial. Those of us on the users side can share how they handle aspects of accounts, tricks and tips, or feedback from peers. I have participated in user groups in the past and gained a lot of relatable insight and views from all angles. Have Kindful reps be a part of the group so that they can take info back to enhance the user experience as well as comment on issues, ideas, or why something cannot be done/implemented. Great way to keep users invested in the progress of a good program!

Customer Service and Powerful Updates make this an excellent CRM

Comments: We use Kindful for all our donor, sponsor and grant tracking. It has all the features of any of the competitors and has an aesthetically pleasing, easy to use interface. I love the follow up tasks option, which helps for good donors stewardship. It also recently has a Wealth Data option integrated into the software. We don't pay for the extra, but event with our minimal plan, we get a little information. It's been great for a smooth transition in staff, since it's easy to see donor giving history, relationships with other people/org, as well as contact histroy.

Pros:

The customer service is INSANE. It's timely and they will work with you until theyu find a solution. Even more, many issues I've had have been resolved when they do updates. They really listen to their customers and take their feedback into mind when doing updates.

Cons:

There are very limited options for customizing mail. It's a great option to be able to automatically send tax receipts, but I wish we could upload a custom header. You can upload your logo, but it appears small on the pdf.

Kindful for the WIN!

Comments: I feel that Kindful has greatly empowered our fundraising, therefore, empowered or mission.

Pros:

"Wealth Insights" has been remarkably beneficial in help me know what the right "ask" is. Integration with other platforms such as mail chimp and quickbooks is wonderful. Reporting is extremely robust.

Cons:

While robust, the reporting does take some getting used to. The biggest con, for me, is that it is very difficult to create and manage "Groups."

Mindful For A Non-Profit.

Comments: Very useful.

Pros:

Kindful's ease of use is the premiere experience.

Cons:

Report writing and interpretation is its greatest weakness.

Just getting started, but clean and simple

Comments: Positive and friction free.

Pros:

We are just starting to wade into Kindful’s capacities. Donation management is critical phase 1 and it has proven “big free” so far.

Cons:

The onboard was valuable but we are overwhelmed by taking on Kindful capacities. It’s a process, but we are leaving a lot on the table with time limits to get the most out of it. Possibly, the onboard could be done in segments - as we are able. I haven’t tested online assistance yet.

Good in concept but lacks execution

Comments: We originally switched over to Kindful because we were told that it was a partner with Network for Good and were told that the two would work seamlessly together. We found out very quickly this was not the case (this was not Kindful's fault, but what we were told by Network for Good). We were also told that we could do the import of data ourselves, and import all the data that we needed to (this was also on the end of the sales person at NFG not Kindful). This information was also incorrect and we found out after we signed the contract that we could only import contact information and basic donations (not soft-credits, or notes, or relationships or groups). I have spent months trying to update the database with all that information. I could have handled this, if it weren't for the lack of robustness in reporting. The report function is very limited and you can't get out everything in the database (like relationships or soft-credits). Also, the queries, although they look very slick, are not robust at all. I ended up exporting a lot of my data and manipulating it in excel because I couldn't get the Kindful queries to do what I want. Also, even with the data I could get out, I couldn't rely on it being accurate. Many times there was data I had deleted and it did not show up on the front end of the database when I searched, but when I did an export the information was there. So I couldn't even trust the data that I got out. After 6 month of frustration we decided to switch databases again.
I will say that the costumer service is very quick to respond, although half the time the answer was "sorry the database won't do that." And in the now ten months we have used Kindful they have added on some features that were lacking. I feel like eventually they will be a good database, but the execution just isn't there yet and I don't have time to wait for them to get the database where it needs to be so it saves me time instead of makes more work for me. I hate to give a negative review because they are very friendly and helpful, but unfortunately the experience with the database has been far from ideal.

Pros:

Nice interface easy to enter basic data easy to learn the basics Nice step up from excel if you want basic data storage and basic searches and reports Good customer service

Cons:

Queries not very robust Reporting options not very robust Data glitches acknowledgement features for letters are limited

We use it daily and it is very user friendly. Even those of us who aren't tech-savvy can 'get it'.

Comments: More streamlined than our previous interface, more user friendly.

Pros:

I like the way everything is organized, Dashboard/Activities/Contacts... I like how reports can be automatic from the system straight to my email, daily. I like that once the credit card/ACH info is entered, we don't actually have access to those numbers, and helps with PCI compliance. When there is an issue, we email support and they respond promptly, within 24 hours, and are very friendly and very helpful. I love the size of Kindful, because I feel like they still take input from clients to improve their systems.

Cons:

When a donor makes a donation and pays for the transaction fee, you have to go in manually and split the transaction fee from the donation. On days that we have recurring transactions come out, it takes us an incredible amount of time for us to find and go through all the transactions to manually split the transaction fees from the donation itself. That is very time consuming. I personally call donors often, and there is a way to make a 'note' on the donor's profile, however, to access the last time I called, I would need to scroll through transactions to find the last note or go out and create a report. There should be a 'note book' that I can open and see all our correspondence, no matter if the call was in 2012 or today. (Both of which I have brought up with Kindful Support, and they know it's an issue we have with the software).

Kindful

Comments: Kindful and the API integrations has allowed our organization to improve its ability to report on metrics to our board, communicate with our donors, seamlessly integrate with our crowdfunding donors and participants, annual gala attendees and silent auction purchasers with all the information in one database. With the touch on one program, we can access information in a timely manner and present our data in a professional manner.

Pros:

Customer support is AWESOME and timely responses and follow-up. API integrations with other programs for silent auction, crowdfunding fundraising report card, mailing program, and our two credit card payment processors helps us to be more efficient and effective. Report functionality of canned reports and ability to customize and create our own canned reports is perfect. Online training tools are awesome as well as the help articles. Kindful continues to add new API integrations with other software programs giving us future options. We were able to train two new staff in one week for all of the basic functions and integrations to include groups, campaigns, posting of funds and some customization of reporting.

Cons:

Currently, there is no system for tracking of drip marketing for prospects and stages of development. The assigning of tasks functionality could be improved.

After 7 Months with Kindful, we pulled the plug. Be cautious!

Comments: The customer support team was fairly prompt in replying, but often they weren't on the same page. Not only that but we were being strung along for much of the time we were working with them. We were often promised that if they received a file, that it would be up in no time. After 7 months we were done with the broken promises. We were originally attracted to Kindful because of the ease of use and because it appeared to take something complicated (which some donor management systems can be) and make it simple enough for anyone in the organization to use. They offered support, and unlimited users which were a plus. Not only that but we were promised from the time of uploading our previous database and quickbook files, that it would be a month max before we were online and running. Unfortunately, we did not received what was promised. We were asked multiple times for different files and tweaks to the files and it was clear that we were not a priority for the staff. After back and forth of needing different files for 6 MONTHS, we gave an ultimatum that we would need to have the system up and running by the end of the 7 month or else we would need to find another provider. By the 7th month, we were still promised it was almost ready (something they had been promising since the 3rd month that we had been paying for the service). In the end, the system was never finished and we were never fully functional. We filed a complaint with the better business bureau. Kindful responded with a timeline that made it look like they were diligent. We responded with scores of emails that left no doubt they had dropped the ball and there has been no reply since then. We are a small non profit with basic and general methods of receipting. We use Quickbooks but Kindful required multiple practices which forced us to create work arounds simply to use some of the methods we have used before. We are all about change, but when the new methods require more work, we tend to want to keep it simple and efficient. Kindful made some things easier while making other things harder.

The easiest part of fundraising

Comments: I have been able to integrate our golf fundraiser sign ups int our website because of your widgets but would like more customization. would love to be able to sign up volunteers/runners/etc through the site instead of using active.com! overall, this platform has made my job easier and more functional especially on the go because it's web based (surprisingly, my old organization used an archaic system that was only accessible on the server)

Pros:

user friendly interface, quick turnaround on customer questions, ease of reporting, clean look when donor is using donation portal, most critical information showing

Cons:

would like a better way to separate reporting on various campaigns during a given year and general manipulation of data (for example, the transaction reports are sent via pdf so I can't easily analyze the data in a spreadsheet), would like outstanding card value to be a reporting option,

Kindful cannot do it ALL

Comments: Onboarding and uploading data was smooth, however it could not run robust reports, could not customize event page with something as simple as adding a field for participant to choose shirt size.

Pros:

It had a good price point that included CRM and event and peer to peer platform

Cons:

Customer service was horrible. You could not talk to a live person. You would use chat box or email only to get a link to a response 48 hours later.

Right product for our needs and budget

Comments: The organization is responsive to my questions and needs. I have seen changes to the software since we purchased that have directly addressed my or other users' issues.

Pros:

Basic functions are easily taught, yet it has a robust reporting structure that is anything but basic. I can train others to do data entry as we get new donors and donations so they can gain confidence using the system quickly. Then I can show them other features as they are ready to learn more.

Cons:

We are a membership organization and the software really isn't designed to manage memberships. They were upfront about this and give suggestions for addressing our needs and it is working for us.

Improvements Made Me Happy

Comments: We have been with Kindful for several years and have seen many improvements along the way. If we had a concern or needed a particular type of form that was not available, they willingly helped us to get the end result we needed.

Pros:

Kindful strives to make improvements to make its software more user friendly and also to provide better solutions for managing data and financial/tax information.

Cons:

While some functions are fairly easy to figure out if you are doing something for the first time, a few took more intense searching, which, ultimately, ended in my having to ask customer service. But, customer service was quick to reply and to send along detailed instructions on how to access the information and reports that I needed.

Kindful is great if you want to use integrations

Comments: It is a huge step forward from what we were using before, and is much cleaner and user friendly, however there is room for improvement on their end when it comes to small details.

Pros:

I like how clean the layout is. Things are easy to find and easy to use. The simplicity and how connected to other co-workers you can be within the database is fantastic. The integration with quickbooks was the most appealing thing when we were purchasing the software... it is a little more finicky than anticipated, but still is nice to have connected.

Cons:

How much needs to be done via integrations with other software. We are a small non-profit and can not afford all of the extra integrations. Also, there are a few basic things missing from Kindful that really need to be added. The duplicate tool is sub-par and there is no feature that catches if you are creating a duplicate contact or not. A lot of my time is spent merging duplicate contacts because there is nothing to catch them.

Kindful Review

Comments: We use it for donor management and event management. Replaced a home-grown database that was reaching end-of-life support, and BPT for event management.

Pros:

Easy to use, lots of useful information.

Cons:

No formatting capabilities in event descriptions, registration receipts -- not even minimal HTML. A big problem for us. Also, somewhat unreliable credit card processing, users sometimes get a zip code error and cannot complete the transaction.

Easy to use, helpful support

Comments: We highly recommend Kindful to all of our clients at Green Egg Media who are looking for a more robust and feature-rich DRM at a reasonable and fair price. I have been happy with Kindful. It is clear that the sales team is pushing hard to extend their reach, including offering incentives for us to sell their product to our customers; however, I have specifically asked them to give our customers additional discounts instead of sending me a kick-back, because I want to recommend them because they have a good product, and not because I receive any type of financial gain by selling for them.

Pros:

Green Egg Media is a web development agency, and we use Kindful with many of our non-profit clients. Kindful is very easy to use and has an API, as well, for custom integrations when our customers need them. The support team is very helpful, both with initial setup and with customizations. The support team has basically handled data migrations from other systems for our clients, freeing us to focus on the more interesting and custom work.

Cons:

While there is an API, it isn't able to handle everything that we would like, especially when it comes to matching up records between multiple systems. We were able to find some workarounds, and the support team was helpful, but it took us some time to resolve the issues. I am hopeful that our feedback will help improve the API going forward.

Empowering a small non-profit improve fundraising and donor management.

Pros:

Kindful is easy to use and track donations by campaign or by fund. You can setup color scheme preferences for all donation pages or you can customize each and every one. Kindful pages are clean and the Dashboard as been recently improved to really help monitor donor management such as donors that have upgraded giving, retention rates, activity on recurring donations, etc. The Kindful on boarding team was extremely helpful in assisting me setup my donation pages, multiple campaigns, and making sure all my data was successfully transitioned from my previous payment gateway. Making the switch to Kindful has made it much easier for us to manage donor relations and also get better reporting by each campaign.

Cons:

Some reporting features could be improved to make sure you can download actual donated funds that do not include refunds or canceled payments. While you can get customer support via email, I wish my monthly fee included at least some webchat or phone based customer support without an additional fee.

A great platform with room for improvement

Comments: Prior to Kindful, we bounced around 4 other CRM platforms. While not 100% perfect, Kindful has been incredibly useful for organizing and keeping track of our data and donors, while also providing useful analysis. Even though we've had some issues, Kindful at least allows you to easily edit information and fix problems as needed.

Pros:

Kindful is user friendly and easy to navigate. Occasionally I have to contact the help team (all of whom are wonderful) to figure out how to accomplish a particular task, but generally speaking I am able to figure it out or quickly find a Kindful article to help.

Cons:

We have had some complications with our integrations, namely duplicate contacts from Crowdrise, Mailchimp and Eventbrite. While the contact duplicates tool is helpful, it would be nice to not have to deal with duplicates after events and fundraisers.