NGP VAN Reviews & Product Details

I think NGP VAN needs to respond to inquiries more quickly. I believe they need more staffers to help with responses. I was only ever referred to 2 people who constantly ignored my emails. But the app itself is very user friendly. The website "help" needed updating last time I checked. I think instead of user manuals, you need video tutorials for users because the manuals are outdated on the site. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lack of customer service promptness

Outdated "help" section Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I LOVE the app. It makes knocking on doors SO easy and it's so much easier to collect the data from when you're canvassing.

The Van is very user friendly and pretty intuitive (most of the times). I love how easy it is to make a phone bank, cut turf, and know who to contact for volunteers. I've used NationBuilder and much prefer the VAN as a voter tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don't dislike too much about the VAN, but I will say sometimes it's trickier to get older volunteers set up on the VAN to do things like phone banking, but paper forms are always better for those kinds of people. I also think it's really annoying that you have to change your password like once a month. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The voterfile and being able to segment people out by scores and location. Canvassing has never been more easier than with Mini VAN. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Honestly, I don't have much to dislike. The only improvement would be to have the "event scheduler" have two uses, one to grow really strong volunteers, but then also to just track sign ups. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NGP VAN has the flexibility to handle every single component of a political campaign. If you need to send your volunteers and canvassers door-to-door across the state, VAN has the tools you need. Hosting a fundraiser and you want to make sure everyone gets a thank you note and also generate your state campaign finance report? VAN can do that. You need to develop an issue advocacy program between election cycles? VAN can do that. Mass emails to you supporter network? Distributed phone banking? Event rsvp's? VAN has you covered. And if VAN can't do it directly, they almost always have an API ready to go with someone who can help fill your needs, whether that's an robo call system through Callfire, advocacy tools through Revere, or texting through Hustle. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface can sometimes be a bit clunky, since there is almost always more than one way to do the same thing. Training documents aren't always readily available, which makes it difficult to train a large campaign staff. Most of the industry users I know have learned this software on the job, and have little or no formal training on the software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is one centralized place to log and keep tabs on everything I need as a Campaign Manager. When it comes to fundraising, it is easy to build and maintain files on my donors and targets. It is great to log information about those who our campaigns brings aboard as volunteers, including how often or recently they are being used to avoid over use and burnout. When it comes to Campaign Finance Reporting, NGPVAN allows me to enter in the information specific to my reporting requirements and the program does my work for me. When it comes to filing time, my treasurer's life is a breeze. NGPVAN really provides a medium for our information to be stored and accessed so that I can be confident that nothing is slipping through the cracks and we are staying as tightly organized as we need to be. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The newest interface (NGPVAN 8)is sometimes not the most user friendly when it comes to running call time and logging data in real time as compared to previous versions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

In the older versions of NGP I've used, the interface is very intuitive and easy for beginners to pick up. Simple to moderate functions can be done at ease without much training. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Newer version of NGP, along with Direct Connect, are practically the opposite of intuitive and are incredibly difficult to use, leading to a lot of time wasted trying to figure out simple tasks, or just easily avoidable mistakes. Also, some of the more advanced functions of NGP are difficult to pick up on and not very obvious without a comprehensive tutoring session. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface is really user-friendly and I love the ability to see if people in my network have voted when it gets close to election day. You can train someone with little or no VAN experience in a matter of days. VAN makes recruiting and maintaining volunteers a breeze. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish I was able to have the "My Campaign" tab and "My voters" tab open in the same browser. VAN has crashed on me a handful of times which can be frustrating when working long hours and getting close to election day. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like that NGP VAN was easy to use as a first time user. I started working on it as an intern and found it very easy to pick up for fundraising purposes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I think that the user interface of NGP VAN is a little bit clunky and not intuitive. It can be complicated to navigate through if you do not know what you are looking for. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It makes entering new information about voters, and pulling specialized lists seamless. I could only imagine what a nightmare organizing campaigns would be without it, or another product like it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have no real complaints at the moment. From a data perspective, I do sometimes worry about the quality of data that is going in. The 2-factor authentication is also extremely frustrating. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

All campaigners know VAN is the gold standard, whether you like it or not. It's great to have predictive dialer, virtual phone bank, mini van, list building, all those things in one system. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Every action and Van are essentially the same, they should just be the same. In our last campaign we constantly had to duplicate events in VAN for internal tracking and EA for public facing events. Our use was distributed so there was also a lag time in getting some features turned on, even just exporting lists. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NGP VAN is a user-friendly tool that gives me access to data for voter outreach and canvassing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NGP VAN can be difficult to log in to an often requires me to confirm my identity by getting a code texted to my phone. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The beauty of the VAN is its ease to use for first-time users and also its MiniVAN app. No more long nights of data entry, save your time and volunteers for what works - actual voter contact! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

If an area has a lack of good voter files to upload from the SecState, the data is less reliable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The best thing about VAN is how secure it is. Once you’re logged in it’s incredibly easy to access voter contact information, cut turf, track dials and so much more on this app. I’m amazed by the amount of things it can accomplish. I appreciate the levels of access there are (field workers, volunteers, HQ all have their own type of access). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Being logged out for a short span of inactivity. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ease of app use. The minivan app provides a simple way to go through voter rolls for local campaigns in particular. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The user interface, namely visually. Nothing is wrong with the apps outright functionality, but the interface could use an update. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NGP is the best way to run a campaign. It is the backbone to everything I do as an organizer, and the campaign motto is often "if it isn't in VAN, it isn't happening." I think it is relatively user friendly, a wonderful way to organize a campaign, and a powerful tool for event planning and large-scale field work. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NGP VAN does many things very well, but it could benefit from talking to the people who use it and asking them what they need. For example, data entry is not easy to do. Similarly, the default options when searching for people, looking at data, or making events are never the options real people would use, and there is not an easy way to save the correct options as the default. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love the page where it shows you profiles you’ve recently been on so you don’t have to constantly look them up it’s already their Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don’t like how it times me out so fast sometimes Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Van relies on a multitude of voter info to pertain the most relavant of campaigns for them. You can then compile lists of relevant voter databases to support your script. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Users can update voter databases with inaccurate information. Its up to responsible users to correct the database upon discoveries of immaculate information. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The voter database is updated frequently from the NE Secretary of State. But unfortunately not frequently enough. Too many times over the years have I called a number and spoken to a widow or widower. Or called the same constituent lead only to have my eardrums almost blown because it's still a fax after years? How hard is it to update the database from canvasser feedback about call disposition? Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

No note writing capability in the OpenVPB platform. Votebuilder offers a notes field. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The best part of NGP is the ability to download contact/client donor lists. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It can be complicated to upload/find information about specific donors. You have to go through several tabs to even get to where you need to be. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like that NGP VAN is extremely user friendly and is very connected between all of its uses. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Every so often there are glitches regarding the data input. Sometimes the data that it presents is not actually what was input by the user. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is very good at breaking down large group statistics and making them easy to read and analyze. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is excessively difficult to identify individual numbers and analyze the effectiveness and accountability of each canvasser. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I felt very well equipped to manage and contact my voters. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I found that in initially recruiting volunteers, working outside of VAN produced more meaningful connections with potential vols. Somehow VAN produced less personal contact. I don't have a resolution for this, but that is my observation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

VAN was crucial for our campaign once we started having paid walkers. We could literally just send them a link or ID number and they could just go! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have nothing bad to say really. It didn't really drain my battery much. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The site was easy to use and made keeping track of people in my network, scheduling, and packets all in one place much easier. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Different layouts between tabs and various form entry. Maybe too many screens to complete actions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NGP VAN made it easy to navigate with their map showing locations of houses and the amount of people within each house. I could plan the best and most efficient route fairly easily. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Much of the data was not accurate or updated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.