# NGP VAN Reviews **Vendor:** Bonterra **Category:** [Political Campaign Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/political-campaign) **Average Rating:** 4.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 74 ## About NGP VAN NGP VAN is a technology provider dedicated to supporting Democratic and progressive campaigns, organizations, and nonprofits. By offering an integrated platform, NGP VAN empowers clients to efficiently manage fundraising, compliance, field operations, organizing, digital engagement, and social networking. With a commitment to innovation and client success, NGP VAN has become a trusted partner for thousands of campaigns and organizations across the United States. Key Features and Functionality: - Donor Management: Comprehensive contact records, automated workflows, and real-time dashboards to deepen relationships with supporters. - Digital Marketing: Tools for executing optimized email, digital advertising, and SMS campaigns to effectively engage audiences. - Online Fundraising: Customizable donation forms designed to increase conversion rates and maximize fundraising efforts. - Organizing: Solutions for both online and offline organizing, including volunteer recruitment and event management. - Event & Volunteer Management: Streamlined tools for managing virtual and in-person events, as well as recruiting and coordinating volunteers. - Compliance: Trusted tools for filing accurate campaign finance reports at federal, state, and local levels. - Online Actions: Petition, email sign-up, and volunteer forms to boost conversions and expand supporter lists. - Targeted Email: Reliable and user-friendly email solutions to support campaign communication strategies. Primary Value and Solutions Provided: NGP VAN addresses the complex needs of Democratic and progressive campaigns by offering a unified platform that simplifies and enhances various aspects of campaign management. By integrating fundraising, compliance, organizing, and digital engagement tools, NGP VAN enables campaigns to operate more efficiently, engage supporters more effectively, and ultimately achieve greater success in their initiatives. This comprehensive approach allows clients to focus on their core mission while leveraging cutting-edge technology to drive results. ## NGP VAN Reviews ### 1. CRM for all needs, not for all uses. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** R C. | Tech and Data Coach, Civic & Social Organization, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 15, 2025 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** It's a great place for data storage. Uploads and exports are fairly easy. Search tool can make both simple fairly complicated easy. One can automate processes i coordination with digital tools to engage your audience. You can monitor responses rates, tool or outreach effectiveness, send yourself progress to goal reports, and automated email and MMS texts series. I like how accessible most on of one's data is. The reporting tools and templates, the calendar, the digital tools available, the calling, canvassing, tools area all there so you can have a pretty good view of organizational goals and objectives. Setting the platform up as an end-user is pretty easy. Setting up the database as an administrator is pretty easy functionally.I think NGPVAN can provide more resources on ways to leverage the tool not just as user but administrator I use it very, very often. I'm on it more than my phone. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** At a certain point though you will run into the limitations of CRMs. You can search for any type of data that NGPV has a tool or feature for but if you want to analyze your data at a more granular level, you will have to integrate NGPVAN with another database (RDBMS. The predictive dialer is really, really slow. The texting tool is limited. You can send mass texts out, but you ccan't really engage the targets of your texts. You can create kewords, and those keywords will trigger automated responses that you have to set up. It could be a little faster. Their training resources were pretty scarce at firstand of low quality. For a while external organizations had better resources than NGPVAN had on their website. I am happy to say, this is changing. NGPVAN now has tutorials, webinars, training, and a pretty exhaustive help center. I ahve learned a lot from thei help center, and still use it today. I wish they had more higher-level trainings available to organizations. Their current resources define or tell you how to use a tool. What would be really helpful is training resources to help users leverage their tools. Maybe case studiesof of how organization have used the tools or how they could use them. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have a place to store data, analyze and organize my data to to get a snapshot of our organization, team, campaign, staff , etc That's powerful. I can make decisions based on the data I am collecting, and analyzing in the CRM. I can create and automate tools to help me, my team, my organization engage stakeholders, monitor, track, analyze their our efforts, stakeholder actions, responses, our events, our progress towards goals. I can share that work, those tracking tools, with anyone. It is a great tool for administration, analysis, and reporting. A functional use of NGPVAN in Spanish would be great. Making the CRM more inclusive would be a nice touch. They are making changes towards this end, I've noticed. ### 2. Okay for the purpose, but annoying billing practices and nonexistent customer service. **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 24, 2025 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** We use NGP VAN primarily within our political organization to efficiently manage donor information, streamline compliance with FEC filings, and track donor activity over time. It helps us quickly compile top-line donor statistics, ensuring our reporting is accurate and up-to-date for strategic decision-making and compliance purposes. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** NGP VAN is less appropriate for organizations that aren’t experienced with complex software contracts, as it has aggressive pricing strategies that can exceed the stated list price, auto-renewing contracts that can catch users off guard, and billing practices that often include unclear or non-transparent line items. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** FEC compliance and donor reporting. ### 3. Comprehensive database of voters **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 18, 2025 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** All voters are available and their information is usually up to date. Basic functions like quick look up and simple lists and turfs usually work well. The best part for me is the customer support for my area. Katie and David do their best to assist promptly and thoroughly. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** During advanced use there are many roadblocks to accomplish goals. Right now I am struggling to make sure that when lists are printed out for contacting voters, that canvassers can adequately note if the voter has never been contacted or is hostile or especially if they are threatening. Making sure this happens is time consuming and could be easily accomplished if the result of the contact was displayed as a note on the list. Right now, only notes are displayed on the list. Also, once a result is input, an answer to a survey question is purported to influence likely party so that when the voter contacted is a self-proclaimed MAGA Republican, they will stop showing up under likely party Strong Democrats. The program times out quickly and constantly having to reenter my log in information is a headache. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Having a digitally sortable data base of voters at my fingertips is a huge benefit! ### 4. Good for lots of uses but needs better tech support **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gerry M. | Sole Proprietor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 15, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** It's great for accessing voters and compiling and outputting lists in various ways. Tools are easy to use and self-explanatory, or at least can be figured out with a few tries. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** We experienced a problem when building and using Virtual Phone Bank: our goal was to add email addresses but the input form would not let the user advance to the next record if the email field was left blank, which was most of them. I could not find a workaround and calls to our state party VAN expert went unreturned. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Access to voter records, ability to update or add data. ### 5. 3 State Rep campaigns, 1 State Senate, City Council, and others all around Lowell, MA **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Geoff F. | 1st Middlesex Democratic State Committee by ballot, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 27, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** I tell candidates that the cost of NGP VAN is justified by focusing on voters most likely to vote. I also use voter extracts to identify mail in ballots received including what party and which ones were cast. Extracts of petitions signed for various causes also help. Integration with such tools as Hustle (though this can be better) all add to the power. In the end the benefit is contacting the most, best voters possible, and while not wasting resources on ones less likely to vote. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** One might consider the web interface clumsy but the cost of educating thousands of activists on something new would be difficult. More features in Mini Van that emulate cusomization for paper sheets would be great. I like to have hints about a voter that can be used at a door. For example, did they sign a particular petition of note? **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** fitting voter contact to campaign budget for down ticket campaigns. ### 6. Recommended but steep learning curve **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Angela B. | CONTRACTOR: POLITICAL CONSULTING, GRAPHICS/MARKETING, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2025 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** NGP VAN is great for organizations to strategize their field organization. I can easily upload lists as well as export them for mailing, canvasses, and voter contacts. The ease of connecting with texting API as well as Phone banking creation is great in one software. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** The learning curve is steep - mass email creation is clunky - updates on the backend were very late in the cycle, and ineffective for GOTV planning **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Integration with other software for list export was easy - local support on the backend was very responsive, but lacked at the end of the cycle. ### 7. Review of NGP VAN **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rick M. | County Chair, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 06, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** Works great for sending large number of emails. A great list with details is very comprehensive. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** There are no people to talk to about support of the product. I would pay money to speak to a person to get technical support. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Finding groups of people who are interested in our cause. ### 8. A quality, nigh ubiquitous product **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sean W. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 09, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** While VAN has a lot of strong features, perhaps it's strongest feature is it's dominance/ubiquity in the progressive sphere. Practially, what this means is that virtually everyone who volunteers or joins your org has at least some level of familiarity with your CRM which makes onboarding and training far, far easier. Also some of the new features have been amazing and VAN supports an orgs ability to build out an extremely detailed infrastructure mapping out levels of engagement, automating contacts, etc in a way that's virtually unmatched in it's field **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** VAN definitely has quirks, at times features can be deprecated or left to wither without support **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** VAN not only streamlines outreach and data management it also aids in the development of volunteers and staff by allowing the creation of engagement ladders. ### 9. Invaluable set of tools **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michael S. | Community & Government Relations Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 06, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** I have access to everything I need to know about my user base at my fingertips at all time. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** It should be easier to track VBMs. A person should be able to press a single button and see three columns. One, the universe of people requesting a VBM; two the list of people who have returned their VBMs; three, an easy contact sheet of outstanding ballots. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It provides as much specific information as you need to run your campaign. ### 10. I have been working in NGP compliance software for 20 years. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consulting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 15, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** The compliance software is well designed, produces desired report product, the disclosure report. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Before the pandemic, the NGP help line was fully staffed; if you called with a question, a human answered the phone and generally was able to resolve your issue in that phone call. During the last several years, a call to the help line generally was not answered by a human, rather you had to leave a voice mail. Then if you were lucky you would receive a call back the same day. Therefore, the end product you were working on is delayed at least a day. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** to insure that the disclosure report is filed correctly. ### 11. Versatility of NGP VAN **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Frank M. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2023 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** I like the ability to enter information regarding newly registered voters after completing a voter registration event. I also can obtain the missing information needed to complete a citizen's initiative petition so that it is not thrown out by the local Supervisor of Elections. I am a member of my local Democratic Executive Committee. I have used it to look up phone numbers for the registered Democrats in my Democratic Executive Committee district so I can encourage them to sign up for Vote By Mail balloting. I also call the Democrats in my DEC district to ask them to sign citizen initiative petitions that the Democratic Party is supporting. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** I wish that training on how to use the NGP VAN was available more consistently than it is. It is very good when it is available. Also, maybe there could be a phone number to call if you need help with any issues. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Looking up information ### 12. Mostly good **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mitch B. | Volunteer Researcher, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 24, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** How organized and comprehensive it is, good resource **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Idk it's clunky at times and needs a bit better UX. I don't wanna scroll to the right to add contact info, and "View contact record" is mostly useless **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Organizing, data entry, filing FEC reports ### 13. Useful with warning **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ross P. | Retired, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 06, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** I can verify that individuals are registered, produce lists of voters using multiple parameters, and put lists as desired on the phone app MiniVAN. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** The lists that are generated almost always have mistakes. A list in your precinct, for instance, will always have some folks listed who live outside your precinct, even in another city. And the VAN has trouble with voters whose address is a highway. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm a volunteer activist, with no business interests. ### 14. Irreplaceable **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Benjamin S. | Chief of Staff - County Executive, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2023 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** There is no substitution for the VAN. You simply cannot run an effective campaign without it. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** There is a somewhat slow turnaround on certain items like polling place location updates. Also experienced a delay in implementing custom scores. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Targeting, creating mail lists, running a field campaign, general organising. ### 15. It was difficult to get support from the rep **Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 06, 2024 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** Campaign organization, and liked that I can track progress. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Limited resources and very difficult to get help and support **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Help with data analysis ### 16. Extremely Useful and Easy to use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Fund-Raising | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 23, 2022 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** NGP VAN is easy to use and I love that it syncs across other platforms. I appreciate the ability to download reports directly into Google Sheets. I think NGP VAN is far superior to its competitors. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** There isn't much I dislike about NGP VAN, but there are times when the system runs a little slow. I wish there were some elements of NGP VAN 7 in the newer versions. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** If you're able to have a specific person manage data integrity, it makes life a lot easier. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** NGP VAN makes finance reporting and compliance super easy. It makes tracking fundraising goals and expenditures a breeze. It makes completing reports go by faster. ### 17. VAN is very necessary even though there are some set backs **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Katia P. | Field Organizer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 18, 2021 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** i like the ability to be able to pull up the history of a voter in a matter of seconds. In addition, I like it's format for data management and ability to keep track of survey questions. In addition, **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** I dislike the fact that it is hard to organize people in cities, specifically cutting turf for those in apartment buildings. In addition, there are definitely some places where it falls short. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** I would recommend NGP VAN for your campaign because it is an awesome platform to learn more about the community you live in. VAN is great because it gives you so much information on your finger tips, and knowledge is power. NGP VAN is cool because there are so many different features such as the my campaign side and the my voters side. MyCampaign is a great tool for your voter management and allows you to organize your volunteers and do good volunteer management. MYVoters is also great because that side is the outer facing one that allows you to properly communicate with your voters, whether it is through making calls or sending texts. It is very much the inner source vs the outer one. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am solving political problems and campaigns - I have benefitted by being able to reach more voters with VAN than any other CRM. it is a great platform to be use on campaigns. I also have used VAN to assist communities during COVID and providing resources to folks who need it. ### 18. Easy experience for a new user **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tyler M. | Investment Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 19, 2021 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** Easy to understand layout. Easy to teach new users once proficient. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Not enough learning resources for new users via the company. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** Use resources available to you to expedite learning. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Able to canvass at a much faster speed. Great ability to store and access data in various formats and report styles. ### 19. Stay with NGP 7 if you can :) **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 10, 2022 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** Super user-friendly and the NGP customer support team is fantastic! **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** The most recent upgrades and taken away the best parts of NGP and why so many people enjoyed using it. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** The newer versions make it more complicated to pull reports and the reports are not as accurate. ### 20. Big fan of SmartVAN as a platform, but customer service is inconsistent at NGPVAN. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 15, 2021 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** SmartVAN is user friendly and intuitive--more so than other voter file platforms like Catalist **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** It's difficult to get clear answers on questions and a full picture of pricing from customer service reps. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** Platform-wise, I think it's the way to go. Customer service wise, I'd be aware that your questions not be answered in a timely manner unless you're a large organization/campaign or you get someone's cell number. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I utilize SmartVAN for direct mail and digital advertising program data for political and advocacy campaigns. it's an easy and intuitive platform when you're using it for the basics ### 21. Difficult to use but so necessary to our work **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 11, 2021 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** The sheer quantity of information we can share as a team **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** The user interface is so confusing for folks who have limited statistical or computer literacy **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It’s just a fantastic way to target within a massive dataset of individuals ### 22. Satisfied user with reservations about IT problems **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 10, 2020 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Lack of customer service promptness Outdated "help" section **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am finding voters based on my targets. I am contacting voters via phone or canvassing. I realized that it is very easy to use, except when there are technical difficulties. ### 23. Great tool to engage voters! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rebecca A. | Regional Coordinator, International Affairs, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 26, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** I really recommend using the APP when you're knocking on doors. It is seriously so easy to find places and learn all about someone before you knock on their door. It also cuts the time you spend on data in half, which is so convenient because you work such long hours on campaigns. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easy data tracking and figuring out voter turnout. I've used it in a campaign setting and in a nonprofit setting and the benefits are that it's user friendly and just a huge data base of voters. ### 24. Very helpful for political and organizing work **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 22, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** The voterfile and being able to segment people out by scores and location. Canvassing has never been more easier than with Mini VAN. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** If you do any sort of political, legislative, or community organizing, then buy this tool. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** This is a great tool for our political outreach work. It houses people in the system that can potentially join our movement, but it also helps us foster leadership. ### 25. Great and getting better every day! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** NGP VAN is great, but make sure that your sytem administrator is at least somewhat familiar with the system before you try to implement. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've used NGP VAN to win multiple campaigns over the years. Without this one simple system to track all of our constituent contact and manage all of our supporter data, I don't think those campaigns could have been successful. ### 26. The Gold Standard for Democratic Campaigns **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** Talk to others who have used the product/are using the product and let them show you the application of how easy it is. You will be amazed by the utility of it. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is the easiest way to log all of my campaign data in one place, no matter if it is coming from fundraising, volunteer activity, or some other sphere. Everything is in one place and easily organized. ### 27. Older versions of NGP remain intuitive **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kevin T. | Project Manager, Government Relations, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** NGP is central to the work we do everyday managing the finances of a number of political candidates and groups. NGP makes producing call sheets incredibly simple, and you don't appreciate how good it is until you have to make call sheets from scratch, an incredibly tedious job which can take hours without the intuitive NGP software. Also, compliance work is very simple through NGP, a few clicks of the button does a job that would otherwise entail weeks of dealing with snail mail or hundreds of pages of printing. ### 28. An essential service for any Democratic Campaign **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 26, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** I would recommend attending an NGP VAN training webinar to get a full grasp of it's capabilities. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** NGP VAN is the premier service when it comes to mobilizing voters for political and issue campaigns. There is no other service that compares to NGP VAN and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to strengthen their field program and win electoral campaigns. I look forward to using NGP VAN in the future and hope other field programs will as well. ### 29. Easy to use for first time user **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civic & Social Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 04, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use NGP VAN to aid in our event planning and fundraising efforts. It helps organize donors and helps to target our donors for certain marketing. ### 30. Satisfied with NGP Van **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 27, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use votebuilder for elections. It has been a great way to keep the voter file organized, and allows counties and precincts to coordinate their own efforts easily. We wouldn't win elections without it. ### 31. A must **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 26, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Working within a coalition, again it's the gold standard whether you like it or not. In the campaign world it would be unthinkable to try any other system. The plus side is that it's a very transferable skill set. ### 32. Great, User-Friendly Software **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tasi H. | Campaign Consultant, Public Relations and Communications, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** NGP VAN is a user-friendly tool that gives me access to data for voter outreach and canvassing. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** NGP VAN allows me to be more strategic when it comes to voter engagement. I can reach constituents I know turn out to vote. The tool allows me to seamlessly filter by party affiliation, gender, affinity to vote, etc. which helps when formulating our campaign strategy. ### 33. Easy to Use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tamara J. | Campaign Manager, Political Organization, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 27, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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! **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** If an area has a lack of good voter files to upload from the SecState, the data is less reliable. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It saves on manpower hours and puts staff/volunteers into direct voter contact, which is much more effective and cost saving. ### 34. Incredibly Resourceful **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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). **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Being logged out for a short span of inactivity. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** N/A. ### 35. A quick and easy way to reach voters **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matthew B. | Events Staff- UGA Bookstore, Events Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** The ease of app use. The minivan app provides a simple way to go through voter rolls for local campaigns in particular. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** The user interface, namely visually. Nothing is wrong with the apps outright functionality, but the interface could use an update. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Reaching local voters to both determine support for political candidates, but the platform also presents a good way to gauge citizen sentiment on pertinent issues. ### 36. The best option but still flawed **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 21, 2018 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** My entire job is basically scheduling, calling, and organizing people with VAN. Nothing we do in the field part of my congressional campaign would be possible without VAN. ### 37. Amazingly Amazing **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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 **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** I don’t like how it times me out so fast sometimes **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** Definitely would use to keep track of volunteers it’s so much more effective than just placing people in a calendar **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I’ve realized the benefits of having one place to put volunteers instead of like a google doc. It gives multiple people access to the same information and organizes them for future use ### 38. As good as its users **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 26, 2018 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Users can update voter databases with inaccurate information. Its up to responsible users to correct the database upon discoveries of immaculate information. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** You can't break van. Its already peripetually breaking and it's up to you to fix it. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am constantly making van more effective each time I update a voters information and I help the action fund I'm part of by increasing their voter files when I identify voters that support our csuses. ### 39. So many holes in the fabric... **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Elle H. | Consultant/Strategist, Public Policy, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 17, 2018 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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? **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** No note writing capability in the OpenVPB platform. Votebuilder offers a notes field. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** R Votes is far more antiquated. NGP VAN seems to be the only viable option. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Benefit is easy connection with voters. When they are reached. ### 40. Donor/client research upload and compliance/quarterly filing. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** The best part of NGP is the ability to download contact/client donor lists. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** All of our client donor info is centralized which is a benefit for us and we are able to track call time/donations that come in to each campaign. ### 41. Field Team for Local and State Campaigns. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** I like that NGP VAN is extremely user friendly and is very connected between all of its uses. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** NGP VAN is extremely effective for campaigns with a large team where everyone's data inputs are synced together for analysis. ### 42. It has some positives but definitely could learn from some other softowares like Organizer. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** It is very good at breaking down large group statistics and making them easy to read and analyze. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** It is excessively difficult to identify individual numbers and analyze the effectiveness and accountability of each canvasser. **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** Try to keep script and questions the same and set activist codes and survey questions in the results tab to make analytics easier. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Political Mobilization ### 43. Very good **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** I felt very well equipped to manage and contact my voters. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** 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. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I started with no vols and then I had vols. Problem solved! ### 44. A paper saver and campaign basic **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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! **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** I have nothing bad to say really. It didn't really drain my battery much. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We saved costs on paper and printing, and we also had a more accurately recorded database. ### 45. Campaign Must Have **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** The site was easy to use and made keeping track of people in my network, scheduling, and packets all in one place much easier. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Different layouts between tabs and various form entry. Maybe too many screens to complete actions. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Used for auditing of various forms, creating turf and packets, sharing data amongst entire organization. ### 46. NGP VAN was easy to use and helpful for canvassing large territories. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 26, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** 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. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Much of the data was not accurate or updated. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has made canvassing more efficient and allowed greater grassroots initiatives. ### 47. I've used NGP VAN for numerous campaigns **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 29, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** The ability to cut walking lists/phone banking lists and organize contacts is very helpful. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** There is some training necessary, but it's not bad **Recommendations to others considering NGP VAN:** This is the best tool for Voter ID **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cutting lists for volunteers easily is most helpful. It's a one-stop system for voter ID ### 48. 2 Years with VAN **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civic & Social Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** I love that VAN allows me to create tags for volunteers and voters, it makes it a lot easier to narrow down searches. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** I wish that I was able to have multiple tabs open at once. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** VAN makes it easy to prioritize and target certain voters. ### 49. Overall a good experience with NGP 7! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Fund-Raising | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2019 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** The link with NGP merchant to track donations in really time **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** Searches aren’t alphabetical, can make it hard to find duplicates if you don’t know they’re there **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Makes it easy to track business and personal donations especially when they are coming from relatively similar sources ### 50. Gets the job done **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Political Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 28, 2018 **What do you like best about NGP VAN?** Virtual phone banks are just life savers. Being able to have everything you need in one place when on the phone with people is absolutely priceless. Also cutting turf for canvassing/ building maps is easy and great. **What do you dislike about NGP VAN?** If you are pulling people based on models, they are not always super helpful. Of course, statistical models are inherently not perfect, but sometimes you need HUGE volunteer/staff capacity to actually touch all the people that you pull based on models. This is not NGP VAN's fault per se, but I wish they were a little more helpful. It's also sometimes hard to work with State Voices, who runs c3s use of the VAN. **What problems is NGP VAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Civic engagement! It's not great at identifying brand new people to engage in high-level ways (ie new volunteers), but it's perfect for very broad outreach. It's also helpful for volunteer management of people you already work with. ## NGP VAN Discussions - [What is NGP VAN used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-ngp-van-used-for) - 1 comment - [View NGP VAN pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/ngp-van/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-13+09%3A10%3A46+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=68ec6417-8db2-4535-badb-6e0e8b3f6d6e&secure%5Btoken%5D=966c41cb4a48a7cf76c66063576a30a8e702066b5b6a39768c647196a6f169a5&format=llm_user) ## NGP VAN Integrations - [ActBlue](https://www.g2.com/products/actblue/reviews) ## NGP VAN Features **Campaign Tools** - Content Management - Volunteer Management - Fundraising - Events and Ticketing **Communication Tools** - Social Network Sync - Email Messaging - Text Messaging - Communication Analytics **Field Tools** - Route Mapping - Digital Forms - Call Lists ## Top NGP VAN Alternatives - [NationBuilder](https://www.g2.com/products/nationbuilder/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (107 reviews) - [ActBlue](https://www.g2.com/products/actblue/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (12 reviews) - [Trail Blazer Campaign Manager](https://www.g2.com/products/trail-blazer-campaign-manager/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (12 reviews)