Blackbaud NetCommunity vs. Neon CRM

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Blackbaud NetCommunity
Score 5.6 out of 10
N/A
The Blackbaud NetCommunity online alumni management system helps users to gain a deeper understanding of alumni relationships, execute multichannel engagement strategies, and eliminate tedious back-office tasks. Blackbaud NetCommunity provides tools to engage alumni and supporters, wherever they may be, helping users: Connect in person and create memorable alumni engagement events with online alumni management system tools to help foster a personal connection between alumni…N/A
Neon CRM
Score 4.2 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Neon CRM is a constituent management platform designed for nonprofits and membership associations. Its relationship-focused system offers a comprehensive view of supporters and members, enabling more engagement and revenue. It can be used to manage fundraising campaigns, events, communications, and it offers reporting tools to give stronger insights into the user's organization. It automates processes like email marketing, workflows, volunteer management, and payment processing so that users…
$99
per month
Pricing
Blackbaud NetCommunityNeon CRM
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Essentials
$99
per month
Impact
$199
per month
Empower
$399
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Blackbaud NetCommunityNeon CRM
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll plans include unlimited system users, unlimited records, unlimited online forms, and unlimited ticket support. Essentials is a streamlined version of Neon CRM designed for smaller nonprofits. Premium support options are included with Empower. All pricing is based on the organization's revenue.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Blackbaud NetCommunityNeon CRM
Considered Both Products
Blackbaud NetCommunity

No answer on this topic

Neon CRM
Chose Neon CRM
Blackbaud had terrible customer service and their product did not work. NeonCRM responds to support questions within hours and are friendly and helpful. Blackbaud did not stand behind their product. The reliability of information making it into the correct record in the correct …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Blackbaud NetCommunityNeon CRM
Communications and Marketing
Comparison of Communications and Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud NetCommunity
-
Ratings
Neon CRM
1.2
2 Ratings
122% below category average
Constituent engagement and marketing00 Ratings1.52 Ratings
Social listening00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Digital advocacy enablement00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Reporting and Analytics
Comparison of Reporting and Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud NetCommunity
-
Ratings
Neon CRM
1.8
2 Ratings
109% below category average
Reporting and data visualization00 Ratings1.02 Ratings
Wealth screening00 Ratings2.52 Ratings
Fundraising and Events
Comparison of Fundraising and Events features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud NetCommunity
-
Ratings
Neon CRM
1.4
2 Ratings
103% below category average
Online donation options00 Ratings3.02 Ratings
Event registration and ticketing00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Text and phone donations00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Volunteer shift management00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Mobile event check-in00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Security and Platform
Comparison of Security and Platform features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud NetCommunity
-
Ratings
Neon CRM
1.5
2 Ratings
123% below category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings2.52 Ratings
Mobile access00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Integrations00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Blackbaud NetCommunityNeon CRM
Small Businesses
OneCause
OneCause
Score 9.2 out of 10
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
OneCause
OneCause
Score 9.2 out of 10
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM
Score 7.5 out of 10
Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM
Score 7.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Blackbaud NetCommunityNeon CRM
Likelihood to Recommend
2.0
(23 ratings)
1.0
(12 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.6
(5 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(2 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(4 ratings)
1.0
(3 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
1.9
(3 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Blackbaud NetCommunityNeon CRM
Likelihood to Recommend
Blackbaud
For those using the events module, NetCommunity is great, though if you do a lot of walk/run type of events where individuals sponsor other individuals, something like TeamRaiser might make more sense. If you don't have the staff resources for web developers dedicated to fundraising tasks, then NetCommunity is a great tool. It's not as customisable as an experienced programmer/developer might want, but it still has a lot of options. It also has a lot of nuance, and if you cannot make an investment of time or money into getting staff trained, it's not going to work out well.
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Neon One, LLC
If you are looking for a quick and easy database option, which integrates breezily with email clients like MailChimp and Constant Contact, and has built-in credit/debit card processing capabilities, NeonCRM is a very good option. An affordable alternative to Salesforce or Raiser's Edge, it does lack some of their "bells and whistles" but gets the job done. On the one hand, Neon features a shallow learning curve and solid user interface, and is web based and mobile friendly. On the other hand, Neon might not be totally appropriate for large or national level organizations because some of the reporting seems less "robust" than pricier alternatives...
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Pros
Blackbaud
  • Data integration with The Raiser's Edge - data which is collected in Blackbaud NetCommunity directly integrates with The Raiser's Edge interface and can be seamlessly downloaded into the CRM.
  • Donation/Event/Membership registration - the product comes with out-of-the-box forms that can be used for these basic functions. They are flexible, but structured enough to integrate the data back to the CRM.
  • Email marketing - constituents can be emailed directly from the Blackbaud NetCommunity platform by querying the data available in the CRM. Targeted email communications can be setup as well as ongoing subscriptions/newsetters.
  • Content management - general tools to manage content are available. Business users can add/modify/delete this content without tremendous technical expertise. The content can also be shared across multiple websites - or A/B split tested to determine preference.
  • Friendly URLs - the product allows for friendly URLs that are also more searchable on the major search engines (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.).
Read full review
Neon One, LLC
  • NeonCRM allows you to build events, take registrations, and customize those events. Customizations include different ticketing options, add-ons, promotions, etc.
  • NeonCRM does a good job helping you track donors' activities/engagements.
  • It also provides a variety of reporting mechanisms - from dashboard snapshots to graphical reports - that allow you to review programs at a glance or in-depth.
Read full review
Cons
Blackbaud
  • When we have carding attacks on our payment gateway it is always a struggle to get all the players to work together and determine how to get us back up and running. ReCAPTCHA at the highest level is not supported, for example.
  • From experience, the product has not been stable in the last couple years and all signs have been pointing towards a sunsetting of this product for years.
Read full review
Neon One, LLC
  • Learning the ropes is largely accomplished by reading manuals and watching videos. I don't learn that way. I'd much prefer to be shown. I guess I'm old school.
  • They can be stingy with the customer support. We bought the big package and I still wind up going back to my salesperson to help me cut through any red tape to get what I need.
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Likelihood to Renew
Blackbaud
The only reason for this is due to the fact that we are only using the product for a specific purpose that is not directly tied to the newsletters. There are better products out there for what we are doing with grant processing. We will most likely move to a new software instead of renewing for our purposes
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Neon One, LLC
Neon CRM was difficult and frustrating to use without IT experience, and way to costly for the a small to mid-sized nonprofit. We believe that we lost donors due to the inaccurate report system in Neon CRM
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Usability
Blackbaud
The interface with Raiser's Edge and the many different ways our users can interact with the website are a big plus for us. Event registrations are our most popular transaction type and having this on line makes our lives much easier.
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Neon One, LLC
The Neon CRM system is confusing (we had to watch video tutorials and html code to understand many of the features, many of which we did not need). Around 2022, Neon started to go downhill. Bells and whistles were added that were of no benefit (to our nonprofit) and the system became even harder to use
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Reliability and Availability
Blackbaud
Product is stable is up 99.99% of the time. As a hosted customer, we do experience some minor downtime when routers or switches malfunction. We feel the downtime has been minimal and the communications around these outages has been good.
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Neon One, LLC
No answers on this topic
Performance
Blackbaud
Blackbaud NetCommunity uses .NET technology. It can be sluggish at times if not optimized, but overall we have been pleased with the performance when handling large volumes of traffic.
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Neon One, LLC
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Blackbaud
Blackbaud NetCommunity and all of the Blackbaud products have a great support system. Blackbaud NetCommunity offers support through phone calls, chats, online, and email. Their response time is very quick and the support analysts work with you to resolve issues in a very timely matter. If they do not personally know the answer they will direct you to another support analyst that will be able to assist in a resolution.
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Neon One, LLC
As stated before, they push you to read the manual or watch the video when what I want is a human being to walk/talk me through it. Like I said, maybe I am old school but that's how I learn. It's been a challenge.
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In-Person Training
Blackbaud
As expected. Courseware was a nice reference guide.
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Neon One, LLC
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Blackbaud
I truly wish that "0" was an option. I never really pin-pointed whether the implementation issues that we had were caused by Blackbaud, or if it was part of a larger issue that began in-house.
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Neon One, LLC
We had to hire someone to implement our donors into Neon CRM
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Alternatives Considered
Blackbaud
We tried to use this for a while and actually had different groups set up to begin implementing the interface into our computer but for some reason, we could not get a handle on it. iMIS ended up winning out in the long run because it was easier for people of all generations to use and understand. People just preferred the layout and the usability so ultimately it was kept as our main system.
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Neon One, LLC
It works. It's easy to customize for nonprofit and industry-specific categories. It does what it does well, and integrates with platforms that specialize in those areas rather than trying to be everything to all users.
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Return on Investment
Blackbaud
  • We were able to purchase a package integrating all types of Blackbaud products which integrate.
  • We are able to update our desktop, mobile donation pages which allow us to take donations while having great support available at all times.
  • The donation forms and email tools are not very visually appealing and user-friendly so this makes it difficult to implement and in return donors don't have a user-friendly experience.
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Neon One, LLC
  • Positive: Neon allows us to track, analyze, and optimize our fundraising efforts and outcomes. It is critical to our success.
  • Positive: Neon works easily with our website, making donations easy for the donor.
  • Positive: Neon is affordable in comparison with similar products.
  • Negative: Neon is not well known (yet) so each new employees will probably need to learn it from scratch.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Neon CRM Screenshots

Screenshot of Email Builder: Elevates appeals, newsletters, and other communications with mobile-responsive emails, multi-column layouts, text block editor and full email preview while building.Screenshot of Fundraising Dashboard: Aggregates fundraising data in one place to analyze various campaigns, performance, progress, and comparisons to other years and campaigns.Screenshot of Workflow Automation: Automated workflows that take care of redundant administrative tasks, with workflows to define triggers, audience, and the action to be performed.Screenshot of Reporting: Comprehensive reporting features to pull a variety of reports. By selecting the data source of interest and the fields needed, Neon CRM provides reports to analyze and share with key stakeholders.Screenshot of Donation Form Themes: Drag and drop themes for donation pages matched to the brand with customization.Screenshot of Volunteer Management: To understand the ways that people want to give support, and to track and manage volunteer sign-ups, projects, and time.