Bonterra Network for Good vs. Neon CRM

We have a small team leading our international nonprofit. Bonterra Network for Good allows us to keep track of our donations quickly and easily, including private donors, larger donor-advised funds, foundations and grants, and easily designate the donation to different campaigns or sub-categories within our organization. The platform syncs well with Quickbooks and we rarely have issues. The issues we do have are always around pulling reports. The platform does not make it easy to pull a quick report, even with suggested filters provided.

Incentivized

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...

Incentivized

• The donation software is very user friendly to add donations to.
• The report section is very easy to use and to run what you need.
• The contact portion is extremely user friendly and is easy to keep track of donors, what they've paid and communication to them.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• In exporting reports, it would be helpful to have a "select all" option so you can easily select everything without having to manually click each one.
• In exporting reports, it may be helpful to have the option of saving various options for different needs so you don't have to manually click or unclick each choice every time, as you can currently only save one type.
• It would be helpful to be able to change an event/ticket information after it has already gone live for sales as we recently had an issue with this.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

We are still learning and rebuilding our nonprofit using this platform, so this year is a trial run to see how we can increase our network and our donations. So long as we are able to see a significant return on investment in terms of donations received through the platform, we will renew for next year.

Incentivized

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

There is no perfect all-in-one product that works for every organization. We enjoyed using Network for Good. I am giving it a 9 because the cost was out of our range, and the peer-to-peer options (at the time) were limited. We were not able to make it work for our peer-to-peer event. We also weren't thrilled with the online forms. However, the donation pages, donor profiles, and communication tools were excellent.

Incentivized

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

In 5+ years we have never had an issue with it not working when we needed it to. It is very reliable and doesn't seem to have a lot of bugs or interruptions in service.

Incentivized

It is always fast for us and reports have a very quick upload time. We don't integrate it into other programs so I'm not 100% sure about that, but it always works when we use it and is very reliable. Even when we run Excel files for complete information on donors, it always works very fast.

Incentivized

Most of the time they are quick and friendly and help me resolve any issues. There have only been a couple of times that we couldn't find a resolution and I was just told that NFG didn't have that capability.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We only had one hiccup with the domain that was an issue on our end but NFG struggled to help us. It was finally resolved and we've been good ever since

Incentivized

We had to hire someone to implement our donors into Neon CRM

We used Little Green Light for several years at a previous employer. LGL did not have the extensive integration capabilities or the level of sophistication that BGF has in terms of email, video, donor campaign pages, and exceptional customer support. For these reasons, we chose to go with BGF instead of LGL.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We are happy with all of the options

Incentivized

It works for the departments we need it in, finance, administration and fundraising and marketing. It does everything we need.

Incentivized

• Minimized the resources necessary to run an online presence. For instance, one moderately tech-savvy person can handle it.
• Provides a pathway to increase the number of events the organization can manage.
• By being part of a larger group of non-profits that utilize Network For The Good, we receive additional assistance and ideas from related organizations.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized