GuideStar by Candid offers GuideStar Pro for updated nonprofit data for research and other purposes, supporting data matching and validation, mailing list creation and generation, grant writing and eligibility validation, and integration of nonprofit data into existing customer or outreach data sets.
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iWave
Score 8.8 out of 10
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iWave offers their nonprofit fundraising intelligence platform, for performing prospect research online with VeriGift, the company's donor and donation database.
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Pricing
Candid GuideStar
iWave
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Candid GuideStar
iWave
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Candid GuideStar
iWave
Considered Both Products
Candid GuideStar
Verified User
Program Manager
Chose Candid GuideStar
If you already know the name of the foundation that you are wanting to learn more about then GuideStar is where you need to go. Foundation Directory Online is good for when you are wanting to try and find new funders by searching by focus areas or geographic locations, but it …
Before iWave, I would use GuideStar and advanced google searches for my research. iWave makes prospect research so much easier by compiling multiple data sources into one software program that can be easily searched simultaneously using the 360search. There are several other …
It is just my go-to for any information I need on a potential client as I work in the non-profit consulting space and need to better understand my prospects. As a former nonprofit exec, I valued what we could share on the site as a gold seal for others to learn about our worthiness to invest.
iWave is well suite for gathering a better idea of who you should focus on for major giving efforts. While it gives you a lot of good information, some of that information feels not very important and therefore, clogs up the data you actually need. iWave should not be used for something like direct mail list making. iWave seems to really be focused on the major donor aspect and it is not a tool to be used to help with regular annual giving
The 360search allows you to do a comprehensive search across the multiple data sources at the same time.
You can stay organized during your research with the user-friendly and customizable Profiles and Labels.
The PROscreen ranking system allows you to get a quick snapshot of the alignment of a particular donor with your mission in an easy to read format that can be exported for another colleague with little extra explanation needed.
It's honestly tough to say what needs to be improved on a platform that I am a big fan of. The only time I am ever frustrated has more to do with the fact that some individuals are very adept at masking their charitable activities from public databases, and given that iWave can only show you what is publicly documented information I wouldn't consider that a liability of the product... rather it's a challenge of the field.
Some areas of improvement could include more online filtering and searching of Foundation grant histories. My current workaround is to download the entire grant history as a CSV (another good feature of iWave), and use Excel to sort and filter my results.
iWave customer support is more responsive than most software platforms I currently use. My requests are always handled promptly, and support is incredibly responsive, friendly, and patient. Plus, I can always get someone on the phone immediately if I need a problem resolved right then and there. In addition to the live and personal support, the iWave knowledge base is frequently update with new content, including video webinars that help you become a more powerful user of the software.
I have always used Guidestar as my go-to not only when I was a non-profit executive and wanted to ensure we remained worthy of their rating but also now as a non-profit consultant where I need to understand my current and potential partners across financials, key contacts, board members, etc.
iWave is affordable, offers current data, and is continually adding new data sources. They are the only product that offers international prospect information, which is helpful as our institution borders Canada. I was impressed when our sale representative went out of his way to teach me about how I could screen Canadian prospects in a way that helped us calculate an estimated real estate value for our prospects. We had no other way of getting this information as Canada does not provide the information publicly like tax assessor offices do in the United States.
We have consistently been able to increase our annual donations year over year since using iWave. There was an 11% increase just between our last fiscal year and the previous fiscal year.
Time spent on researching donors has decreased since all of the information needed is on one website rather than searching all over the internet for the information needed.
