Fundraising Report Card vs. Neon CRM

If you work in a Development/Fundraising Department and have EVER been asked what your donor retention rate is - this is for you.

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

• It makes preparing fundraising reports super easy. I used to spend 6-8 hours preparing a board report and now it takes me 30 minutes... PLUS I can pull up the reports in real time during board meetings to allow board members to see the data presented in different ways or to answer questions on-the-spot.
• It has metrics that I've never even thought to prepare - including some that always felt too complicated to prepare. Lifetime Donor Value, Donor Retention Rates, Lapsed Donors, Acquired Donors, Reactivated Donors - all broken down by giving segments.
• I can customize Giving Segments. I work at a small non-profit - a major gift for us is different than a major gift for a larger organization. I can break up my data in the segments that make sense for my organization [and select colors that match our branding... you've never seen a happier Marketing Chair on your Board of Directors than when you give them a report that is properly branded for the organization. It's a small thing, but it doesn't take any extra work on my part.]

Incentivized

• Very user friendly
• Great customer service--they always quickly reply to inquiries with great information for troubleshooting
• It is a great catchall for donor/grant information

Incentivized

• The only difficulty I have with Fundraising Report Card is that the integration with our CRM [Kindful] doesn't keep track of the unique ID that is exported to Fundraising Report Card [to maintain confidentiality]. So it takes a bit more work to identify which donor[s] fall into a category. For example, Fundraising Report Card will tell me that 3 major donors lapsed in the previous quarter - and I can export the Donor ID's from Fundraising Report Card, but those ID's don't mean anything in my CRM, so I can't directly see who those donors are to follow up. This is an issue with the integration specifically with Kindful.

Incentivized

• Right now, there doesn't seem to be a way to assign reports and events to a staff person. In other words, if you want to receive emailed notifications when donations, payments, or event registrations come through, you have to receive ALL of them, not just those for particular events, etc.
• There is no intuitive way to take a deposit from a customer.
• NeonCRM doesn't allow you to create and bill with an invoice.

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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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NeonCRM can grow with us. We were able to implement a few features initially and, as time went on, incorporate others. We continue to do that.

Incentivized

• While I don't think I can entirely quantify the ROI for Fundraising Report Card, it made it possible for us to make better decisions and set better goals. Before we had this tool, we either spent way to much time analyzing data in spreadsheets [trying desperately not to make mistakes] OR more often, made strategic decisions without the facts to back us up. Our fundraising efforts are much smarter than before, and we KNOW where are areas of concern lie.
• We don't have to guess whether or not our strategies are working. We know.

Incentivized

• Huge positive ROI in that is has alleviated the need for hand-processing of membership transactions
• Huge positive ROI in that our reporting has been standardized

Incentivized