iWave vs. Neon CRM

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
iWave
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
iWave offers their nonprofit fundraising intelligence platform, for performing prospect research online with VeriGift, the company's donor and donation database.N/A
Neon CRM
Score 3.2 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, to enable 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
iWaveNeon CRM
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Essentials
$99
per month
Impact
$199
per month
Empower
$399
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
iWaveNeon CRM
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details—All 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
iWaveNeon CRM
Considered Both Products
iWave
Chose iWave
It’s been too many years to remember but iWave now represents in one search several sites I used to have to search individually.
Neon CRM
Chose Neon CRM
Salesforce was over-complicated and overly expensive to use. The learning curve was huge and a real disincentive to use. It needed to be customized which was very expensive. Neon was easy to learn and we are still building it and figuring out how to maximize all of its …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
iWaveNeon CRM
Communications and Marketing
Comparison of Communications and Marketing features of Product A and Product B
iWave
-
Ratings
Neon CRM
1.2
2 Ratings
138% 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
iWave
-
Ratings
Neon CRM
1.8
2 Ratings
115% 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
iWave
-
Ratings
Neon CRM
1.4
2 Ratings
125% 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
iWave
-
Ratings
Neon CRM
1.5
2 Ratings
130% below category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings2.52 Ratings
Mobile access00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Integrations00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
iWaveNeon CRM
Small Businesses
Bonterra Guided Fundraising
Bonterra Guided Fundraising
Score 9.4 out of 10
Bonterra Guided Fundraising
Bonterra Guided Fundraising
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
OneCause
OneCause
Score 9.2 out of 10
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM
Score 7.3 out of 10
Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM
Score 7.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
iWaveNeon CRM
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(13 ratings)
1.0
(12 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(4 ratings)
1.0
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
iWaveNeon CRM
Likelihood to Recommend
iWave
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
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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
iWave
  • 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.
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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
iWave
  • 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.
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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
iWave
No answers on this topic
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
iWave
No answers on this topic
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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Support Rating
iWave
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.
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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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Implementation Rating
iWave
No answers on this topic
Neon One, LLC
We had to hire someone to implement our donors into Neon CRM
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Alternatives Considered
iWave
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.
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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
iWave
  • 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.
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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.
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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.