iWave vs. Neon CRM

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

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 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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• 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

• 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.

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.

Incentivized

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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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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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.

Incentivized

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

• 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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• 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