NeonCRM

"All 3 Things You Need it to Do - and More!"

Kommentare: You want CRM software to do 3 things:
1. Safely store you data
2. Allow you to leverage your data
3. Allow you to interact with your organizations website Most systems do the first 2 - they better (!), NEON does the third one too and better than any other product in the industry. My only hope is they don't get bought by Blackbaud. I've done 15 or more conversions with many different product and have never been happier than with NEON. Feel free to drop me a line and I'll share more with you.

Vorteile: I won't comment on the other features NEON does that other systems do as well - or almost as well. Instead, I'll focus on the factors that set them apart from the other players on the market. FORMS! - how can any org look past the ability to survey their constituents via email and then have the responses post to the database? e.g. How did you hear about us? a - k / What most interests you about our work? a.b.c. d. free form response / How would you like us to communicate with you? a - d Events! NEON is the industry leader in allowing users to enter info via an org's website and into the database. I have one client using NEON that registers athletic event users via their website - all the way down to the waiver release form via a digital signature. All that info results in a paperless process that posts to their website on the back end. Training - online video training is FREE - you won't get that with eTapestry or DonorPerfect.

Nachteile: The reports function features a URL for a particular report (dynamic too). This is is fantastic! But many board members and volunteers need to be reminded to access the url and it would be great if NEON would schedule the delivery of reports on an ongoing basis rather than the user having to schedule the delivery of the reports. A small thing, but one less thing the user has to think about doing.

"Great System to Grow With"

Kommentare: I have actually used Neon CRM in two very different nonprofits. One was previously using eTapestry and we switched because of the greater flexibility offered by Neon. That organization received much of its funding from individuals and was focused on one main program. The second was a transportation think tank that had no previous CRM system and received much of its funding through memberships. In both cases, I have found the system to work well and meet the needs of two very different organizations.

Vorteile: The interface is easy to use, very similar to comparable CRM systems in terms of flexibility and customization, but built for fundraising. The customization, in particular, is easy to understand and flexible enough to work for a variety of applications in a variety of nonprofits. I like the automation features as well, such as with donation appreciation and membership renewal reminders.

Nachteile: The single log on functionality and link with Wordpress needs to be further developed, I think. Sometimes the integrations with other systems, like MailChimp, are not as robust as I would like.

"Helpful for basic entry, but complicated for non-techies"

Kommentare: It's helping us to log in all of our contacts, but it takes me too long to figure out all the features that I need to/should use regularly.

Vorteile: I like all the ways you can classify an individual and partner organization, how it gives us the option to create another webpage that we can link to our existing site for fundraising purposes, and how it syncs with other software (e.g. Outlook email).

Nachteile: I'm still very confused about how to do email campaigns with a segmentation of our contacts. Also, it's beyond me how to fix the background on the campaign webpage I chose because I have 2 campaigns (a basic campaign and a campaign that has a specific time length). The functionality takes more focus to figure out than I often have time for...

"Good program, but reporting is less intuitive than I'd like."

Vorteile: The software has a lot of really useful features, like email blasts and the reports are really customizable.

Nachteile: The software isn't terribly intuitive, especially with reporting, and the training videos on YouTube are hours long. I also could not find the answers I needed in the help section when trying to customize reports. I learned more from the user forums than the actual help feature of the software.

Kommentare: We are an environmental educational nonprofit. We provide many educational events for our members and the public to learn how to identify and manage noxious weeds. We also provide educational publications. We made the decision to leave our other system after increase fees and what we felt was decreased interest in smaller nonprofits after they were purchased by another vendor. We also did not like the fact each year when we did events their system did not allow us to customize things ourselves using their system but required us to get out the checkbook and pay them to do so. We initially bought the base plus two modules with Neon in 2011. We purchased the website shell overlay. The second year we expanded to the full product. We did our own data conversion in less than 30 days. We brought over the history of membership and events that we had exported into Excel spreadsheets. We felt the conversion was very easy. The vendor was there for help, though it was easy enough and well documented such that we did not require much help. We learned to use the system quickly using their documentation, videos, and knowledge-based website and forums. Honestly, for the most part, the system has been intuitive. Their customer service rocks. We use the ticket system exclusively, and they have provided responses in a timely and professional manner. We really appreciate that their help desk appears to have a stable employee base with low turnover, so we feel that they know us. More importantly, the development team at Neon seems to want to grow this product by listening and making regular system changes that reflect the changing needs of NPOs. Each year when we renew, we can always think of a thing or two that happened that makes us glad again we are with Neon. We have benefited by being with a system that listens to their user base. I see things that we have suggested incorporated into the system. There are twice a year updates that we can depend on, which are documented and announced (unlike our old system, which dropped things in unannounced, and then we would have problems and not be able to figure out why). Releases have been fully tested and it is not buggy software. We have saved money for our nonprofit by reducing the number of SAS vendors we deal with. We have improved efficiency and understanding of our donors and members as we have brought all of relationship interfaces to a single database. When we pull up a donor, we now know what they bought, when they last donated, if they are a member, how long they have been a member, which events they have attended, and more. This has been a great economic move for us, but it has turned into an even better strategic move that will allow us to better understand all those we interface with, which will in turn allow us to better fulfill our mission .