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.

"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.

"NeonCRM is just what we needed."

Vorteile: From the beginning, their customer service was outstanding. In our research phase to find a new CRM vendor, we contacted at least 1 dozen different companies. We provided the sales people with an extensive list that outlined the data that we collect, as well as our database needs. Some companies looked at the list and upfront said that they couldn't provide what we needed. Others never bothered to contact us at all. Most sad, the fundraising software/donation processing company that we've been with for more than a decade never contacted us to let us know about their new services, they only increased our annual fees and decreased functionality. So NeonCRM emerged as one of our top choices very early on. Best yet, in talking to their sales person, and now our account manager, as well as their data consultants, they work with us to discuss and figure out solutions. For example, for many years we have used our database as a way to check of tasks in the data collection process. NeonCRM helped us to figure out if we needed a combination of data points or a process document to ensure that all of our users entered consistent information. That kind of collaboration and solution-based thinking has been immensely helpful. More so, given that we have planned for our data migration to happen over 2 years, with specific benchmarks. It feels like NeonCRM will be there with us all the way. One of our Board members is an engineer, and the way that NeonCRM does consultation allowed us to invite our Board member and our web site builder and designer into the meetings. That way we could all learn and develop solutions at the same time. Best yet, we've been able to work with NeonCRM staff, from sales to data consultants, who actually understood arts nonprofits, so they understand what to do with our earned income. Other companies were best for health or educational nonprofits, or advocacy & policy nonprofits, or some other kind of nonprofit. To have a team that understands the work that we do, the size of our organizations, the ways that our events function, and is willing to work with us to meet our needs (instead of trying to cram us into their system), made all the difference.

Nachteile: There are bits of functionality that other companies have that we would like. Such as the ability to tweet or make facebook posts, and track that information, from within the CRM, something that Nation Builder does really well. We would also like to be able to integrate silent and online auctions into fundraising efforts, but this is not something that can be done just yet. Finally, we would like to have our ecommerce products tied to their makers, something that NeonCRM can't do. However, they provided us with an API integration solution that will work in the meantime.

"Neon, an elegant solution"

Vorteile: I have had my NeonCRM system now for about four months, and what I love the most about it is probably its elegance. It's like the designers sat in my office, watched me work, and then designed a system that would not only take care of the many things I need when working with our donors, but also thought of a whole lot more! The system is very comprehensive, and while it is quite large and will take many more months to completely master, it is consistent. This consistency throughout makes it relatively easy to learn to work, even in the beginning.

Nachteile: The thing I have found the most frustrating is that I run a Mac, and this system is more compatible with PC. For instance, I could not run the tutorials on my Mac, so I had to haul out an old PC laptop for my training webinars. It worked out okay, as I could be working on the Mac in the program while watching the tutorial on the PC, but we Mac users get frustrated with these situations. Later, I learned that the internal mail merger program would not work on anything but Internet Explorer, which is unfortunately no longer available for Mac. It would have been nice if we could have at least had Firefox or Chrome, both very commonly used browsers, as an option. This is not a deal breaker for me, but for the price and quality of the system, I would have liked more compatibility.