Kindsight iWave vs. Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud

iWave is a great resource for getting a big picture understanding of a donor and their potential alignment to your organization. There may be times if you are wanting to dive deeper into a particular facet of the donor profile that you would need to continue researching through other sources. Overall iWave has a user-friendly interface and is a must-have program for any prospect researcher.

Incentivized

If you only want to track donations, I'd go with something simpler. If you want to track donations and programs and connections between them, there may be nothing better. If you have no technical abilities and no budget, restricted yourself solely to what it does as described exactly in the manual. If you can't devote about 0.25FTE to the constant maintenance and upgrades, don't go with it.

Incentivized

• iWave is very user friendly. It did not take long at all to figure out the most efficient way to use their website. There are many Training Webinars and a support center. Customer Support is very helpful.
• The credits you purchase are only used if you use a batch screening. Individual screening is unlimited.
• We have found that the information discovered in iWave about our donors is up-to-date and accurate.
• The Foundations/Charities search function is particularly helpful. You are able to see the financials, 990s, grants awarded, and the people connected to the organizations all in one place without having to search the internet.

Incentivized

• Lots of connection points. I can associate a contact with an organization, an event and a donation, easily bouncing between them and pulling reports accordingly. Love this!
• This system has many more features than we will ever actually use but I love that because when we have a new idea or want to try something out we don't have to switch systems, we just have to dig a little deeper into salesforce and they probably have a solution waiting for us already.
• Salesforce is great at training! I love their trailhead and have used it a lot, especially when I was just getting to know the system. It is easy, fun, informative, and always there to teach me something new. I can also go at my own pace instead of many people's models of training through webinars that are almost always at inconvenient times.

Incentivized

• The biggest piece of missing functionality has been data integration with Raiser's Edge, but iWave is working feverishly with Importacular to make that an option for users as well. I expect that process to be more user-friendly in the next year or so.
• I love that iWave is always adding new data sources to their 360 Search with Database USA being the newest piece. I hope the "COMING SOON" section of that data source will be populated soon.

Incentivized

• Learning curve - very powerful, but takes time to learn
• Batch processing - takes time and advanced skills to reach efficiency for data entry and certain operations which you want to do in batch
• Mass email is extremely limited - must choose a third party tool which adds complexity and cost to the system

Incentivized

There is really no other tool to compare and especially since Salesforce for Nonprofits is free!!

Incentivized

I think it's very usable, but think the variety of different search functions, search by features can get confusing and overwhelm the user. I would prefer a "master" search function instead of having the user need to figure out to search by company name, employee's name, employee's title, etc. The website is a great resource and my team utilizes its uses often.

Incentivized

I think Salesforce has so much functionality that it makes it difficult in terms of overall usability. Once you can figure it out, it's a 10/10, it's just getting there. If you're willing to do the work to figure it out then you're golden. For what it's worth, I don't know if you're going to find something with this level of functionality that's easier to figure out

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.

Incentivized

I would say the support for Salesforce for Nonprofits is overall pretty great, as they offer many avenues to find the information you need and offer nonprofits the ability to work with Salesforce-trained volunteers or professional for free, which is useful especially during the customization process. I will say that I have often encountered situations where I needed to figure out certain information that I could not find even amongst the vast network of knowledge they provide.

Incentivized

W e originally selected iWave because w e believed the return on our ROI would happen faster than it would with Donor search. Looking back, I wish we had realized that is kind of how it goes with major giving in general. We also didn't have a system the linked to DonorSearch at the time and iWaves reports pulling seemed simpler for our database type.

Incentivized

As a cloud native organization with no previous Microsoft infrastructure, Salesforce was a more logical and effective option for us. The suite of products was also far more comprehensive and required less customization. We were able to adopt a "configure not code" approach to our development of systems to support our mission that lowered the cost of upgrades.

Incentivized

• Every year following our annual gala we run a list of all event attendees to learn more about their interests and giving history. This has led us to new board and/or major donor candidates.
• iWave helps us understand details and less-known interests of our current donors, which helps us with donor stewardship. In today's digital age, these personal details help craft relevant stewardship and communications plans with our existing supporters. With so many competing charities, these small differences can account for a supporter to choose your organization over others who aren't making that personal connecting to the donor.

Incentivized

• Salesforce for nonprofits is our source of truth for donor and member data.
• It's made a world of difference to know we only have to look in one place for an address or donation history.
• We have yet to connect Salesforce with our financial software (QBO) given the cost of the third-party connectors though I am investing a fewer lower cost options I have just found.

Incentivized