A New Look for an Old Friend: A Review of The New iWave from David and Lori Lawson
Guest Post from David Lawson and Lori Lawson.
Access to quality data on prospective donors is always important but never more so than when the economy is unstable. Just as during the Great Recession and especially in light of COVID-19, information professionals need to reevaluate their portfolios to help frontline fundraisers decide which solicitation activities should be paused, kept on track, or accelerated. Yes, there really are prospects who are doing quite well amidst the pandemic.
A fortunate coincidence during these uncertain times is the release of iWave’s new platform. We have been kicking the tech tires the last few weeks and wanted to report what we found notable:
- We love the new look and feel! When you spend as much time as we do digging for data, user experience matters.
- Being able to configure the iWave Score to match your organization’s unique characteristics has always been a strength and now it is even easier to do from one page within the Account section.
- The Get Score feature is a fast way to obtain key information such as gift capacity – and being able to create an iWave Profile with one click is a nice touch.
- iWave Screening has been streamlined, making it even easier to screen a new batch of prospects.
- The Common Name Score will be especially helpful with large screening projects. Being able to sort on these scores will help focus your confirmation time on the people with the highest likelihood of being your prospects. Here are the levels:
- 1 – Very Uncommon Name
- 2 – Uncommon Name
- 3 – Common Name
- 4 – Very Common Name
- Making sure your scores are up-to-date is critical and the Refresh Score feature makes it just a one-click experience from within a Profile.
- Being able to select which data sources you want to be in your 360search is great and changing your default settings is easy.
- Integrations with your fundraising system have been made easier with connections for Salesforce; Neon, Tessitura, and soon Raiser’s Edge NXT, among others. The Send to CRM feature is tantalizing. Making iWave an integrated part of your CRM will exponentially increase its value.
- The Add a Label feature will make grouping your prospects much easier and you can even color-code your labels. It will be fun to see what information professionals do with this.
- Adding notes to Profiles is painless and you can see a summary of the note, who made the note, and when it was made.
- Marking a Profile as Verified is now just a click as is sharing with a team member.
We have been fans of iWave for a long time – both as an information tool and as a company. This transformation of their platform reinforces those feelings and confirms they are listening to the people who rely on their services.
Stay safe and well everybody. We can’t wait to answer your questions about iWave, and anything else, in person – hopefully soon! In the meantime, feel free to reach out via email Lori@WorkingPhilanthropy.com or David@NewSci.ai.
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