Great research tool

I love iWave. I use it in conjunction with several other research databases to be able to provide a well-rounded view of our prospects. iWave is easy to use and provides information from many sources and I find it to be invaluable in my day to day work

Pros

I love the real estate feature that allows you to look at the individual transactions for each property. It allows lists additional properties that person may own so that you can further your research.

Cons

I have not found the political giving module to be very helpful, as I am always able to find more political giving using other resources. I also do not find the Database USA to provide much useful information

My experience with iWave has been excellent!

Quality data that helps us identify and target fundraising prospects. The software is a great value for the cost. The software has saved us a great deal of time identifying and researching new prospects allowing us to get them to our front line gift officers much sooner that we had in the past.

Pros

1) Quality of data--accurate data including real estate, Thomson Reuters, D&B, RelSci and HEPdata to name a few of the databases available. 2) Affordability--great for offices on a tight budget. Great returns for a minimal investment. 3) Ease of use--the search features are intuitive. The 360 search tool is a great feature offering fast comprehensive searches with drill through capability. 4) The screening capability is intuitive to use and offers some customization for each batch. The results are returned quickly and can be used to rapidly identify top prospects and build profiles. 5) Customer support has provided thorough knowledgeable responses in a timely manner. 6) The developers at iWave are always striving to improve their product. They seem to roll out a new feature each year that only enhances the value of the product, without increasing the cost. Moreover, they listen to their customers and try to include new features and databases requested by users. iWave has been a great tool for our office for about ten years. It is used not only by prospect research, but also by the biographical and gift teams who use iWave to locate constituents and research matching gift companies. I have been involved with prospect research for about 20 years, and I feel that iWave has developed the best desktop research product I have used so far.

Cons

Honestly, there isn't anything that I do not like about iWave. One thing on my wish list would be the addition of a general news database, but this is not a deal breaker for me.

Honest Review

Overall, my experience has been fine.

Pros

I like the ease of finding information. I like the idea that it can be easily exported (however, I can't stand the new profile format).

Cons

I absolutely hate the new profile layout. It looks childish and unprofessional and I've stopped sending it to fundraisers. Exporting it as a Word doc and editing it defeats the purpose of it being a time saving resource.

A Much Needed Resource for Prospect Research

Some of the information I come across is actually more up to date and more expansive than the results I come up with elsewhere. I therefore consider it to be essential for us to continue to use.

Pros

For my particular needs, I find iWave to be the best resource to go to for real estate information, donor giving and board memberships. Of course there is much more information out there that iWave delves into. It's very easy to use, with tabs for category clearly marked on top, and sections on the side to get screenings, create profiles and access news if it falls under your subscription.

Cons

My organization never bothered with mass screenings, as we use ResearchPoint for that because it integrates easily with Raisers Edge. My impression was that it didn't work as well, if at all, with Raisers Edge, which prevented us from fully using iWave.

My favorite resource, paid or otherwise

My favorite resource, paid or otherwise, would definitely have to be iWave, with the reason being that it offers effectively everything (with the only exception being the lack of capacity calculator). It is always my first stop when trying to find anything from contact information to job titles to stock data, it very often provides even more complete and comprehensive giving information than Research Point, and its company search feature is an incredibly useful tool indeed. My job would be significantly more difficult without it.

Pros

The product has the ablility to search from contact information to Job titles to Stock data. It very often provides even more complete and comprehensive giving information than Research Point, and its company search feature is an incredibly useful tool indeed.

Cons

iWave has a lack of capacity calculator which would help gauge an individuals total wealth.