Reports

Our thoroughly-researched reports compare products and give recommendations to help you make smart software decisions. Idealware’s reports typically start with a high-level overview of the software landscape for a specific purpose, and then detail the benefits and drawbacks of specific software vendors for your organization’s needs. And don’t worry, our funding model (and integrity) ensures that our reports remain unbiased. 

Reports

  • Groundwire's Email Service Provider Comparison 2010
    July 2010
    Looking for a broadcast email tool?  Groundwire has created the report for you.  Groundwire, a nonprofit consulting firm, helps to create technology that engages people, organizations and communities in building a sustainable society.  In this report, they take a close look at 10 Email Service Providers, and offer advice on how to evaluate the various price points and feature sets.

  • Streamlining Online Grant Applications: A Review of Vendors
    April 2010
    Online grant application systems can be a timesaver for all involved—or they can cause grantseekers and grantmakers hours of unnecessary frustration.  Streamlining Online Grant Applications: A Review of Vendors evaluates seven different vendors against a set of essential and gold standard features for online applications and reporting, to help grantmakers identify the best systems to support their grantmaking.  

  • Using Social Media to Meet Nonprofit Goals: The Results of a Survey
    March 2010
    Are social media channels working to help nonprofits engage their current audience? Recruit new supporters? Raise money? This 20-page Idealware report provides the results of our survey of 459 nonprofit staff member actively using social networking for their organization.

  • Field Guide to Software for Nonprofits: Fundraising, Communications, and Outreach
    January 2010
    What types of software should your nonprofit be using? It’s hard to even know what exists, let alone what is best for you. Through a friendly, easy-reference format, the Field Guide helps you pinpoint the types of software that can increase your organization’s effectiveness and efficiency. And it de-mystifies the possible options through user-friendly summaries based on your needs and technical maturity.

  • Social Media Resource Library
    January 2010
    There are a ton of resources on social media for nonprofits, but they are scattered all over the web. With that in mind, and as a first step in our year-long social media research initiative, Idealware has compiled a library of nearly 200 – and growing – resources on social media. And, we’ve incorporated an easy-to-use tagging scheme so that you can find the resources most helpful to you.

  • A Consumers Guide to Low-Cost Data Visualization Tools
    September 2009
    You've got data. How do you transform it into charts, graphs, and maps that will help your audience understand the data and move them to take action? This 30-page independent Idealware report provides an overview of the types of graphic formats that might work for you, provides some examples and case studies, and then compares eight low-cost tools that can help you create them.

  • A Consumers Guide to Low Cost Donor Management Systems
    March 2009
     Written in partnership with NTEN, this detailed, impartial report walks through the features that might be useful, summarizes and compares 33 different donor management systems that cost less than $4250 in the first year, and provides detailed reviews of twelve of them.

  • Comparing Open Source Content Management Systems: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone
    February 2009
    This 60-page report provides compares four free and open source systems -- WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Plone -- that can help you to build and manage a website. We provide both a feature summary and detailed reviews, as well as a directory of consultants. 

  • A Consumers Guide to Grants Management Systems
    June 2008
    This detailed 89-page report summarizes the common features and eighteen different systems used by grantmakers to track outgoing funds. We also provide detailed reviews of nine of the most widely used packages, with prices and a comparison chart.  As part of this project, we also produced a market analysis report, looking at the forces at work in the marketplace.

  • Getting Your Systems Talking: A Framework to Evaluate APIs and Data Exchange Features
    December 2007
    How can you assess the features that a software package offers to provide access to your data? In this report, Paul Hagen and Laura Quinn provide an evaluation framework that will help weigh the advantages and trade-offs of the data integration features across different applications.This Idealware report was written in partnership with NTEN, and with generous sponorship by Beaconfireand Jacobson Consulting Applications.

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