iWave vs Instrumentl

Donorbox

Givebutter

DonorPerfect

Donorbox is an embeddable, localized donation form / plugin for websites, designed to encourage recurring donations with fast, multi-step checkout

Givebutter combines all-in-one fundraising software, 0% fees, and built-in rewards—so you can raise more, pay less, and multiply your impact with 2.5% APY on every dollar you raise.

DonorPerfect helps nonprofits of every size streamline fundraising and centralize donor data in one flexible, all-in-one platform.
A CRM that empowers teams to collaborate, stay organized, and make data-driven decisions from anywhere, so your mission keeps moving forward.

iWave is a wealth screening software solution that helps  non-profit organizations collect philanthropic and biographic information about prospective donors. The platform enables managers to identify new prospects and analyze the behavior of current donors.

Activity Dashboard

Activity Tracking

AI Copilot

Alerts/Notifications

Campaign Management

Communication Management

Contact Management

Customizable Fields

Customizable Reports

Customizable Templates

Data Import/Export

Donor Management

For Nonprofits

Fundraising Management

Generative AI

Member Database

Real-Time Analytics

Real-Time Reporting

Reporting & Statistics

Third-Party Integrations

iWave

Web-based

Instrumentl

Starter

Professional

Premium

Digital Systems Manager

iWave is great for automated donor prospecting. Once we defined prospects on our end, we were able to set it and forget it to regularly update our contacts with scoring.

Overall, iWave has been a boon for us regarding donor prospecting and as a result, we plan to use it for corporate prospecting in the new year!

Prospect Research Coordinator

It has everything you need to do prospect research - Real estate valuation, Business Info through ZoomInfo, Previous donations, screening, etc.

development

It can build several lists and reports quickly.

Contracted Development Specialist

I have liked the program, but have felt that it is costly and not sure if my organization will continue to want to pay for it. But I've enjoyed it.

Sr. Prospect Researcher

Sometimes the search gets wonky when you're searching a lot of people in a row.

Senior Development Manager

Still very time consuming, especially if you need to search different variations on the name.

Director of Development

contribution data still seems incomplete.

Prospect Researcher

I really miss the easier form for searching for individuals, particularly a)the ability to enter an address rather than just the city and town, which made it easier to find property held by an LLC registered to the address rather than in an individual's name; and b) the ability to enter the search information without having to use a pull-down menu--that was simply, manually, easier.

Development Analyst

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.

Associate Director, Leadership Research

Additionally, since I work closely with our planned giving team, I am appreciating the addition of a planned giving score and even with previously created profiles, all one has to do is simply click the refresh button to have the score added.

Director of Research

Foundation Directory Online has such a feature so I often find myself having to use it to "weed out" foundations from my search results when I need to find ones that accept unsolicited grant applications/LOI's.

Prospect Research Manager

The ability to dive deep and look into sources of data allows me to start the more in-depth research parts of my job.

One feature I would like to see created is a feature that allows you to remove foundations from search results that do not accept unsolicited grant applications/LOI's.

The way the search works sometimes in only allowing very specific searches, primarily in the real estate tab. If you type too much, then the property won't show up.

Research Analyst

Ideally I could export so I can manipulate in Excel (for example donations - they may have many and some in one spouse's name, others in the other's name, and some in both (with Mr. & Mrs. ) so an alpha sort doesn't necessarily group them all together so have to toggle around.

Prospect Research Analyst

When searching for somebody with a common name, the results tend to come back with any name that starts with those same 2-3 letters, so "Mary Miller" will also pull Margaret and Margie and Marjorie and Martha, and there's no way to limit to just the Marys.

iWave provides a plethora of features that make conducting prospect research easy and allows me to use my time efficiently.

Development Writer and Prospect Research Officer

Being able to search and then access annual reports is an essential part of determining philanthropic inclination and capacity, which is essential to my work.

Director of Major Gifts

I have not personally used iWave for bulk screenings (although another user within our company has), but I find it very easy to find and understand information on individual and institutional prospects that is helpful to my fundraising success.

Assistant Director of Development

I wouldn't mind having a more precise way to look at obituaries or to have a way to upload a list and see if the names match any obituaries.

Development coordinator

I use iwave on daily bases and i wave is the mail tool that helps me determine our leads.

Occasionally I find gift types are improperly labelled in iWave (ex. cumulative gift listings being labelled as annual gifts).

Campaign Prospect Researcher

For my particular needs, I find iWave to be the best resource to go to for real estate information, donor giving and board memberships.

The user interface is simple and intuitive and provides me with a great overview of screening projects and profiles.

Manager of Prospect Development

I often want to search for someone who owns a property in one state, but lives in another (for example, Minnesota snowbirds who have homes in Florida).

Prospect Development

SEC forms are somewhat jumbled, screening function needs work to make sense for large organizations.

What I like most is the sheer volume of datasets that they use to help find information on prospects.

Director of Prospect Researc

It quickly and easily shows me all the information about a prospect and I'm easily able to click through for more details.

Chief Development Officer

We use iWave for prospect research on individuals, foundations and corporate giving.

Senior Director

They give the user the freedom to dive deeper in a particular part of their platform or go with the combined results.

Senior Development Researcher

Effective tool for prospect screening, identification, and other background research purposes.

Interface can be a little clunky; customization of searches leaves something to be desired.

Research Development Officer

Most notably, being able to filter donors to a particular "indicator" or field.  

The platform has a diverse set of databases to query and retrieve information.

Research Team Lead

The links to PDFs for the source of donation data do not work

I like that I can do separate searches in specific databases if I need to.

Associate Director of Prospect Development

Would like to be able to put a name and company in to get company address information other than HQ.

Research Consultant

I wish it was the general search where you can look specifically at the set of data.

This is one of our main go-tos for screening and for rating information.

I wish there were more filtering functions, particularly in the real estate tab.

Associate Director Prospect Research

iWave is my go-to for donation information and foundation 990s.

In general, I find iWave to be a friendly and responsive company to work with. If I have an issue, I get a prompt, human response.

I can filter on the property state, but not the owner state.

Principal

Estimated giving capacity and estimated net worth are not readily available.

Manager, Major Gifts

Drop downs on search fields can feel clumsy at times.  

Some of the information I come across is actually more up to date and more expansive than the results I come up with elsewhere.

Some of the features are not available for Canadian donors.

Asst Dir, Prospect Research

It doesn't always give the level of detail that would be useful, though maybe I just haven't explored all the features.

Donor Information

Property Search

Search Functionality

Gift Prospecting

Prospect Capacity

Data Aggregation

Name Matching

Prospect Research

Foundation Search

Deep Dive Research

Freelancers

Small Business

Mid-size Business

Large Enterprises

iWave Information Systems

Fluxx Grantmaker

Grants management software that unifies application, awards, payments, compliance, and reporting in one connected platform.

Submittable

Submittable provides grant management and corporate social responsibility software for foundations, governments, and corporations. The platform enables organizations to build customizable application forms, manage review processes, and track program budgets in real time without technical expertise. It includes features for fraud prevention, impact reporting, and automated workflows that help streamline administrative tasks.

MonkeyPod

MonkeyPod is an all-in-one platform to manage nonprofit accounting, donor management, grants management, CRM, email marketing, online fundraising, and more. Add unlimited users, CRM entities, email subscribers, online fundraising pages, pipelines, and more at no additional cost.

Grant Developer

Lastly, and most importantly - the customer service is top of the line.   If I ever have a question or suggestion to make the product better for our organization, the staff at Instrumentl are thoughtful, open, knowledgeable and responsive!  

Managing Director

Instrumentl's team is incredibly responsive. If I submit an update on a funder, I get a response in a matter of hours from a real person.

Instrumentl is the only complete grant solution that empowers grant-seeking organizations to discover best-fit grants, craft winning proposals faster with AI, and manage their entire grant lifecycle—all in one place

Administrative Reporting

Applicant Tracking

Categorization/Grouping

Collaboration Tools

Compliance Management

Deadline Management

Document Management

Due Date Tracking

Email Reminders

Financial Reporting

For Grantseekers

Grant Application Management

Grant Award Tracking

Grant Discovery

Monitoring

Payment Tracking

Reminders

Role-Based Permissions

Search/Filter

Status Tracking

Workflow Management

By industry, Instrumentl reviewers are most commonly professionals in non-profit organization management (50%). The most frequent use case for Instrumentl cited by reviewers is grant management (93% of reviewers).

Users and use cases

Reviewers appreciate Instrumentl’s diverse plan options and robust functionality, which they feel justify the higher price. Some users say it pays for itself, but some reviewers find the cost prohibitive, especially for small nonprofits.

Value for money

Instrumentl is a grant management tool offering key features such as grant discovery, due date tracking, reminders, grant application management, grant award tracking, and activity tracking, among others.

Proprietary

Grant Lifecycle Manager

GRANTSEEKER

Sage Intacct

SmarterSelect

Bonterra EveryAction

eCivis

ZoomGrants

Basic

Standard

Advanced

Development and Outreach Officer

Beyond grant discovery, it has transformed the way our team manages grants by keeping projects, tasks, and deadlines organized in one place.

Development Operations and Grants Manager

It has saved me so much time being able to fine tune my applications as well as save me from pursuing potential funders who did not align with my organization's mission and goals.

Grants and Development Manager

I like how in-depth I'm able to research a funder before I even attempt an outreach, allowing me to best utilize my time and resources to ensure that I am making the most of all grant/stewardship opportunities. Because of Instrumentl, I've been able to impress donors with an in-depth knowledge of their funding priorities, history of giving, and preferred geographic range.

I also enjoy the "Funder Matches" section because it helps spot many local opportunities that may not seem obvious at first glance. While many funders have direct websites, grant portals, and deadlines - Funder Matches helps to locate family foundations that often require more personal engagement.

Grant Manager

The the layout of the custom home dashboard is especially useful because it can be filtered to show the opportunities by deadline, allowing for grant mapping for the calendar year.

From quickly projecting exactly where a potential cash flow problem comes from to easily visualizing project deadline bottlenecks, Instrumentl transforms what used to take hours and days of painstaking effort -  patching data from across multiple platforms -  into simple, easily repeatable tasks that help plan and understand your work in a more comprehensive and meaningful way.

Executive Director

Instrumentl is one stop shopping for everything we need for researching, cultivating and submitting proposals to foundations--990s, information on grants/year, openness to new grantees, annual grant levels, and more.

They also invest heavily in training through webinars, educational resources, and best-practice guidance that have helped me grow as a grant writer, not just as a user of their software.

Instrumentl is designed to make every stage of an organization’s grant program easier—from researching funding opportunities to drafting proposals to managing an award. Yet what makes the Instrumentl platform genuinely transformative is that it goes far beyond facilitating an individual grant project.

Director, Grant Management

I have reduced my grant research time by more than 50%, which is particularly impactful given that I am solely responsible for writing and managing all grants within my organization.

Dual Director, Advocacy and Grants Management

We have had suggestions and questions from the start and they've listened, followed-up and followed through. As the only person in our 250+ staff organization who's roles specifically includes grants management, a system like this is vital to success.

Grant Strategist

I found opportunities that I had never seen before and many of the traditional opportunities with updates and time sensitive information that is difficult to track.

Adding in our organizational data was easy, training staff to use the system quick, and understanding and utilizing the features daily a no-brainer.

Senior Grant Writer

By pairing Instrumentl’s filtered, funder-aligned search tools with ChatGPT's drafting capabilities, I’ve been able to accelerate narrative development, synthesize funder priorities, and customize applications with greater precision.

iWave vs Instrumentl Comparison (2026)

iWave

Instrumentl

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives