This story is based on a conversation with Keith Reed, CEO of Neon One, a software platform for nonprofits that helps them manage fundraising, donor relations, events, and more. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Neon One started in 2018 and has been growing slowly and steadily ever since.
We are relationship management software for nonprofit organizations. Our platform enables nonprofits to build and maintain personal connections that help solve their missions through donor management, fundraising support, gift processing, and management of their constituent base, including volunteers and members.
I joined last year with the specific intention of getting the company back on a growth path and focusing on customer experience.
The nonprofit sector has experienced many changes over the past few years, and budget constraints have led to a shift in where donations go. Although our nonprofits are receiving an increasing share of donations from wealthier corporations, we still have a significant number of individual donors who are willing to give.
As a nonprofit organization, our customers are passionate about something. Our job is to help them accomplish that mission by providing easy solutions for running fundraising campaigns and events to engage volunteers and other constituents.
Neon One has started using AI tools to resolve customer support questions. Erin Fender of BI
Improved customer satisfaction
At the beginning of 2025, customer support was one of our biggest liabilities. Negative reviews about the support experience were appearing online. That has changed.
Every touchpoint with nonprofit customers should be easy. Over the past year, we’ve trained our employees to make instant decisions to best serve our customers and put processes in place to help them deliver.
We’ve found that most of our customer inquiries are “What should I do?” We realized that AI could be an easy solution to the hours it would take to have our employees investigate technical issues at our nonprofit and send the information back.
We started using AI tools built into our customer support program to help answer some of these questions. AI is great at quickly indexing data and finding the right solutions, allowing you to solve customer problems in about 60 seconds instead of hours.
Neon One’s platform analyzes donor history and helps nonprofits target the right people. Erin Fender of BI
Employee resources can now be allocated better. They have more free time to solve more complex problems that require empathy, decision-making, and judgment.
Our customer satisfaction scores have increased by nearly 25% over the past year. Currently, my CSAT score is almost 85%.
Our customers no longer see reviews about poor support. So they retain customers longer, refer us to their networks, and share stories about the real impact our platform has had on their organizations.
We have happier customers. And happy customers are the best marketing. Nonprofit organizations are deeply networked. they trust each other. When something is going well, share it. This creates a virtuous cycle of growth.
Use AI to help nonprofits raise money
We store large amounts of historical data from our customers, including information about fundraising campaigns they have started, which voters they have supported, and when.
Our platform analyzes donor history, identifies people who are likely to give again, and helps nonprofits find the best ways to help. AI allows you to mine this data faster, taking the guesswork out of it and helping your customers generate better financing outcomes.
AI makes it easier to get these insights. At the end of 2025, we launched a beta version of our AI nonprofit assistant, Gen. Users can chat with Gen and get a snapshot of donor engagement to decide who to contact and when.
Nonprofits have small teams that wear many hats, and time is the scarcest resource. Our AI tools provide speed and clarity, giving you faster access to insights that previously took hours to compile. By getting the right information to you faster, you can spend more time on the relationships that actually advance your mission.
The company increased sales by about 50% compared to the previous year. Erin Fender of BI
This is a game changer, but it’s also something we need to lean into, test, learn and really understand how to provide the most benefit to our customers. The key is ease of use. That’s what our customers want.
Revenue increased by approximately 50% year-over-year due to improved customer service that helped drive customer retention and word-of-mouth, and streamlined processes using AI.
We expect growth to probably triple next year. We also focus on improving our clients’ fundraising outcomes. How can we enable the nonprofits we serve to engage our communities so they can raise more money and have more funds to support their missions?