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Introducing the Neon One Academy Elite Series

5 min read
March 25, 2019
Ronnie Gomez headshot
Ronnie Gomez
Content Marketing Manager, Neon One

Earlier this year, we launched Neon One Academy — our official training and certification program. Since then, we’ve received a great response both our clients and partners.

Update: We’ve rebranded! Our Neon Ecosystem is now Neon One. Same great products, new cohesive names.

To celebrate, we’re kicking off an exciting new program: the Neon One Academy Elite Series. Each quarter, we’ll be spotlighting high performers within the Academy to congratulate them on their Neon proficiency.

This month, we’re featuring Academy users from two different Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) organizations as well as one from the MBA Research and Curriculum Center. Check out their accomplishments below.

Heather Medrow

Heather is the Administrative Specialist at the Wisconsin Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Association. Their mission is to champion the needs of abused and neglected children by supporting and expanding local CASA programs.

What prompted you to sign up for a learning path?

I started an Administrative Specialist role in a non-profit organization called Wisconsin Court Appointed Special Advocates. In this new role, I am required to learn the ins and outs of Neon and in order to learn more, I was encouraged to sign into the Academy. I attempted to pick learning paths that were relevant to my job.

I see you were hoping to learn how to create accounts, manage accounts, and run reports. Did you meet those goals? Did you learn other things too?

I did learn some basic tasks related to those topics. I do need to spend more time practicing and working with our data to accurately run reports. Other things I learned include gift tracking and ways to send out mass emails to our participants.

What was your favorite part of the Academy?

I liked the user-friendly format of the website [that] made navigating each [learning] path a breeze.

Rhiannon Tovani

Rhiannon is the Development Manager at Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Larimer County. Their purpose is to be a voice in court for abused and neglected children and a safe place in the community for conflict-free family interactions.

What prompted you to sign up for a learning path?

I signed up for a learning path because, as the Development Manager, it is my responsibility to enter in donations, send out thank yous to donors, etc. Because I am still fairly new to the organization, Neon One Academy made the most sense so I can be the Neon expert within my organization.

I see you were hoping to learn to use email campaigns, send thank you letters, and generally increase your NeonCRM expertise. Did you meet those goals? Did you learn other things too?

I did meet these goals and am putting them into practice now. I also learned about batch uploads so it is great that I don’t need to enter in information one account at a time. The Event piece and connecting Neon to Eventbrite was also really helpful.

What was your favorite part of the Academy?

My favorite part of the academy is learning how cool this system is and how much you can actually do in Neon. The possibilities are endless and I am looking forward to learning more and using the system to its full capacity so we can keep donors engaged and track grants, etc.

Stephanie King

Stephanie is a Project Manager at the MBA Research and Curriculum Center in Columbus, Ohio. This 501(c)(3) organization is operated by 27 state education departments, supporting educators who prepare students for professional careers in business—worldwide.

What prompted you to sign up for a learning path?

I am the point person in our organization for training all of the system users.

I see you were hoping to learn navigation and reporting. In addition, you were interested in teaching others about Neon. Did you meet those goals? Did you learn other things too?

Yes, I met those goals. I had already trained myself but the training helped me be a better trainer for others because I hadn’t really done my own training in a linear or systematic way – so it was good to do the training and adopt a more streamlined presentation for the staff here. I also learned about the email communications options and email marketing and integration with MailChimp.

What was your favorite part of the Academy?

I don’t know if this is specific to the Neon One Academy but, in general, it’s always helpful if there’s a video overview in addition to the written explanations/directions of the different Neon functions. And I liked that the pathways were broken down by type of user and how that person would be using Neon.

A big congrats to Heather, Rhiannon, and Stephanie for all their accomplishments in the Neon One Academy. Their Neon mastery is sure to be a great asset to their respective teams.

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