So, you want to learn more about free nonprofit management software. Though a long title, these words describe a topic of great importance to many nonprofit organizations. The fact is, nonprofits are always looking for ways to cut costs in every area possible. With the rising cost of equipment and services along with expanded donor expectations through social media, many nonprofits are challenged to find project management solutions they can afford without sacrificing too much in return.
I’m going to share with you the nonprofit management tools, and why. If you run a nonprofit organization, this is a must-read for you.
ClickUp
ClickUp is a project management software with features that help your team plan, organize, and collaborate. ClickUp’s platform includes recurring checklists and an agile board view that supports process, time, and task management efforts.
With ClickUp, your nonprofit can keep track of donations and corporate sponsorships and use that data to build custom reports for donors. You can also use their customizable forms feature to create volunteer applications or to explain different volunteer opportunities.
Your team can also create tasks, assign volunteers to them, and use calendar view to set a schedule. Additionally, ClickUp’s time tracking feature helps catalog what volunteers have worked on and how long it took them to complete the job. Lastly, ClickUp offers a discount for nonprofits who use their tool.
Keela
Designed specifically for nonprofits, Keela is a Smart Management Software with intelligent tools for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), email communication, fundraising, data analytics, and administrative management. With Keela’s project management tool, you can keep track of your organization’s projects and tasks all in one place.
Our nonprofit management software allows you to quickly and efficiently track progress, deadlines and organize your tasks based on priority. We designed our software with a focus on simplicity, efficiency, and convenience so you can manage short-term tasks or more complex, multi-step projects such as grant applications, generating reports, or planning events.
Keela integrates with a host of applications, from Google Calendar and Gmail to Eventbrite and Mailchimp. These integrations allow you to track your interactions and easily share your progress with your team.
How much is Keela for Nonprofits?
Keela’s project management tool is free with your regular Keela subscription, starting from $49 USD, $54 CAD, or $54 AUD per month.
Evernote Business
Evernote Business is a project management tool and collaboration platform that improves teams’ visibility on projects, workflows, and deadlines.
With Evernote, your team can create, share, and store important documents all in one place. Teammates can access and make edits to documents from any device, even if they’re offline—a helpful feature for keeping volunteers up to date, no matter where they are.
From chore charts and project trackers to business plans, Evernote comes with a library of templates that give your team a head start. Evernote’s “spaces” feature acts as a virtual conference room—it even includes a digital bulletin board. You can create spaces for different projects so that volunteers know where to look for updates and assignments.
Slack
Slack is mainly used as a team communication tool, but it can also be a handy, no-frills project management tool for simpler projects. It allows teams to have grouped and private chats, create project-specific channels, share files, and check in on workflows.
Amongst Slack’s many integrations are Google Drive, Asana, and Dropbox. These integrations help make file sharing easier for your team.
How much is Slack for Nonprofits?
Slack’s Standard and Plus plans start at $6.67 USD and $12.50 USD per user per month, respectively. Eligible nonprofits can receive an 85% discount on either plan.
Google Workspace
Chances are you’re already familiar with using Google Workspace’s tools (Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, etc.) for personal use, but did you know you could also use them to manage your team’s projects? Google Workspace is excellent for keeping documents centralized and accessible to your nonprofit’s team, and for real-time collaboration and editing.
Teams can schedule meetings and events and track deadlines using shared calendars. You can create custom email addresses for specific departments or projects. You can use Hangouts for instant communication and Drive for creating shared documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, as well as storing other files with shared access.
How much is Google Workspace for Nonprofits?
Google Workplace is FREE for eligible nonprofit organizations.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a project management tool that helps organizations plan, track, and report on ongoing projects. Nonprofits can use Smartsheet to improve their programs’ effectiveness and boost visibility and accountability between team members.
Smartsheet boasts a comprehensive set of project management features including team communication, resource management, workflow automation, activity logs, and more. Additionally, Smartsheet offers a handful of templates designed specifically for nonprofits from business plans to project timelines.
Smartsheet also includes program administration features like roll-up reporting and customizable dashboards. These features allow nonprofits to stay focused on their mission and give stakeholders an up-to-date look at program progress.
Asana
One of the best-known project management-specific software, Asana is great for managing multiple ongoing, complex projects and programs at your nonprofit.
It keeps everything project-related in one place, maps them out step-by-step, and allows users to move items around in a visually intuitive way. It displays tasks, due dates, assignees, and statuses so that team members can stay in the loop.
Asana also provides a timeline overview and a calendar that reflects all users’ timelines and real-time updates with completion percentages. The software allows users to create automation rules, such as always prioritizing specific tasks.
How much is Asana for Nonprofits?
In addition to a free basic plan available to all organizations, Asana offers a 50% discount for their business and premium plans to eligible nonprofit organizations.
Trello
Trello is an excellent tool if you are a visual team used to working with whiteboards and, yes, sticky notes. It’s designed to look and function exactly like a digitized corkboard, where you can move task cards around to reflect current workflows.
You can label and categorize tasks assigned to various users and move them into different customizable lists such as “ongoing” or “completed.”
How much is Trello for Nonprofits?
Trello has a free plan that you can get started with right away. Their paid plans start at $10 USD per user per month. Eligible nonprofits can receive a 75% discount on Trello’s paid plans.
Teamwork
Teamwork helps nonprofits plan, collaborate, deliver and report on various multi-step projects. The software focuses on team communication and centralized storage. Its portfolio feature shows an overview of all your ongoing projects so that you can quickly spot overlaps or roadblocks.
From its board view, you can see the workflow for specific projects, plus it has a handy timer app for tracking deadlines and the amount of time spent on tasks. It offers Gantt Charts, task lists, a calendar, and various options for assignee permissions and privacy options.
How much is Teamwork for Nonprofits?
Teamwork’s free version is available for teams with less than five users. The paid version starts at $10 USD per user per month. Eligible nonprofits can contact Teamwork’s sales team to receive a discount.
Notion
Notion is a digital workspace designed for teams and individuals to write, plan and collaborate.
With Notion, you can break down projects into tasks assigned to users and reflect their status. Notion has a feature for writing and uploading notes and documents, a knowledge base that acts as an internal help center, Kanban boards, a calendar, and task lists to manage your projects and workflows.
How much is Notion for Nonprofits?
Notion’s team plan, which is usually $8 USD per user per month, is free for eligible nonprofit organizations. To find out more about this notion’s nonprofit discount, fill this form.
Basecamp
Basecamp allows teams to break down projects into tasks, checking them off as completed.
You can create, modify and assign to-do lists to various team members, and users can communicate with one another via message boards, direct messages, or group chats. It also offers scheduling, storage, notification, and reporting features.
How much is Basecamp for Nonprofits?
Basecamp has a free personal version available for three projects or less. Its business plan is available from $99 per month but eligible nonprofits can get a 10% discount.
Monday.com
Monday.com focuses on teamwork transparency, reflecting current workflows, deadlines, and completion statuses. It provides a visual board with customizable templates and multiple integrations. It is great for team accountability, with users able to track each other’s workflows.
How much is Monday.com for Nonprofits?
Monday.com is available from $33 USD per month but eligible nonprofit can receive a discount by filling this form.
Jira
Jira is an issue tracking and work management tool built to offer teams a comprehensive set of features that help them collaborate and deliver on projects. In addition to Jira’s project management and reporting features, the tool is highly configurable, so your nonprofit can customize the platform to be just what you need.
Jira’s automation function allows you to create if-then rules so that when one action occurs, your team will be automatically prompted to take a followup action. For example, if a new donation is captured by the system, you can develop a rule so that the tool automatically creates a task to send a thank you email to the donor.
With Jira, your team can visualize their to-do list in the way that works best for them: the platform can present projects via Kanban board, calendar, timeline, or list view. Additionally, Jira comes with over 25 project templates including ones for event planning, budget creation, campaign planning, and task tracking.
Samepage
Samepage is an all-in-one collaboration platform that provides teams with tools that help them manage ongoing projects. It is also a communication platform as much as a project management tool; its instant messaging, notifications, and video chat functionalities help keep your team and volunteers aware of up-to-date information.
Samepage’s file sharing feature allows you to securely share documents with groups inside or outside of your nonprofit organization, and their permissions functionality helps control who can view or edit each file.
Plus, task management is simple with Samepage thanks to their task board, change tracking, and visual diagram features. Lastly, Samepage offers a 37% discount for nonprofits that use their tool; visit this page to learn more.
Wrike
Wrike is a project management software designed for tracking, collaborating, and reporting on projects. Users can create Gantt Charts and customizable dashboards to view project progress and roadblocks easily. It also allows users to track budgets and deadlines, and the software creates insights and reporting for teams to understand their workflows better.
How much is Wrike for Nonprofits?
Wrike has a free version for teams of five or less. Paid plans are available from $9.80 per user per month.
With so many project management options out there, it is important for you to choose one based on your nonprofit’s operational needs and budget. With Keela’s all-in-one CRM, you can enjoy project management features that are specifically designed to support nonprofit projects, run fundraising campaigns, secure donations, delight donors and make better data-driven decisions.
Conclusion
As a nonprofit organization, you know that having free project management software can be extremely helpful. It’s hard enough to get donations and maintain your budget without paying for software.