Budgeting can be a real challenge for a small nonprofit. How much money should you spend on the crm software? What about the donor relationship management system? Why does your organization need a donor database anyway? And why does all this have to cost so much money anyway?
Nonprofits constantly need a reliable donor data management system. There are several different types of donor systems out there, and most organizations prefer software over their own database. Non-profit CRMs make managing your donor relationships hassle free. In this article I will talk about the best CRM solutions for nonprofits businesses.
Bloomerang
Bloomerang’s simple donor database solution is built around best practices to help nonprofits decrease donor attrition and increase revenue. Bloomerang pools the knowledge of leaders in the nonprofit world, including Adrian Sargeant for fundraising, Tom Ahern for communications, Kivi Leroux Miller for digital marketing, and Jay Love for nonprofit technology. The platform focuses on the core functionality your organization needs to achieve results, without the distraction of additional bells and whistles. With Bloomerang, you’ll know how your donors feel about you, find more major gift prospects, and be able to report on the metrics that matter.
Top features:
| Constituent Timeline (visual representation of all interaction with each individual and highlights of the most important interactions) | Interactive Dashboard (review donor retention rate and opportunities for improvement, incoming donations by time period, check campaign success, create to-do lists, and access recent reports) |
| Giving Summary & Engagement Level | Smart reports |
| Email Design & Distribution (email templates and rich performance analytics) | Letters & Mailings (letters, gift acknowledgements, and more available for design and print) |
| Nightly Deceased Suppression | Nightly updates from the National Change of Address (NCOA) database |
| Website integration (track individual’s website browsing activity, create and customize online giving forms and email sign-ups) | Social Media Monitoring |
| Donor Engagement Surveys | Social Listening |
Pricing:
- $99/month for 0 – 1,000 records
- $199/month for 1,001 – 5,000 records
- $299/month for 5,001 – 15,000 records
- $399/month for 15,001 – 25,000 records
- $499/month for 25,001 – 40,000 records
- Click here for complete Bloomerang pricing
CIVICRM – BEST OPEN-SOURCE FUNDRAISING SOFTWARE
THE BASICS
CiviCRM is a fully customizable and expandable open-source CRM system that your nonprofit can take advantage of. Open-source software is computer software whose code is freely released to the public. This means that anyone who uses the code can change it to fit their own specific needs.
With CiviCRM, your nonprofit can truly own your own data and then manage it in the way that you see best. Though maybe not the best solution for those who aren’t tech-savvy, CiviCRM can hold a lot of value for your organization.
NOTABLE FEATURES
CiviCRM helps you manage and leverage your data with a variety of software features:
- Donor profiles that are automatically compiled with new data
- Monetary gifts are auto-exported into your accounting system
- Bulk email lists that you can segment, use for A/B testing, and generate statistics
Additionally, these features should work seamlessly across different platforms and devices. Your entire fundraising team can access the data from anywhere.
PRICING
CiviCRM is completely free to download, use, and share. Check out the latest version here.
SALSA – BEST FUNDRAISING AND SUPPORTER ENGAGEMENT SOFTWARE
THE BASICS
Salsa is a comprehensive, modern platform that provides nonprofits with donor management, fundraising, advocacy, event, and marketing automation tools all in one place.
Powered by SmartEngagement Technology, Salsa is built to help nonprofits pursue their missions more intelligently and effectively by ensuring that all of their tools are connected and seamlessly share data with one another for a cohesive, strategic approach. Built with industry best practices, unrivaled education and support, and machine learning insights, the platform will help you grow your supporter base starting on day one.
NOTABLE FEATURES
SalsaCRM comes with their fundraising and marketing solution, SalsaEngage, making this platform an all-in-one solution to help you communicate, advocate, and fund your cause. Because all of your fundraising and donor management tools seamlessly integrate, your team can skip the manual data entry and focus on more effectively pursuing your mission. And with the robust reporting and predictive analytics delivered by Salsa, you’ll be more equipped than ever to make smart decisions.
Salsa’s comprehensive donor database and engagement suite includes:
- Rich, customizable donor profiles
- Marketing automation for email, social media, texting, and more
- Online and offline donation processing
- Performance dashboards, reporting, and analytics
- Peer-to-peer campaigns and events
- Multi-channel advocacy
Organizations that use Salsa tools report a 35% increase in efficiency, 28% annual increase in donations, and 18% increase in average gift size. With simple, step-by-step implementation and award-winning support, Salsa makes it easy for your organization to get up and running quickly and successfully.
PRICING
Salsa has a wide range of pricing plans and packages to meet the needs of your unique organization. Contact their team for a custom quote.
ARREVA – BEST FUNDRAISING CRM FOR MARKETING
With Arreva, your donor database will automatically update each time you receive a donation or interact with a supporter. Each of your donors will have a detailed, comprehensive profile, including their giving history and personal details like birthdays and family members.
Arreva is also completely integrated with an email marketing solution. This way, each of your fundraising campaigns and marketing strategies can start without you ever exporting your data!
NOTABLE FEATURES
In one platform, Arreva can identify your most impactful donors as well as prospects, allowing you to create audience segments and target communications to better reach your audience. Analyze the engagement data, and you’ll get a better sense of which of your constituents respond to certain marketing strategies—all while staying within Arreva’s system.
You also can connect with other marketing platforms other than your organization’s email channel: Arreva can give you insights into your nonprofit’s website engagement, phone calls, social media response, and more.
PRICING
To learn more about Arreva’s pricing, contact them through their website.
Salesforce.org
Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud is an integrated platform for nonprofits that allows you to manage your entire mission. Salesforce is the world’s #1 CRM, and their community counts over 45,000 nonprofits. Nonprofit Cloud powers your mission by tracking and measuring impact in real time, helping you raise more using insights from artificial intelligence on donors, and by taking every constituent on their own personal journey. Over 88% of Salesforce.org organizations have said that Salesforce helped them improve their ability to achieve their mission.
Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud encompasses Nonprofit Success Pack (CRM for nonprofits), Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Einstein Analytics, Chatter, and more.
Top features:
| Fundraising CRM | Marketing automation |
| Email & social marketing | Social Listening |
| Campaign Builder | Customizable Landing Pages |
| Grants Management | Program & Service Delivery |
| Online Communities | Reporting & Dashboards |
Pricing:
Although implementing Salesforce does require the help of a paid consultant, the first 10 Nonprofit Success Packs (NPSP) are free for 501(c)(3) nonprofits through the Power of Us program. After that, additional licenses are deeply discounted.
DONORSNAP – BEST FUNDRAISING SOFTWARE FOR CUSTOMER SUPPORT
DonorSnap is donor management and fundraising software that can help your organization increase its fundraising capabilities and keep track of your donor list. DonorSnap stores rich donor profiles complete with addresses and contact details that your fundraising team can access at any time.
Additionally, DonorSnap can track the relationships and affiliations of each of your donors, better enabling you to interact with them effectively going forward.
]FEATURES
For organizations that use DonorSnap, it’s important that all your data is accurate and centralized. Because of this, DonorSnap will help you set up your database in just a few days. They also will teach you and your entire fundraising staff how to use the software. After that, DonorSnap provides a plethora of resources if you ever have questions, maximizing your chances for success.
The DonorSnap relationship continues past onboarding, so you’ll always have access to DonorSnap’s team of support representatives.
PRICING
Depending on the size of your organization and your constituents, DonorSnap’s pricing will vary. Check out their pricing page for guidance.
REGPACK – BEST DONATION MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
Regpack is an all-in-one donation management solution that includes CRM capabilities, event registration software, donor relationship-building tools, and more, making it a fully comprehensive solution.
Rather than forcing your nonprofit to adjust to its software, Regpack aims to be as flexible as possible in letting users manipulate settings and features to get the exact results they need.
FEATURES
Regpack excels at creating customizable tools, allowing your nonprofit to create unique reports, donation options, forms, and more. This enables nonprofits who invest in Regpack to tailor almost every part of their donation management software to meet their nonprofit’s specific needs.
Regpack’s donation management software also focuses on efficiency by including features designed to save your team time, such as recurring billing options, individual and automatic messaging, and more. In addition, as an all-in-one solution, Regpack comes equipped with:
- Customizable donation options, including one-time and recurring donations
- Automatic and customizable communication tools
- Donor profile creation and management capabilities
- Fundraising event registrations
- Quick data filters
- Pre-built and customizable reports
- Built-in CRM
With users reporting a 35% increase in cash flow and a 96% donor satisfaction rate, Repack’s comprehensive donation management software allows nonprofits to get started with software that’s ready to grow with their organization.
PRICING
Plans start at $125 per month. Signup for a demo and get a quote to find your price.
KINDFUL – BEST FUNDRAISING CRM FOR DONOR COMMUNICATION
Kindful is nonprofit CRM software that can help you better communicate with and reach your donors and supporters. With Kindful, your fundraising team will save time by automating your communications.
Optimizing your marketing and communication strategies is key to building your donor relationships and can help ensure that your donor retention rates don’t fall. Kindful provides the tools to help with unlimited email and letter templates and a task manager.
FEATURES
Kindful can support all of your nonprofit’s efforts by saving your team the time that you would otherwise spend planning donor emails and making sure all the content is up to standard. Improve your communication strategies with these features:
- Automated donation receipts
- Integrated marketing tools like Mailchimp
- Detailed communication histories for every donor
- Donor segmentation capabilities for more targeted communication
Having a solid and loyal base of support is important for every nonprofit, so make sure your communication efforts are supported by your tools.
PRICING
Kindful’s pricing depends on how many contacts and donors you already have. Check out their pricing scale here to learn more!
QGIV– BEST FUNDRAISING SOFTWARE FOR EVENTS
Qgiv offers a top fundraising software option dedicated to helping nonprofits increase their revenue and reach donors by providing a platform for donation pages, event registration, text fundraising, and more. Their solution is particularly helpful when it comes to fundraising events. With its simple interface, flexible pricing packages, and powerful tools, Qgiv is great for organizations of any size.
With Qgiv’s online tools, you can control and track all of your event campaigns and activities from a single place, from facilitating event registrations to hosting peer-to-peer campaigns and planning silent auctions, Qgiv has a comprehensive dashboard that provides insights into all campaigns and allows you to maximize your event success.
FEATURES
Qgiv has a variety of fundraising options that can elevate any type of event you want to plan:
- Silent auction tool. Bring your silent auction to the next level by using Qgiv’s mobile app-based auction platform. This way, guests can bid conveniently using their phones.
- In-person event tools. With Qgiv, you can create unlimited event registration forms for any type of occasion. Make sure to customize it to your organization and mission! Automate discounts and promo codes as well as packages for certain attendees.
- Peer-to-peer fundraising tools. Encourage your volunteers to work hard fundraising with Qgiv’s gamification tools. Post a live fundraising thermometer and a scoreboard presenting the top fundraisers.
Any nonprofit knows that while fundraising events are essential, they can require substantial time, planning, and resources. Qgiv’s tools can lessen the load!
PRICING
Qgiv has a variety of plans to choose from, starting at $0 for the standard option. Learn more on their pricing page.
Conclusion
The world of nonprofit fundraising is changing rapidly. Customer relationship management (CRM) software has been around for a long time and has been in the hands of for-profit companies and businesses for many years. With the rise of technology and social media in fundraising, nonprofits are now joining this trend and adopting CRM software. But there’s a problem: most nonprofits don’t know how to choose the best CRM software for their organization. The purpose of this article is to guide you through the process of finding automation software to help run your nonprofit’s daily operations, and ultimately improve your bottom line fundraising efforts.