You’re looking for fundraising software for nonprofits, but you don’t know exactly what to look for. You probably have a general idea, but you want information about the best fundraising software for nonprofits, too. We’ll show you how to identify some of the distinguishing features of the best fundraising software programs, and give you some recommendations to help you choose the one that’s perfect for your organization.
Ever heard of giving circles, peer to peer fundraising or crowdfunding? These are examples of just a few types of modern fundraising software programs. There are dozens more however. In fact, you don’t even need a nonprofit to use these successful money-raising ideas. So what exactly does fundraising software do and which programs are best for businesses and non-profit organizations? Let’s take a look at the answers to these questions and some additional free fundraising software that may be right for you.
CharityEngine
Overview of CharityEngine
CharityEngine advertises itself as an “all-in-one” nonprofit solution with various tools built on top of their centralized donor database. This database is designed to track every aspect of the donor journey, from their first donation through your CharityEngine-powered donation page to their attendance at your favorite fundraising event.
In addition to their built-in and customized data records in their CRM, CharityEngine also offers fundraising tools such as peer-to-peer fundraising pages, online stores, advocacy campaigns, email templates, and more.
Why We Love This Fundraising Software
Similar to Bloomerang, CharityEngine was designed specifically for nonprofit use. This means that instead of adopting a for-profit system and “making do” with the non-specific features, CharityEngine is designed with your organization’s unique structure in mind.
This fundraising software solution offers most of the tools that organizations need to function and create a successful fundraising strategy, minimizing any complicated custom integrations or disconnected tools. Unlike Salesforce, the various tools and applications you need are already built into CharityEngine, maximizing accessibility while somewhat limiting customization. If your organization is looking for a complete tech overhaul, CharityEngine is an impressive option to consider!
CharityEngine Pricing
Contact CharityEngine to learn more about their pricing structure.
ShopRaise
ShopRaise is an online shopping platform that is totally free for your organization and your supporters to use. When your supporters download the ShopRaise mobile or web app, they can shop at their favorite retailers in support of your cause. Your organization can earn up to 10% of every transaction!
Why This Free Fundraising Software Stands Out
In addition to being free, using ShopRaise doesn’t require much investment of your staff’s time or resources to advertise the opportunity to your supporters. ShopRaise provides you with custom marketing materials to distribute.
Your supporters likely already shop at the retailers on the ShopRaise platform. Nationwide stores like Walmart, Petsmart, and Macy’s are on the app, meaning supporting your cause can be seamlessly integrated into your supporters’ daily lives. All they have to do is download the app and make their regular purchases. There’s no downside to signing up. This is as easy as fundraising gets!
Additional Details
When a ShopRaise user chooses your organization to support at the beginning of their ShopRaise app experience, the app rebrands to feature your organization’s name and logo. That means your brand appears on the users’ iPhone (or Android) home screens, plus your organization’s name pops up whenever they select a different store or proceed to checkout. These valuable branding opportunities are just one of the perks of using this effortless fundraising platform. Visit their page to get started with ShopRaise.
99Pledges
99Pledges is an effective peer-to-peer fundraising platform, perfect for fundraising events such as walk-a-thons, dance-a-thons, read-a-thons, or any similarly structured fundraiser. The online fundraising pages are easy for donors to share with their networks via email, text, and social media.
Why This Free Fundraising Software Stands Out
Each participant in your campaign receives a customizable donation page that’s ready to share— no technical set-up required! Your team can track your fundraising activity by increasing social shares and the total amount raised in donations.
Additional Details
99Pledges campaigns are free to run! Additionally, your organization keeps 90% of all donations made online via credit card and PayPal and 100% of all donations made via cash or check.
Fundly
Fundly’s crowdfunding platform lets users customize an online donation page for their campaign. The site allows you to easily update your fundraising pages with photos, videos, and personal anecdotes to engage with your audience and encourage repeat visits to your content. An excellent bonus is that your team can do it all from your smartphone with Fundly’s mobile app!
Why This Free Fundraising Software Stands Out
Fundly is all about helping your team getting your word out about your fundraiser. With optimized content and a straightforward user interface, your fundraising pages will attract supporters. In addition, Fundly’s integration with Facebook Open Graph Actions shares all of your campaign activity to your Facebook profile for more exposure for your cause.
Additional Details
It’s free to get started with Fundly, who then only charges a platform fee of 4.9%, in addition to a standard credit card processing fee of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.
Fundraising Letters
Fundraising Letters is an online fundraising solution that provides downloadable templates for constituent correspondence, including matching gift requests, sponsorship letters, donation requests, and thank-you letters.
These templates allow for a streamlined communication process and help build solid donor relationships. You can use these standardized fundraising letter templates as a starting point and then personalize each letter as much as you want to engage your donors.
Why This Free Fundraising Software Stands Out
Each letter template includes a separate section with key takeaways and a short explanation of why that particular letter is effective. There are over 80 fundraising letter templates to choose from, each of which is optimized for a different target or occasion.
Additional Details
All of these customizable fundraising letters and templates are 100% free to download and use as you choose. Simply enter your email address, and the templates will be delivered to your inbox in minutes so your team can start drafting your appeals as soon as possible.
Qgiv
Well-known in the fundraising community, Qgiv is fundraising software that includes the following features:
- Donation forms
- Event registration
- Data, reports, and statistics
- Text fundraising
- Peer-to-peer fundraising
- Handheld kiosks
- Integrations
Pricing for plans starts with a standard option that only charges organizations a percentage of the amount raised plus $0.30 per transaction and tops out at $399 per month for access to every feature Qgiv offers.
According to Tyler Boyd, chief strategy officer at Squeeze, “Qgiv is a wonderful platform for nonprofit fundraising because it’s an easy way to accept donations online. It allows for peer-to-peer fundraising, and it has a free option for companies who can’t yet afford a paid platform or just want to try Qgiv for a while without a monetary commitment.”
360MatchPro
360MatchPro bills itself as “the #1 matching gift automation platform” and focuses, obviously, on matching gifts. It integrates with other platforms, allowing donors to give directly but with the added option to identify matching gift opportunities on your donation form or confirmation page and through follow-up emails.
According to Julien Raby, founder and owner of Art of Barista, “Matching gifts can be a good source of funds for your nonprofit. However, many supporters aren’t familiar with their company’s specific guidelines or how to propose a request. As a result, many nonprofits drop out on a big portion of their matching gift potential.”
“With 360MatchPro,” Raby continues, “large nonprofits can get more details into their donors’ employers and send out customized matching gift information. This tailored outreach is much more likely to reach your donors.”
Natalie Maximets, a certified life transformation coach at Online Divorce, adds that 360MatchPro’s features — which include screening email domains to identify companies with matching gift programs, matching gift management, filters that show top matching opportunities, one-click notifications on donors submitting a match request, and more — help your organization maximize the impact of giving.
DonorPerfect
DonorPerfect fundraising software includes an online fundraising platform, payment processing, donor engagement, fundraising events, data and insights, and operational efficiency insights, as well as other features for mobile, email marketing, workflows, auction management, and more. Pricing begins at $99 per month.
“DonorPerfect fundraising software is a front-runner because of its fresh and innovative new take on the fundraising software for nonprofit organizations,” according to David Baddeley, director at Scottish Trust Deed. “It doesn’t matter the size of your organization, as DonorPerfect will be able to offer a solution to all sizes of groups.”
Bloomerang
Overview of Bloomerang
We may be a little biased, but we truly believe Bloomerang’s fundraising software can help all nonprofits to improve their fundraising strategies. Bloomerang designed donor management software to help nonprofits raise more by enhancing relationships with supporters and improving donor retention rates. The donor database tracks all of your supporters’ engagement activities and donation history so that you can make more informed outreach decisions and craft better fundraising asks.
When you’re able to accurately and effectively track supporters’ engagement data, you’ll be able to gauge who may be in danger of lapsing, who engages with what types of activities, and who might be an excellent major prospect. From this information, you can segment your audience and further engage your supporters according to their interests and abilities.
Reversing the lapsing process and strengthening your donor retention strategy can lead to thousands of additional fundraising dollars for your nonprofit.
Why We Love This Fundraising Software
Bloomerang offers comprehensive features that allow for both surface-level tracking and a deep dive into various aspects of your nonprofit data. These features include:
- An interactive dashboard that shows your donor retention rate front and center. You can also use this dashboard to track your latest fundraising campaigns and see what tasks your staff members should do to drive your mission.
- Constituent timelines that show the historical engagement for each of your supporters. You can see the latest email they received, the last event they attended, and the amount of their most recent gift to your organization.
- Giving summaries that show the donation histories of your organization’s supporters. You can watch their gifts grow over time as your nonprofit develops stronger relationships.
Bloomerang’s Pricing
You can try Bloomerang for free! Then, when you love the platform, scale up your engagement to include additional features, such as more records and higher annual revenue tracking.
Conclusion:
Fundraising software programs are very useful when it comes to fundraising. So, what specifically are fundraising software programs used for? There several different types of fundraising software programs each designed with a specific goal in mind. When the right program is chosen, the results can be great.