Nonprofit software automates all areas of nonprofit organizations, from fundraising events and donor database management to general accounting and customer relationship management (CRM).
We used our advanced review methodology to rank the top nonprofit management software based on features like donor tracking, marketing tools, and more.
- Denali Fund Accounting: Best Overall
- MIP Fund Accounting: Best for Accounting
- Bloomerang: Best for Small Nonprofits
- MemberClicks: Best for Memberships
- Donorbox: Best Free
1 Denali Fund Accounting - Best Overall
Why we chose it: Denali Fund Accounting is designed as a bespoke solution for non-profit organizations that are trying to stay on top of their fund accounting, such as federal grants, private grants, and corporate sponsorships.
Modules available with Denali Fund include accounts payable and accounts receivable, payroll, bank reconciliation, purchase orders, order entry, inventory control, donor tracking, and job costing. Some modules can be purchased standalone; however, some modules are required with others. An integrated point-of-sale system is also available with Denali Fund, which works with both nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
2 MIP Fund Accounting - Best for Accounting
Why we chose it: MIP Fund Accounting from Community Brands is a leading accounting software provider for nonprofits and government organizations. The solution has strong fund accounting, budgeting, human resources, grant management, reporting, and more capabilities.
Reporting on financial information important to staff, the board, and supporters is one of MIP’s biggest assets. Audit trails can be accessed anytime with created multidimensional charts for expenses and revenue.
- Find More Nonprofit Accounting Software Products.
3 Bloomerang - Best for Small Nonprofits
Why we chose it: Bloomerang is a donor management system for small to medium-sized organizations. The software helps NPOs find, contact, and retain advocates. Primary features include CRM, online giving, email marketing, engagement meters, generosity scores, and reports. This system integrates with powerful peer-to-peer, wealth screening, funding accounting apps, and website CMS.
Bloomerang’s strong suit is its ability to dive into the data. Real-time retention and engagement metrics come standard–providing at-a-glance views of current engagement levels based on past interactions with the organization. Top prospects can be identified through philanthropic screening data.
- Find More Fundraising Software Products
4 MemberClicks - Best for Memberships
Why we chose it: MemberClicks from Personify is a membership management tool with databases, custom websites, member communities, and event registration functionality. Organizations find this solution to have easy website-building tools, a user-friendly interface, and a strong reporting system.
The solution comes in one of two forms:
- MC Trade: Designed for chambers, trade associates, and association management companies (AMC).
- MC Professional: Designed for professional associations, societies, and AMCs.
Each version includes unlimited profiles for prospects and members that can be stored in one or multiple hierarchies or entities. Membership dues can be configured, automated, and tracked alongside several accounting software integrations, which include QuickBooks.
5 Donorbox - Best Free
Why we chose it: Donorbox gives nonprofit organizations a fundraising platform for collecting donations, managing donors, and marketing campaigns. Donorbox can be seamlessly embedded into an organization’s existing website or as a standalone widget. Payment processing is available through many methods, including ACH and SEPA bank transfers, Google Pay and Apple Pay, credit cards, and Stripe.
Donorbox is free for organizations that raise less than $1,000/month. However, payment processing with Stripe and PayPal will incur a charge. PayPal payments incur 2.2% + 30 cents per transaction, and Stripe payments incur 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction. Donorbox costs $45/month for organizations that raise between $1,000 - $3,000 per month and $150/month for organizations that raise to $10,000/month.
What Is Nonprofit Software?
Nonprofit software, sometimes referred to as nonprofit technology for nonprofit apps, consists of tools that automate day to day processes in a nonprofit setting. These processes include administration, fundraising, donor management, accounting, marketing, and more.
Nonprofit software users include advocacy groups, charitable institutions, government organizations, and faith/religious-based congregations.
For nonprofit organizations, using an industry-specific solution to account for donors and donations, fundraising operations, gifts, membership, and other funding sources is crucial to maximizing outreach, productivity, and engagement with donors.
What Are The Features of Nonprofit Software?
- Communication tools: Includes email marketing, text messages, or traditional direct mail for outreach. A common feature in nonprofit CRM software
- Fundraising: Execute highly targeted marketing plans. Enable the creation of custom campaigns to link online donations and physical donations in a single system. Keep track of donations tied to specific campaigns.
- Campaign reporting: Put together custom reports to account for donations, grants, pledges, and other funding sources. Includes data-driven analysis to measure fundraising performance, donor retention, and historical fundraising campaign success.
- Donation management: Tracks donations and pledges made by donors through fundraising campaigns. Anticipate inbound donations; process recurring donations with ACH or credit card payments; organize corporate donations, matched gifts, and any other source of contributions.
- Contact management: Keep records on past donors to streamline communication of donation pleas, marketing materials, and invites for various events.
- Event planning: Organize and host charitable events, such as in-person fundraisers or awareness campaigns.
- Membership management: Track different levels of memberships such as group/family or single. Share documents with members via their updated contact information. Allow referrals for new members or allow members to sign up for events or adjust online billing preferences.
What Are The Benefits of Nonprofit Software?
Nonprofits can benefit from nonprofit software through some key areas, such as:
Improve Your Volunteer and Donor Databases
Anything that helps your organization stay organized regarding people-to-people relationships will fall under a nonprofit database and membership software. One could think of these solutions as being nonprofit CRMs since nonprofits are primarily looking to track metrics on 3 distinct types of people:
- Donors: Analyze which campaigns they give to, manage communications between them and the organization, and provide the appropriate tax forms to them at year-end.
- Members: Databases act as a way to grow your membership programs. Like how memberships are managed in a professional association, membership databases provide constituent relationship management and track member information, communication efforts with members, help keep members engaged and give members access to their accounts. Fees can be managed in a straight-forward manner and members can sign up for in-demand volunteer spots or help organize fundraising campaigns.
- Volunteers: Store contact info, release forms, hours worked, availability, and past experiences. Provide real-time reports to see which individuals are having the most level of success. Determine which events have drawn the most interest.
Create End Of Year Donation Statements and Donor Contribution Summary Reports
All nonprofit organizations that receive contributions totaling $250 or more, OR provide goods and services to donors to make contributions of more than $75, must send donation receipt letters for tax purposes. The government regulates end-of-year donation letters to any business with legal nonprofit status. These forms allow your donors to deduct donations from their taxes.
These donation statements are proof that a donor has contributed to your organization–something the donor can keep as proof if the government starts to look into their claimed tax deductions further. By easily providing these to donors, you’ll be able to build trust and a level of comfort that will encourage repeat donations.
A donor contribution summary report tracks each donor’s contribution total as needed. They include your organization’s name, the donor’s name, the dates of contributions, the amounts of contributions, and a statement explaining whether or not your organization provided any goods or services in exchange for these gifts.
Donor contribution summary reports can be sent to donors via direct mail or email. Most nonprofit software will allow the inclusion of a cover letter of sorts–acting as a great tool to keep your donors up to date on what’s happening with the organization, before listing each donation for the calendar year.
Create Form 990
All tax-exempt organizations in the US must file an annual information return with the IRS, which includes Form 990. This form allows the IRS to gather information about the organization and educates organizations about tax law requirements and compliance. Tax Form 990 can also help educate the public on programs offered by the nonprofit organization.
While nonprofit organizations do not have to pay federal, state, or local income tax, they still have to pay payroll, sales, and use taxes. Most tax exempt organizations are required to file an annual informational return with the IRS–which includes Form 990. Nonprofit software can provide step-by-step instructions for preparing and filing Form 990, including receipt of confirmation that it was accepted.
Is QuickBooks a Nonprofit Software?
A nonprofit organization can successfully use certain QuickBooks products from Intuit. The solution can support tracking budgets by programs or funds, donor management, grant management, financial reporting, bank reconciliations, and more.
QuickBooks offers two desktop solutions that are built with nonprofits in mind:
- QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit Edition
- QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit
QuickBooks Premier offers various editions that you can choose from, depending on your industry. The Nonprofit Edition provides custom features to:
- Create a chart of accounts the way IRS Form 990 requires
- Draft reports to view money contributed and spent by donor or grant
- Plan budgets based on fundraising allocations
- Organize tax forms for donors, vendors, and employees
This version of QuickBooks is limited to a maximum of 5 users.
QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit includes features similar to its Premier counterpart but includes access for up to 30 users. Key reports include budget by programs, statements of financial income and expense, statements of functional expenses, donors and grant statements, large donor statements, and statements of financial position.
Will QuickBooks Online Work For Nonprofits?
QuickBooks Online can be used in a nonprofit setting, but you’ll want to make sure your staff can put up with the “for-profit language” of the program. The dashboard mentions profit and loss, sales, and other terms not commonly used in nonprofit environments. At this time, there is not a nonprofit edition for QuickBooks Online.
Current versions of Quickbooks must instead be customized to enable nonprofit-specific functionality. For organizations, this requires savvy Quickbooks experts capable of customizing the software to meet their organization’s particular needs. Many NPOs instead look to adopt new nonprofit accounting software solutions that work out of the box.
For organizations set on sticking with QuickBooks Online, Intuit has been recommending QuickBooks Online as the accounting system to have for nonprofits. The solution has one of the lowest cost of entry points starting at $15/month for the self-employed version or $40/month for their Plus version.
How Much Does Nonprofit Software Cost?
The starting price for nonprofit software will range from $25/month to $120/month depending on what the software offers. Software only used for donor management might come in at the lower end of that spectrum. In comparison, a complete nonprofit accounting software with fundraising campaigns and fund accounting may range toward the higher end.
Most systems will incur a per-user-per-month charge, and require a minimum amount of users required. Software with local installations (desktop software) usually has a one-time fee for purchasing software outright and will offer optional yearly fees for support and updates.
Are There Any Free Nonprofit Software Solutions?
Nonprofit organizations are always trying to reduce or eliminate as many traditional business expenses as possible to spend more of their limited funds on the mission itself. As a result, it’s no surprise most NPOs prefer free software options.
Realistically, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a free nonprofit software solution capable of proper donation tracking or membership/volunteer management without downsides. Most “free” options are just trials or basic versions of paid options to bring customers in. However, a combination of these tools could let a nonprofit decide which are worth their paid counterparts. Fortunately, many solutions are relatively inexpensive, depending on exactly what features your organization requires.
Review some of the best free NPO software products available.
