Donor Management Software
Get the best donor management software for your organization. Compare product reviews, pricing below. Read our buyer’s guide for more help.
We’ve compiled a list of top donor management systems from our research to help you find the best solution for your organization:
One popular piece of donor management software is DonorSnap, a cloud-based solution available through an affordable monthly subscription fee. DonorSnap gives NPOs complete control over their donor database, making it easy to quickly manage and reach out to thousands of donors in an instant. In addition to standard features like pledge tracking, donation entry and acknowledgment, and comprehensive reporting, DonorSnap also offers direct integration with QuickBooks for enhanced accounting and fundraising capabilities.
Bloomerang is an online donor management software solution that is advertised specifically for small to mid-sized nonprofits. The system empowers organizations to improve donor engagement and donor retention. Bloomerang features interactive dashboards, giving summaries, constituent timelines, email communication tools, and more. Integrating your website with Bloomerang allows you to provide online giving with custom donor forms, as well as online event registration.
Bloomerang offers a free version for very small nonprofits that need to store up to 250 records. Paid plans start at $19/month for small, growing nonprofits to larger organizations.
Servant Keeper is a nonprofit software solution designed specifically for churches. This solution includes donor and membership management, event management, sacrament tracking, child check-in and security, real-time reporting, and more. Servant Keeper gives ministries strong donor and contribution tracking.
Churches can choose from on-premises or cloud-based solution. Servant Keeper also has a few apps for mobile devices including Mobile Ministry, Attendance, Member Profiles, Online Office, and Online Directory. All Servant Keeper packages start at $299 upfront minimum. The cloud-based solutions start at $10/month with unlimited users. Locally hosted solutions have an additional $50/computer.
Donorbox is a fundraising tool that allows organizations to collect payments through an online donation form embedded on your website or via a popup widget. Donors can choose from a variety of payment methods including credit cards, PayPal, ACH Transfers, or Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Donorbox is free for nonprofits with less than $1,000/month in raised donations. For organizations that collect more, payment plans start at $45/month. Stripe and PayPal payment processing fees will be incurred for any plan.
Donor Management Software Buyer’s Guide
If you’re a nonprofit organization, donations are your lifeblood. The generosity and kindness of your benefactors keep your organization running, enabling critical research, greater public awareness for your cause, and the ability to share life-changing gifts. Enter donor management software.
While nonprofit organizations have a different purpose than businesses focused on returning value to their shareholders, that doesn’t mean they’re not responsible for managing complex and intricate financial scenarios. Nonprofit organizations must have the right tools in place to properly manage their financial matters, from grants to recurring gifts. Donor management software makes it easy to manage a donor database, analyze and assess donations, process payments, track events and fundraising campaigns, and carry out your nonprofit organization’s administrative tasks.
This guide will provide you with information on the following topics:
What Is Donor Management Software?
Donor management software makes it possible for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to manage, track, and execute strategies that engage and retain donations. Donations are a vital component of any NPO, and donor management software enables users to take more control over their donor database. By tracking and analyzing a donors transition or communication history, donor management software helps create targeted email marketing campaigns that offer convenient links to accept online donations.
With the right donor management software, NPOs can make it easy for any number of users or volunteers to take advantage of powerful donation tools. Data mining and data conversion tools make it easy to analyze trends to identify areas of success and opportunity. And with powerful communication tools like automated email campaigns, mail merged thank-you letters, and contribution statements, staying in touch with donors is simpler than ever before.
Primary Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Customizable Donor Profiles | Allows you to create any field of information you wish to or feel would be beneficial to track. Examples include contact information, gift sizes, date of last gift, campaigns contributed to, payment methods, recent communication efforts, and more. |
| Dashboard Views | Shows a complete overview of your data that will show ongoing trends and allow for better decision making. |
| Prospect Research Integrations | Import prospect lists and turn it into internal data in your donor management program. This will help identify areas to target and prospects that need to be worked. |
| Matching Gift Searches | Cross-check donor’s place of employment to identify any employment gift matching opportunities. |
| Mailing Lists Management | Create a direct mail campaign or an email campaign by utilizing donor information. |
| Document Management | Share documents with your team regarding specific donations, contribution campaigns, or specific trends that may be noticed. |
| Online Fundraising | Link with your company website to accept pledges and donations online. Additional capabilities include allowing donors to register for fundraising events and send reminders about upcoming events. |
Key Benefits
NPOs depend on their solutions to manage, improve, and maintain incoming donations. Here are some key benefits that donor management software offers its users:
- Improved donor analysis: Powerful data management tools in donor management software enable NPOs to use complex logic queries to get the most out of any donor database. By maximizing a donor database’s capabilities to track each donor’s complete donation history and every possible point of contact, NPOs can identify trends that make it easy to reach as many donors as possible. For example, database queries can be used to pinpoint donors who haven’t given in a set period of time, identify people who have attended events but have not given, or assess donors who usually give but haven’t yet made an annual donation.
- Comprehensive donor record and contact management: With donor management software, NPOs can manage all donor addresses and contact records to ensure information is complete and up to date. Data from a variety of different spreadsheet or databases sources can be imported and combined, making it easy to remove or merge duplicate entries, quickly search through names and addresses, and add wealth and philanthropy ratings. Donor management software can also directly link individuals, highlighting their relationships and affiliations.
- Better donor communication: Donor management software can turn your donor database into a comprehensive communications platform. Email integrations with popular solutions like Constant Contact make it easy to send email acknowledgment letters in batches, distribute contribution statements, and share online fundraising campaigns. Communication capabilities also make it possible to import data from Excel, generate mailing labels, mail merge letters, and identify and merge duplicate entries.
- Easy form creation: Whether it’s to gather contact information, recruit volunteers, or solicit and receive donations, donor management software lets NPOs quickly and easily create responsive web forms that can be shared through email.
- Tracking, allocating, and managing volunteer work hours: Many NPOs depend on the generosity of volunteers to help carry out administrative, donor management, and fundraising tasks. Donor management software makes it simple to build a database of volunteer workers, assign work to volunteers, and track their complete work history.
- Error reduction: For NPOs, donor management software can act as a centralized hub for all donor-related activities. Any number of separate databases, spreadsheet, address books, and payment systems can be linked in one common system. Doing so can greatly improve accuracy and transparency throughout the donation process.
What Type Does Your Business Need?
The best donor management software for your organization depends on the size of your NPO operation. While every NPO needs a set of tools to manage and track donations and donors, not every organization needs a larger, more comprehensive standalone solution:
- Small NPOs may want to consider donor management software that integrates with existing solutions that many small businesses use, such as QuickBooks.
- Medium NPOs with a fair number of volunteers and donors should consider donor management solutions that make it easier to parse larger donor databases for better management of donation tracking.
- Large NPOs should embrace complete donor management solutions that make it easy to track large numbers of volunteers, donors, and events, coupled with cloud-based features that enables access and management on the go from your mobile device.
Is QuickBooks a Donor Management Tool?
QuickBooks itself does not have a donor management tool included in it’s base package. QuickBooks itself recommends looks into more robust systems for donor management, especially if you anticipate tracking each donor touchpoint and not just each donation. Some basic fundraising platforms will have basic donor management features, which could negate the need for a complete donor management tool.
The bottom line is if your nonprofit has a deep donor base, a large employee pool, and a more involved marketing plan, you’ll be best suited with a donor management system.
Common Pain Points
One common pain point for many NPOs is the cost of adopting new donor management software. As many NPOs run on tight budgets, large investments in new solutions can prove to be costly and potentially unaffordable. While many cloud-based solutions are more affordable and make it easier to account for recurring software costs with subscription pricing, its important for any NPO to choose a solution that suits their budget.
Ensuring ease of use is another important pain point for donor management software. Because many NPOs depend on volunteer labor, user-friendly donor management software is essential for organizations to make the most of their donor database. Whether its through an intuitive user interface, comprehensive and easy to understand training documentation, or included technical support, donor management software thats easy for volunteers to use can help reduce errors, improve data security, and maximize productivity.
Market Trends
Here are some of the market trends donation management software developers have taken into consideration when crafting their solutions:
- 51% of nonprofits used a donor/contribution management software (pictured above): We asked fundraisers to share with us which software tools they used. We found fundraisers rely on three main types of software tools above others for managing their efforts.
- Online fundraising: Raising money online has become a popular and conveniently of soliciting funds from donors. Donation management software makes it easy to share links to campaigns for donations, process payments, and manage recurring gifts.
- Cloud-based software: Many donor management software platforms are now being offered as a cloud-based software as a service (SaaS). SaaS software can often be accessed anywhere, enabled through a web browser or a variety of desktop and mobile apps. Cloud-based donor management software is often accompanied by a recurring subscription price, making it easy to account for technology costs on an ongoing basis.