10 Best Online Donation Tools for Fundraising
Online donation tools are a donor management software that can help increase your fundraising totals like you never imagined. In addition to being able to raise more funds, you’ll be able to expand your fundraising efforts to ensure more people sign up for your upcoming charity events, keep your volunteers informed of current happenings in your organization, and better plan for your future with increased donation revenue analytics.
If you’d like, feel free to skip ahead to our list of the best online donation tools for nonprofit fundraising:
In this digital era, a modern nonprofit will look for a donor management tool that provides online donation pages, peer-to-peer fundraising capabilities, fundraiser crowdfunding, event registration, payment processing and social media integrations with other nonprofit software the organization might be using.
Small nonprofit organizations may desire a simple solution that collects payments via a branded donation page, while a large nonprofit may want a fully-integrated option that automates data collection and helps create and complete a fundraising campaign from start to finish. Whatever your nonprofit is looking for, there are hundreds of donation tools that can meet your needs.
So which ones will work best for your nonprofit? Which one will be easy to implement and be used by the volunteers that make your cause and mission possible? We’ve created our list of the 10 best online donation tools for nonprofit fundraising.
1 Fundly’s NonProfitEasy
Formerly called “Fundly CRM”, the NonProfitEasy donation tool provides donoration software capabilities, volunteer management, fundraising, and event/membership platform capabilities to users. With roots as a nonprofit CRM software, the online donation tool provides both communication and reporting tools that strengthen your relationship with donors.
NonProfitEasy by Fundly was created with the understanding that most single solutions for nonprofits (fully-integrated software that included fundraising capabilities) were too expensive for the average organization. If not that, then an inexpensive solution would simply be a stripped-down version of what the business really needed.
NonProfitEasy offers an “Easy Launch 100” version that starts at $349/year, which includes unlimited users, storage for 1,000 contacts, and 1 hour of free web training. This version includes all the donor management tools required to jumpstart your fundraising efforts. You can also upgrade to more premium paid packages if you desire additional add-ons, such as membership management, point of sale, and additional training.
The NonProfitEasy donation tool also syncs in with Fundly, an online fundraising website creation tool that lets you create landing pages for visitors to commit funds to your cause.
2 Double The Donation
Double the Donation is a corporate gift matching tool designed to increase matching gift revenue. The online donation tool embeds directly onto your website and allows donors to search a database of over 20,000 companies to see if their employer will match the gift. The solution is desktop and mobile-giving friendly, meaning whatever platform your website visitors choose to use, Double the Donation can help them find a matching gift program and opportunity.
Double the Donation understands that gift matching encourages donors to contribute. If a donor knows that their gift will be matched up to a certain dollar amount, it may encourage them to give more than they typically would. It may even get them to give a gift in the first place, knowing that their gift will stretch farther than the dollar amount they are being asked to pay.
One user of Double the Donation talks about it’s ease of use:
The matching gift lookup tool is extremely user-friendly and provides donors with exactly what they need to submit matching gifts. The plugin on our matching gift page and on the confirmation screen is boosting matches big time! Valerie V, Director of Donor Stewardship, ASPCA
3 Qgiv
Qgiv is a fundraising platform you can customize as you grow. The solution lets you create online donation forms, provides peer to peer fundraising methods, handles event registration, and can even create auctions. Most importantly, every part of Qgiv is customizable. You can add your own brand to your donation forms, and even customize text messages that get sent out to your donor base.
The best part about Qgiv is that it’s free to use. The “Start” package is $0/month and only charges a processing fee per donation collected (3.95% + $.30/transaction). In order to integrate your email or CRM tools, you’ll need to opt for a paid version (starting at $15/month).
No matter what version of Qgiv you decide on, all include unlimited forms, fundraising events, users, training, and support. Qgiv is best used by nonprofits, faith-based organizations, education institutions, and political campaigns.
4 DonorBox
DonorBox is an online fundraising software that can be used by anyone. From an individual managing a one-time donation campaign to a nonprofit looking to set up a permanent place to receive donations over the internet, DonorBox has a version for you.
DonorBox advertises itself as the software with the “Free Donate Button”. This alludes to the embeddable popup widget you can add to your website. This lets your visitors make donation payments via credit card, Apple Pay, PayPal, or low-fee ACH payment processing.
The donation tool will also let you set up monthly recurring payments, letting your organization better plan for the future by anticipating funds at certain points. A fast multi-step checkout help pre-fill custom amounts with your descriptions and lets you customize the form’s language and appearance. Integrated employee donation matching is a new feature that will increase the size of your gifts received.
5 Donately
Donately is an online fundraising tool for nonprofits, churches, and agencies. The software excels at creating custom donation forms and donation pages on your website. These donation pages are designed to convert with their sleek and modern image. They also utilize peer-to-peer fundraising capabilities that can let your most passionate supporters raise money for your cause on your behalf.
One of the most useful features within Donately is the ability to set up subscriptions, or recurring billing for donors who agree to ongoing donations. Auto-email receipts will also ensure your donors receive the appropriate 501c3 tax-deductible receipt so they are prepared when tax season rolls around. Users can even be enrolled in organizational newsletters during the “checkout” donation process, providing an easy and convenient way of keeping them up to date with changes and events.
Donately is a bit on the higher end when it comes to pricing and transaction fees. This is because they take a percentage of each donation, which is tacked on to the processing fee charged by Stripe/PayPal (which works in the background as the credit card payment processor). These fees stacked together is higher than some alternatives, however, Donately promises it will pay itself off over the course of ownership. Due to the usability and intuitiveness of Donately, they claim they can increase donations which can offset any increase in fees.
6 DonateNow
DonateNow is a user-friendly and customizable fundraising tool from Network For Good. The solution lets you manage your donations, create events, and create customized pages that broadcast important updates about your organization. These pages can also accept donations complete with your company brand, logo, and image.
Given the ease of use that DonateNow provides, users can set up and run a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign with only a few clicks of a button. DonateNow also has a staff of fundraising coaches that can provide expert advice at how to fundraise better.
Built-in tools will help track down previous donors who have not contributed in a while. This custom list building can also pick up on specific giving habits and demographics, so you can reach out to the right people for the right campaign.
7 OneCause
With 3 core areas of focus, OneCause can be as narrow or as complete of a fundraising solution as you want it to be. This includes event fundraising and auctions with mobile bidding via smartphones, virtual fundraising, and peer-to-peer social engagement fundraising.
Previously known as BidPal, OneCause has roots as a mobile bidding solution. Because of this, the event fundraising and auction capabilities are the strong suits of the donation tool. This includes planning events and campaigns, creating donor profiles, storing data on auction items, and grouping items into package types. Ticket management and table management let you control the level of access donors can purchase to your events and customize how they want to experience the event with their friends and family.
The online fundraising capability within OneCause includes online auctions and appeals, virtual P2P events, DIY and Challenge campaigns (such as the ice bucket challenge from 2014), and most importantly, accepting online donations.
8 FirstGiving
FirstGiving recently became a part of the Panorama all-in-one fundraising platform by FrontStream. This means FirstGiving has even more backing to provide an easy to use online donation platform for your fundraising operations. FirstGiving now has the attention and focus to give in order to help nonprofits and their supporters meet and exceed fundraising goals for important causes.
This is accomplished through online auctions, peer-to-peer and giving days, monthly giving, volunteer management, donor management, and custom reporting features. These features are used through web-based fundraising pages created by users to enhance and leverage their personal networks, no matter the cause, event, or campaign.
Donor data is easily exportable into whatever outside CRM or ERP software in use by the back-office administration. The platform also boasts API integrrations from third-parties who wish to add charitable elements to their organization. Some of these easy to add capabilities include branded peer-to-peer fundraising, online fundraising auctions, and unlimited records and emails.
9 CauseVox
CauseVox is a leading nonprofit fundraising platform that equips nonprofits with everything they need to run successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns. It also includes a number of donation tools such as donation pages, fundraising sites, peer-to-peer pages, and P2P registration.
The donation pages capability will allow your nonprofit to quickly create branded pages for online donations on your website. You can launch online fundraising sites for any campaign, annual fund, giving day, or capital project. Donors can also be acquired through the use of personal or team pages that raise money through friends and family–donors you may not have had your sites on.
The CEO and Co-founder of CauseVox, Rob Wu, was inspired to create the donation tool due to his belief in a connected economy:
Today, supporters are hyper-connected, live inside personal feeds, discover and support causes recommended by their friends, and desire to be a part of the change–not merely give in to it. Rob Wu, CEO, CauseVox
10 Snowball
Snowball helps your nonprofit “unleash generosity” through online donation tools such as donation pages, text message contributions, and event ticketing. Knowing that we live in an increasingly cashless society, Snowball helps you bring in online donations through whatever channel possible–mostly through online channels such as texting or via catered landing pages on a website.
Snowball also offers real-time donation tracking through “giving thermometers”, which can show how hot or cold a campaign is doing. Supporters who want to give ahead of time to promote a specific event or gala can purchase tickets online through Snowball, help register attendees to get accurate headcounts, and more.
Snowball also has a robust nonprofit CRM software functionality, letting you manage not only your supporters but also your volunteers and staff. This is useful for tracking gifts, as well as how active your volunteers have been at signing up for work events. The CRM will let you follow up with individuals to see if they are available to work, all in one convenient place.
