The Best Fundraising Software
Get the best software for your business. Compare product reviews, pricing below.
The right fundraising software can make a big difference in your ability to raise money to help accomplish your organization’s mission. For your nonprofits, this is vital, as donations make up a significant portion of the operating budget.
Most organizations have at least some type of donor or constituent database. But do you have the right system? The ideal fundraising solution should help you raise money, execute more effective advocacy campaigns, cultivate stronger donor relationships, grow the constituency, and expand your reach all without breaking your budget.
Read on to find out more about the top fundraising software options and how to find the right platform for your organization.
Best Overall:
DonorPerfect
DonorPerfect is a fundraising growth platform with everything you need to create fundraising initiatives, cultivate relationships, and collect more donations. DonorPerfect manages all kinds of constituent data such as donors, prospects, members, volunteers, foundations, alumni, and event participants. The software can be used to manage any type of fundraising campaign, such as annual giving, grants, special events like auctions, direct mail, online giving, and capital campaigns.
The program does not require the use of any outside tool to operate, making it an all-inclusive fundraising and donor management platform. The software can easily process both credit card payments and bank drafts, all while providing you with reporting and analytics your organization needs to uncover hidden trends and develop strategies to improve fundraising efforts.
Best for Small Nonprofits:
DonorSnap
DonorSnap gives you the best bang for your buck when it comes to small-scale fundraising software. While the $39 per month price tag isn’t the least expensive option on the market, small nonprofits will want to find a user-friendly fundraising tool which provides the most value for a lower price, and that describes DonorSnap.
Their basic version includes up to 1,000 contact records, then tiered pricing applies to organizations with more contacts. They also offer one of the lowest setup fees on the market at $200, which includes 4 hours of data conversion and private training. There are no extra fees beyond this.
Best Free:
Bloomerang
Bloomerang gives your business the best practices for donor engagement and retention by helping organize your records to increase your fundraising efforts. Their online giving forms can be embedded on your website, and constituent records will be created/updated automatically after every submission. The software will also integrate with peer-to-peer and fund accounting apps to help provide a seamless transition of your data into any other nonprofit software in use.
The free version is called Bloomerang Lite, which acts as a limited version of their premium offerings. The software lets you have up to 250 records, record up to $100k in annual revenue, and gives unlimited users free access to the Bloomerang Academy for tips to improve your fundraising efforts.
Best Online:
Blackbaud eTapestry
Blackbaud eTapestry is a fundraising tool for nonprofits operating in the cloud via a web-browser. The software acts as an all-in-one tool for managing your charitable programming activities in one place, no matter where you’re physically located. The holistic view of your donor relationships and the performance of your fundraising campaigns provides a faster turnaround of what is working and what isn’t.
eTapestry also works to boost engagement through email marketing, online donation forms with payment processing, content tracking, event management, and much more. eTapestry’s popularity has historically revolved around its low cost of entry, and Blackbaud advertises the solution as a more affordable alternative to their robust Raiser’s Edge tool.
Best for Donor Management:
ClearView CRM
ClearView CRM acts as a donor database that does anything you need to improve your fundraising operation. Marketed as a “nonprofit CRM software”, this industry-specific customer relationship management software improves your fundraising efforts through multichannel fundraising tools. These tools include online marketing and giving, event management, email marketing, and direct mail marketing.
All donors will have their own portal with targeted information, which can help secure donations, handle event registration, link with social media networks, and create a branded yet personalized experience for your donors. The software will make sure you can compare the performance of your marketing activities to calculate ROI, and will ensure the plan, budgeting, and execution of your campaigns help your organization collect more donations faster than ever before.
Best for Fundraising Accounting:
Abila Fundraising Online
Abila Fundraising Online is a completely online tool with real-time performance metrics to manage your events and campaigns, with the goal of increasing engagement between donors, volunteers, and participants. A modern interface for donation pages lets you collect donations over multiple devices such as tablets or mobile devices.
A part of the Abila family, the solution is a great compliment to Abila MIP Fund Accounting, which is one of the top fund accounting solutions on the market. Using both will provide you with a fully integrated method of tracking budget progress, and donor data to make informed and confident financial decisions regarding your fundraising activities. Perform all these tasks while meeting compliance and reporting standards.
What Is Fundraising Software?
Fundraising software applications allow for tracking the acquisition of donor contributions and for facilitating related communication and data management tasks. A subtype of nonprofit software, fundraising platforms are a critical IT resource for nonprofit organizations which depend on the continued support of contributors to deliver resources and services.
How much more could your organization do with double the donations? What about triple? Utilizing software to improve your fundraising efforts can show what a difference your organization can really make. Important functionalities of fundraising software include the following:
- Reduce the workload associated with fundraising tasks via automation of repetitive tasks
- Increase per donor giving rates based on the coordination of optimal follow-up communication
- Improve rates of secondary contributions from donors, even through peer-to-peer fundraising or crowdfunding campaigns
Start meeting your fundraising goals and increasing your outreach with all-in-one nonprofit fundraising software.
What Does Fundraising Software Do?
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Donor database | Personalized donor profiles track transactional/communication histories with past and prospective donors; Support volunteer and member registration access to specified privileges, such as auction bid, gift programs, or other forms of donation |
| Contact management | Constituent relationship management allows for information about contacts and communication/events histories related to contacts to be entered into a centralized management system |
| Campaign management | Organize campaigns from start to finish, anticipating results and using real-time data to measure milestones |
| Event tracking | Support for event sc heduling such as calendaring and ticketing |
| Fundraising/campaign tracking | Gather data and report on analytics to identify which fundraising activities have yielded the best results, enabling refinement of ongoing fundraising efforts |
| Template management | Create, store, and edit fundraising templates to refine the effectiveness of donor communication (email, mailers, text, etc) |
| Online donation portal | Virtual fundraising and donation portals provide another access point for potential donors, providing a means of increasing fundraising revenues by tapping into new channels for fundraising, i.e. text-to-give |
| Credit card processing | Allow for donation payments via credit card or other cashless methods to increase fundraising totals |
| Matching contributions tracking | Increase per-donor giving rates through corporate matching programs |
CRM and Fundraising
In for-profit businesses, a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, intended to build and strengthen the relationship with clients. For nonprofits, those clients are instead organization members, volunteers, and donors. Rather than investing in a full CRM, this contact management is usually accomplished through organizing easy ways for donors to contribute online or in-person at events.
What is Donor Software? How Does it Compare?
Fundraising and donor software are sometimes used interchangeably in conversation, but hold different meanings in practice. Fundraising software helps you acquire donations through communication and campaigns, while donor management software is more of an industry-specific CRM tool to record data about donors such as giving history, amount of gifts, and personal details. In short, fundraising and donor management software can both include nonprofit CRM tools. There are times where one may be more appropriate than another, depending on the exact nature of your nonprofit organization.
Best Fundraising Software Benefits
Fundraising should be fun, simple, and managed efficiently. Through specialized software, this can be possible for the smallest NPOs to large nonprofits:
Simplify Your Fundraising Efforts
If an organization wants to know where they are with their giving and how much they owe, this should be a simple thing to report. With the right fundraising software, find out who is paying your organization, how much and when. Fundraising software can help nonprofits streamline important reporting capabilities in order to:
- Track gifts, pledges, soft credits, matching gifts, in-kind donations, grants, corporate sponsorships, and memberships.
- Create reports for your internal tax purposes as well as providing donor statements for donors’ tax purposes as well.
Fundraising software can be used for after-the-fact reports and provide valuable information on past successes before your new fundraising efforts even begin. Some software can even help identify the key demographics of your donating community. Demographic insights allow you to predict probable donors so you can target your efforts accordingly. This can greatly improve the success of your fundraising campaigns.
Save Time and Money by Streamlining Your Processes
Running a nonprofit involves all the hassle of a for-profit business with razor-thin budget margins. Paying excessive platform fees for different software solutions can take away valuable resources from your advocacy work. The fundraising software you choose should pay for itself by increasing donations, freeing up time by increasing operational efficiency and improving donor satisfaction. With the right software, every letter, email, phone call, activity, donation, campaign, event registration, and interaction are tracked in one place.
Go Virtual with Online Fundraising Software
The Internet has truly transformed the way nonprofits operate. In-person event fundraising isn’t enough when social media and communication tools allow anyone access to online donation pages. Whether it’s connecting with constituents or processing online donations, your organization has many digital tools available to:
- Process donation and registration transactions via your website.
- Set up programs for recurring gifts and credit/debit card payments.
- Use online event management features for collaborative efforts between staff and volunteers.
- Link your system with social networking tools.
Donor-focused fundraising strategies can be easy to implement and track with the right solution.
Fundraising Event Management Tools
Does your organization host fundraising events? Organize and optimize events such as galas, silent auctions, balls, tournaments, luncheons, conferences, and meetings with software to:
- Get comprehensive, template-based registration forms customizable to your events.
- Automate emails generated for invitations, registration, donation acknowledgments, etc.
- Solicit and manage volunteers (select locations, assignments and individual tasks)
- Copy, clone and revise event details from year to year.
- Report on all participants and sponsorship history across all events.
Industries Served
Fundraising software is primarily designed for nonprofit organizations, though it can also be used by:
- Schools
- Non-governmental organizations (NGO)
- Startups
- Animal shelters
Our Fundraising Technology Trends Survey found that while 4 out of 5 fundraisers felt new technology leads to increased success, only 1 in 3 admitted to having the tools they needed to implement a path to that success.
Solving Problems with Fundraising Software
Fundraising software solves many challenges your nonprofit faces, including:
Low Donor Engagement
Some fundraising campaigns will run year-round while others will run at certain times of the year. Nonprofits need to understand that all donors give for different reasons and in different quantities at different intervals of the year. Being able to time your fundraising campaigns accurately will help save your organization time and effort trying to engage donors who are not ready to give.
Retaining Donors
One of Blackbaud’s more recent Charitable Giving Reports (from 2016) found the average donor retention rate for first-year donors ranges from 21-29%, depending on the platform they used to give on. This means that for every 10 new donors your organization acquires via fundraising efforts, only 2 to 3 of them will return. Fundraising software helps companies better nurture their relationships and retain donors.
Market Trends of Fundraising Software
Some of the top trends in the world of fundraising software include:
Integration with QuickBooks
As QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting software solutions, many fundraising software solutions offer integration with the platform as an add-on. For example, solutions such as DonorPerfect allow you to record fundraising and donation efforts in their software and send data back to QuickBooks to eliminate double data entry and give more of a complete audit trail. All versions of QuickBooks, including QuickBooks Online can be used by nonprofits.
Tracking Charitable Donations in Real-Time
The occasional charitable donation can add up over time. For large fundraisers, software can automatically calculate how much money has been raised in real-time, demonstrating how close your organization is to meeting fundraising goals. Fundraising systems with accounting interfaces make it easy to transfer transactions directly to your accounting system.
Online Fundraising
The Charitable Giving Report from Blackbaud found online giving has grown 17%, with the average online gift rising as well. 24% of all online transactions were made with a mobile device. Fundraising software that provides an organization with the ability to have donors pay online and even via their mobile device should have a net positive on your charitable goals.
Monthly Giving Programs
While the donor retention rate for first-year donors may range from 21-29% (mentioned above), repeat donor retention rate is at 60-70%. Implementing a monthly giving program can increase this figure as high as 85-90%.
Innovative Web Technology
It’s no surprise technology is improving fundraising. Some of the key takeaways are how experts are trying to reach new donors in new places (via social media), tell stories more vividly (with video), and make giving easier for contributors (through mobile giving).
