Fundraising Software: Expert Tools for Smart Nonprofits
Expert fundraising software for savvy organizations.
Fundraising Software: Expert Tools for Smart Nonprofits
- Our Top Fundraising Software Choices
- Learn more about Fundly
- Learn more about DonorPerfect
- Learn more about DonorSearch
- Find more of our favorite fundraising software
Integrates with Double the Donation
Fundly
Fundraising Software Overview
Crowdfunding websites are most commonly used by individuals or families looking to raise money for a specific cause or project.
Fundly is our favorite crowdfunding software because of its social features and user-friendly interface.
Crowdfunding has a social sharing component to it, meaning that individuals can link their campaign’s page to their social media accounts to raise even more money.
Top Tips for Crowdfunding Software
- Make use of the social sharing components of crowdfunding. These tools are what will give your campaign the boost it needs. The more people that view your campaign, the better!
- Include images and videos to give donors context around what they’re giving to. You can even post weekly updates!
- Choose a great crowdfunding tool with multiple capabilities and low credit card and platform fees.
DonorPerfect
Fundraising Software Overview
Donor management software is designed to keep your nonprofit on top of your donor base in order to develop the most successful and beneficial strategies.
DonorPerfect is a donor management software built for fundraisers, meaning that your team has easy access to all the donor data they need to make the most effective asks possible.
With many donor management software providers, you’ll be able to track essential data and automate communication efforts. Your software will spend the time collecting and organizing donor data so you can spend time on what really matters: strengthening donor relationships.
Top Tips for Donor Management Software
- Before looking at outside solutions, see if your current nonprofit software has modules or expansions that can assist with managing your donor data.
- Use the software that has features catered to your specific needs to get the most out of your donor management tool.
- Make sure to transfer any donor data to your new software before you begin. Some vendors will even provide migration assistance so that your existing information transfers over smoothly.
- Take time to properly set up your new software and train your staff on how to use it. Many vendors provide training free of charge!
DonorSearch
Fundraising Software Overview
Prospect research can help nonprofits find major and planned giving prospects. It allows nonprofits to analyze their existing database to see who could be a good candidate for the aforementioned giving programs.
Prospect research examines a donor’s willingness and capacity to give a sizable donation, and DonorSearch gives your nonprofit easy access to the most important wealth indicators.
Without it, nonprofits have to play a guessing game to determine which donors might be ready to give at a greater level.
Top Tips for Prospect Research Software
- There are in-depth prospect research tools that cost money and there are free options that are a bit more limiting. If your nonprofit wants to perform a simple search, use the latter approach. If you are looking for a more comprehensive view of your donor database, use the former approach.
- You might think that wealth screening might be the way to go for your organization. But it has its limits. Prospect research takes both wealth and willingness to give into account.
Allegiance Fundraising
Fundraising Software Overview
Fundraising management software can help nonprofits maximize their efforts and reach their goals. Allegiance Fundraising combines three fundraising teams to help your nonprofit do just that.
Because Allegiance Fundraising combines three teams into one, you can rely on one source for fundraising strategy and implementation, donor management software, and membership loyalty programs. These solutions can stand alone or work together.
A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t always make the impact you need, and it’s also important to have cost-effective solutions that help nonprofits work toward their goals. Allegiance Fundraising can help you find that.
Top Tips for Fundraising Management
- Use cloud-based software for donor data management.
- Ensure your donation page is straightforward and mobile-friendly.
- Be sure to listen to your donors and explain where their gifts are going.
- Leverage the right matching gifts software, which should automate your process and remove the risk of human error.
Salsa Labs
Fundraising Software Overview
Online donations are one the most common ways for nonprofits to raise money for projects, campaigns, and events.
Moreover, online donation platforms are perfect for everyday fundraising, as nonprofits can set up a freely accessible online donation page and promote it to donors.
Salsa Labs has created a functional and intuitive donation page that is built with their CRM and advocacy software in mind, so your nonprofit can have one cohesive technology strategy.
Top Tips for Online Donation Pages
- Only ask for information that is required.
- Make sure your donation form is PCI compliant.
- Don’t require your donors to create an account or profile to give.
- Keep your form simple, easy to understand, and user-friendly.
- Promote your donation page across digital and traditional channels.
- Remember to thank donors after they make an online donation.
Double the Donation
Fundraising Software Overview
Matching gift programs are corporate giving programs that encourage employee giving.
After an employee has donated to an eligible nonprofit, a business will match the gift by donating the same amount (and sometimes more!) to the nonprofit.
Double the Donation’s matching gift database makes it easy for donors to quickly look up their eligibility during the donation process or when researching ways to give to a nonprofit.
Nonprofits can use matching gift software to inform more donors about matching gifts and potentially double their revenue.
Top Tips for Matching Gift Software
- Use matching gift software to inform donors of matching gifts during the donation process.
- Send out information about matching gifts in emailed acknowledgements.
- Use your nonprofit newsletters to highlight matching gifts and increase the chances that donors will have their donations matched.
- Promote matching gifts on social media sites.
- Don’t forget to thank donors for submitting matching gift paperwork to their employers.
More Top Fundraising Software
Boardable
Fundraising Software Overview
Board members are responsible for steering organizations toward a sustainable future. Because of this, they’ll need access to comprehensive communication tools that enable them to collaborate and make timely decisions to further your cause.
Boardable’s board management software makes virtual communication possible for nonprofits of all sizes. With their comprehensive software, you can host productive meetings, securely store your documents, create discussion threads, and more—all in one convenient place.
Boardable recognizes the challenges many nonprofits are facing due to COVID-19, and in response, they’re offering up to 90 days of free access—no strings attached. Schedule a demo to see how Boardable can help you empower your team.
Top Tips for Board Management Software
- Use customizable templates with private note annotation capabilities to quickly create comprehensive meeting agendas.
- Make sure your board management software offers a mobile app so that members can access time-sensitive discussions, documents, and polls at their convenience.
- With the help of an intuitive task manager, actively follow up on uncompleted tasks. This way, you can boost productivity and encourage your board members to complete high-priority tasks.
Snowball Fundraising
Fundraising Software Overview
Text-to-give fundraising software is a relatively new way for nonprofits to raise money from donors who prefer to give on-the-go.
There are multiple kinds of text-to-give software, but Snowball Fundraising’s super-easy process involves donors texting a keyword to a specified number and then receiving a reply text with a link to an online donation page.
Your nonprofit can increase its fundraising capacity when your donors are able to give from anywhere they have cell service!
Top Tips for Text-to-Give Software
- Promote text-to-give in both your digital communications and in your traditional marketing materials. Direct mail recipients can text-to-give, too!
- Ask donors to use text-to-give at an event. Not only will you teach them how to use the technology, but it allows your nonprofit to raise a lot of money at once.
- Make sure that the text-to-give provider you choose doesn’t place a cap on donations. You don’t want to limit donors to $5 or $10 contributions!
360MatchPro
Fundraising Software Overview
When your nonprofit has a strong matching gifts strategy up and running, you might find that you can no longer keep track of every donor’s eligibility and matching gift request status.
That’s where 360MatchPro comes in! With a matching gift automation software, your team can spend less time following up with donors and more time doing every other part of their jobs.
Plus, you’ll never have to worry about losing track of a matching gift-eligible donor in the pipeline with easy status tracking in the software.
Top Tips for Matching Gift Automation Software
- Offer your donors the ability to educate themselves on their matching gift eligibility at any point in the donation process.
- Set your follow-up emails to an appropriate time, so that your donors aren’t being spammed by your automation software.
- Offer donors incentives for submitting requests, like free merch or reduced-price event tickets.
Bonfire
Fundraising Software Overview
Product fundraising is a particularly effective form of fundraising, because you’re able to leverage your supporters’ desire to help your organization by offering them cool stuff in return for the monetary contributions.
Bonfire makes fundraising easy by helping you design awesome shirts, hosting your online ‘storefront’, and printing and shipping your shirts to wherever they need to go. All you have to do is customize your donation page.
The combination of beautiful t-shirts and a good cause will inspire people everywhere to purchase and wear your shirts. You get to raise money and strengthen your marketing strategy in one fell swoop!
Top Tips for Product Fundraising Software
- Use software that doesn’t require up-front costs. With Bonfire, you only pay for the shirts that get ordered, so you never lose money.
- Choose a provider that offers more than just t-shirts. Pullovers, hoodies, long-sleeved t-shirts, and tanktops will entice more than just the casual dresser.
- Look for a company that has graphic design collateral on hand. Not all of us are artists, but your organization still deserves an awesome t-shirt. Choose from a pre-made design and customize to your heart’s content!
Bloomerang
Fundraising Software Overview
Constituent relationship management (CRM) software is a way for nonprofits to track their interactions with donors and volunteers.
CRMs like Bloomerang help nonprofits make informed decisions regarding communication methods, solicitation strategies, and follow-up tactics.
By keeping up-to-date information about how supporters are being engaged, nonprofits can better predict their future giving patterns and track or project growth.
Top Tips for CRM Software
- Track all donor interactions with your nonprofit, from social media comments to face-to-face meetings.
- Some CRM systems have built-in donation pages while others are able to integrate with your existing online donation software.
- Start from a place of strength and clean up your database before migrating to a new CRM system. It will save you a world of hassle in the long run.
MIP Fund Accounting
Fundraising Software Overview
Nonprofit accounting software helps charitable organizations keep track of employee payroll, income from fundraising, and outgoing expenses.
Some nonprofit accounting software, like MIP Fund Accounting, can even help organizations keep track of pledges, grants, membership dues, and more!
Plus, with finance tracking dashboards and fully-customized financial reports, your nonprofit will have an easier time projecting future event budgets and project fundraising goals.
Top Tips for Nonprofit Accounting Software
- Pick an accounting software that is specifically targeted to charitable organizations.
- Make sure that the accounting software you choose can be easily integrated with any other fundraising software your organization currently uses.
- Look for accounting tools that keep your sensitive information secure.
OneCause
Fundraising Software Overview
Charity auction fundraising software helps nonprofits manage their auction-based fundraising events.
There are different software solutions for live and silent auctions, but some software providers offer options for both types- like OneCause.
Silent auction software from OneCause allows nonprofits to upload images and information about the items being auctioned off. Donors then use the app or a website to bid on items without going through the hassle of paper auction sheets.
Their live auction software is more geared toward helping the auctioneer and his or her staff run the event more smoothly.
Top Tips for Charity Auction Software
- Try all types of auctions- traditional, silent, and online- to find out what your supporters respond best to.
- Don’t rely too heavily on your charity auction software once your event kicks off. Auctions (whether silent or live) are exciting events that can greatly strengthen a nonprofit’s relationship with its donors. So, make sure that you are still interacting with your auction attendees.
- Use the data stored in your charity auction software after the event to reach out to new faces. Don’t let these valuable leads slip away!
ClearView CRM
Fundraising Software Overview
Major giving software is a specific type of fundraising software designed to make cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding major givers a natural part of your fundraising cycle.
With a major giving software solution like ClearView CRM on your side, you can enhance your major giving strategy and secure more of these gamechanging gifts for your nonprofit.
The keys to successfully securing major gifts are consistency and predictability, so your major giving software should help your team to provide both of these things.
Top Tips for Major Giving Software
- Encourage your team members to customize their dashboards depending on their needs, so that they can see all the relevant information in one place.
- Flow all of the information that you gather from your multichannel fundraising strategy into your major giving CRM to help you get a 360-degree view of your donors’ engagement levels.
- Store your wealth screening and prospect research data within your major giving CRM, so that you never have to worry about forgetting a detail.
Donately
Fundraising Software Overview
The rising popularity of online fundraising has precipitated the rise of online donation form builders, and your nonprofit needs one to take advantage of these trends!
Donately is a donation form provider that combines key software integrations with beautiful, easy-to-design pages for both organizations and individuals.
When your nonprofit decides to take its fundraising strategy online, you need to make sure that you’re leading your donors to an attractive, functional, and secure donation page.
Top Tips for Donation Form Software
- Use your highest-quality images and videos on your donation pages to have the greatest emotional impact on your potential donors.
- Share your donation pages through social media like Twitter and Facebook. Those who can’t donate will appreciate being able to help through spreading the word.
- Make sure that you recommend recurring gift options to passionate supporters! They’ll love being able to ‘set and forget’ their donations.
Qgiv
Fundraising Software Overview
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a strategy through which your nonprofit organization leverages the social networks of your supporters in order to spread your cause further and strengthen your fundraising success.
All you need is a dedicated supporter base and software that allows those supporters to create and customize their own donation pages to share with their friends- like Qgiv does!
Peer-to-peer, or social, fundraising is a great way to engage your supporters past just donating and get them involved in the fundraising cycle of your nonprofit.
Top Tips for Peer-to-Peer Software
- Make sure that your supporters know how they can share their pages easily and quickly across all types of social media platforms.
- Kick off or end your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign with an engaging event to get all levels of supporters involved.
- Use gamification techniques like leaderboards, fundraising thermometers, and badges to build a little healthy competition among your supporters.
File 990
Fundraising Software Overview
You’ve worked hard fundraising for your nonprofit. Make sure you’re saving as much of this hard-earned money as possible by maintaining your nonprofit’s 501(c)3 status with accurate and timely submissions of your annual 990 form.
File 990 is an authorized IRS e-filer designed to save you time submitting the annual 990-N or 990 EZ form. They do all the heavy lifting for you!
You just need to know your nonprofit tax EIN. From there, File 990 will pull your organization’s relevant data directly from the IRS database then ask you a series of questions to automatically fill in the additional form blanks.
Top Tips for Tax Filing Software
- Standardize your data collection and storage processes ensure proper maintenance and safe-keeping of all of your nonprofit’s personal information.
- Save information about your fiscal period and send reminders to your treasurer next time it’s time to file your forms. You’ll never have a late submission again!
- Filter by form components that could cause you to lose your organization’s tax-exempt status and prioritize reviewing the most important information first so that you never worry about losing status.
Additional Fundraising Software Resources
Top 9 Free Fundraising Software Providers for Nonprofits
Looking for a great fundraising software that won’t break the bank?
Getting a quality nonprofit software solution doesn’t always mean spending a lot of money!
Check out this resource from our friends over at @Pay to learn more about to top free and low-cost fundraising software solutions.
Beginner’s Guide to Online Fundraising
Online fundraising is a growing trend in the nonprofit industry that can help your organization reach more supporters and raise more funds.
With this guide from Double the Donation, you’ll learn how to promote online fundraising as well as the tools you need to get started. So what are you waiting for? Learn more about fundraising with this comprehensive guide.
113 Amazing Fundraising Ideas
So you’ve picked out your perfect fundraising software. Now it’s time to put it to the test!
Need a little help figuring out exactly what kind of fundraiser would be best for your organization?
Check out our list of proven fundraising activities to get your creative juices flowing!
