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The Top 10 Nonprofit CRM Software to Maximize Your Organization’s Impact

Danielle Tawfik 16 min read
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When you think of running a nonprofit organization, the first thing that comes to mind probably isn’t a CRM.  But the truth is, a CRM is key for nonprofits to manage successful relationships with donors and keep operations on track; CRM software is an invaluable tool that can simplify and streamline all your operations and contacts in one place to generate real social impact.

In this blog, we’ll elaborate on the importance of CRM software for nonprofit organizations and the top qualities you should look for in a nonprofit CRM. Plus, we’ll list our top 10 nonprofit CRM software, including monday CRM, so you can understand their differences and pick the best solution for your team.  

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What is nonprofit CRM software?

A nonprofit CRM (customer relationship management) is a tool that helps nonprofit organizations manage relationships with constituents such as donors, volunteers, and contributors. This kind of software is mostly used by nonprofit personnel who are in charge of retention, outreach, marketing, public relations, or fundraising.

A good nonprofit CRM software enables teams to personalize interactions with donors, track donations, and measure the effectiveness of promotional efforts in one centralized place.

Why is nonprofit CRM software valuable?

CRM software gives nonprofit organizations the tools they need to organize their information, so they reach their highest potential and generate the most social impact. With a nonprofit CRM, organizations can:

  • Locate all relevant data in one centralized location
  • Measure the effectiveness of promotional efforts through data insights
  • Attract and retain individuals who are willing to financially contribute or volunteer for the group by streamlining communication and easing relationship-building
  • Track donations through a solid donor management system that organizes data, identifies trends, and makes appropriate recommendations to build donor relationships
  • Determine the engagement of participants in different events
  • Collaborate with other tech systems for nonprofit organizations such as grant administration or fundraising

What features should you look for in a nonprofit CRM?

A nonprofit CRM solution helps users keep track of all donor data for easy access when needed. Using the right CRM can help nonprofits reduce the stress and aggravation of missing information, all while saving time and resources. In order to maximize the benefits of a CRM for nonprofits, it is important to choose the right one to suit the needs of your organization. As such, there are certain features that need to be considered:

1. Donor management tools

As mentioned, aggravation is a common side effect of being unable to quickly and easily access information when needed. Whether you’re using a CRM for small business or smaller organization, it’s important to be able to store and access donor information in one centralized location. 

A CRM system will not only store all necessary data but also provide easy access to donors whenever you need it. Pull up a donor’s profile to see what emails have been sent to who, set reminders to contact donors, and more. Some of these specific donor management tools should encompass:

  • Relationships: Keep track of the relationships that the donors have with each other along with the organizations. This is necessary as you might want to save specific data, for instance, that one of your donors holds an executive position in a nonprofit organization.
  • Donor documents: Ensure that external documents such as Word documents, PDF files, Excel sheets, and so on are stored. This makes finding information pertaining to a specific donor easy to find.
  • Donor profiles: Easily access information about any donor, with a donor profile that includes contact details, upcoming and past events, donation summaries, programs, files, activity logs, updates, and more.
  • Segmented donor groups: Track and save the demographic data of donors in each profile that’s dedicated to each one. This will allow you to group certain donors into a specific area, which makes it easier to set up an event in that region.

2. Automations

By using the right CRM software, users can save hours every week with task automation. Tedious tasks that take time and resources can be done without much thought when the CRM system you’re using offers automation as a primary feature.

With monday CRM for example, you can set automatic reminders that automatically notify you once grants are approved, when certain fundraising goals are reached, and more to save you time.

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3. Fundraising and campaign management

A nonprofit CRM must allow users to effectively plan, track, and launch fundraising campaigns within the platform. It should include an intuitive interface that allows users to visualize their campaigns in whatever best suits them, while easily communicating with team members. 

4. Analytics and reporting

Of course, no CRM system is complete without analytics and reporting features. Your company likely has a lot of data, and without a complete CRM system, your data is bound to be scattered among several different platforms. A CRM platform stores everything in one convenient location, allowing you to gain actionable insights and analytics about your donors and use this information to make smart decisions for future growth and development. 

donor management

Top 10 nonprofit CRM software

Each nonprofit organization is unique, with its specific values and priorities. We’ve narrowed down our top 10 picks so that you can compare their pricing, features, and more to help choose the right software that suits your organization.

1. monday CRM 

monday CRM is a fully customizable, intuitive CRM platform that is loved by thousands of nonprofits around the world. Our easy-to-use platform helps nonprofits simplify and streamline all their operations in one place, and even offers special discounts and resources for nonprofits to succeed every step of the way.  

Best for: Teams of any size wanting to generate social impact 

Features:

  • Customizable forms to collect, organize, and analyze data without any complicated programming required
  • Mass email & tracking to Send personalized emails to prospects in bulk, making outreach more efficient
  • 27+ view types to visualize volunteer availability and capacity, donation pipelines, and more

Pricing: monday CRM’s general pricing starts at $12/seat but with our Nonprofit program eligible nonprofits get the first 10 seats free and a 70% discount per seat from the 11th seat on. 

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2. Salesforce

This well-known CRM offers a Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) that specifically caters to the needs of nonprofit organizations. 

Best for: Large, technical teams 

Features

  • Grant Management to simplify and accelerate grant-making while facilitating greater collaboration between giver and recipient
  • Case management to deliver personalized services to clients and give them access to their own case plans so they can make progress toward their goals
  • Donation tracking to capture and track donations, pledges, grants, and in-kind contributions.

Pricing: For eligible nonprofits the first 10 subscriptions are free, and after that, there are various different pricing options starting at $60/user/month for Nonprofit Cloud Enterprise Edition. 

3. Virtuous

Virtuous is a nonprofit CRM & responsive fundraising platform designed to help nonprofit teams build better donor relationships.

Best for: Advanced automations

Features

  • Automation capabilities to design personalized donor journeys and automate back-office processes 
  • Multi-channel communication for marketing and email campaigns
  • Donor signals that identify best prospects and behavior using predictive analytics and scoring

Pricing: Virtuous only offers customized pricing plans, where you’d need to fill out a form to get more information.

4. CharityEngine

Best for: Increasing fundraising 

CharityEngine is a complete fundraising platform ideal for managing nonprofit technology, payment processing, and donor data in one place.

Features

  • Custom donation forms to create custom forms or choose from a gallery of existing template options.
  • Matching gift automation tools for easy matching gift fundraising campaigns
  • PCI-certified payment processing technology for secure payments 

Pricing: The Basic plan starts at $299 a month for 2 users — this includes 5,000 contacts and 10,000 emails per month.

5. Neon One CRM

Best for: Smaller nonprofits 

Neon One CRM is a CRM software designed specifically for small-medium nonprofits. The platform aims to help nonprofits grow by managing fundraising, communications, events, volunteers, and more.

Features 

  • Donor Database to track donors and relationships in one place, with customized fields to manage and organize data.
  • Constituent portal where constituents can update their demographic information, access private pages, and register for upcoming events and volunteer opportunities.
  • Engagement timeline to identify main supporters and better personalize their experience

Pricing: Neon One CRM offers 3 revenue-based pricing plans, with the most basic Essential plan starting at $99/ month.

6. Bloomerang

Best for: Ease of use 

Bloomerang, which acquired the well-known fundraising software Kindful, is an intuitive donor management software geared to small-medium nonprofits as well. 

Features

  • Integrations with top solutions like Qgiv, QuickBooks, Mailchimp, TrueGivers, DonorSearch, and Fundraise Up
  • Interactive dashboard to monitor your donor retention rate, campaign success, and incoming donations
  • Peer-to-peer fundraising tools and custom forms to expand your digital fundraising efforts

Pricing: Bloomerang offers 3 different pricing plans with its most basic Fundraising plan starting at $40/ month. 

7. Donor Perfect

Best for: Donor management functionality/customization options

Donorperfect is a comprehensive nonprofit CRM and fundraising solution known for its advanced donor management functionality and great customer support.

Features: 

  • Automatic monthly giving programs to amplify annual revenue 
  • Custom dashboards and reports with over 25 standard graphs and widgets, visual goal  tracking, and monthly giving metrics
  • Constant Contact email marketing integration with custom templates and dynamic email lists based on pre-determined filters 

Pricing: Three pricing packages with the most basic one, Core, starting at $99 a month.

8. Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT

Best for: AI Data insights 

Blackbaud, one of the largest and best-known nonprofit fundraising tech providers offers multiple CRM products with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT being the most prevalent. Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT is a smart-yet-complex cloud-based program built to help mid-to-large nonprofits achieve sustainable growth

Features

  • AI-driven suggested ask amounts to maximize donor giving
  • Intelligent donation forms based on the specific needs of the organization to increase donations and conversation rates
  • End-to-end gift management for tracking constituent giving 

Pricing: Personalized quote available upon request

9. Givebutter

Best for: A free nonprofit CRM 

Givebutter markets itself as the “only platform that lets you do it all for free.” The fundraising platform is simple to use and allows users to create and customize campaigns. 

Features:

  • Auction management to supervise bidders, track bids, export winners, & oversee item fulfillment
  • Texting features to Connect directly with your supporters on their cell phones with personalized, targeted messages 
  • Centralized Giving hub where donors can easily view and engage with campaigns

Pricing:  

The software is entirely free although there are small processing and platform fees.

10. Little Green Light

Little Green Light is a basic, affordable donor management software solution best for small and mid-sized nonprofit organizations. It’s a great starter option for teams looking for a basic CRM to help them grow. 

Best for: A low-cost option

Features:

  • Import & export data to easily migrate data to and from other apps like Excel
  • Acknowledgment/ Recipts to produce thank you notes within the platform
  • Built-in & custom reporting to easily create reports that identify prospects, fundraising performance, and more

Pricing: Pricing plans start at $40 a month and a pay-as-you-go feature is available in all accounts.

How do you choose the best nonprofit CRM?

It’s important to remember that each nonprofit is unique. In that case, the best CRM software for nonprofits would be one that has all the features and integrations needed to help your organization run smoothly. There are numerous factors to consider when choosing a CRM software, so consider the results you want from the platform and how long your team will take to adapt to this new form of working.

You will also need to consider things like cost and expected ROI. Even if you choose a free CRM, you’ll need a CRM without limiting features: one that provides everything your nonprofit organization needs for donor data and relationship building.

Why monday CRM is ideal for nonprofits

monday CRM is a powerful tool that will allow you to maximize your nonprofit’s social impact by simplifying processes and data storage/ collection in one place. You can find all the necessary CRM nonprofit features we discussed, with a platform that’s incredibly easy to use and convenient. To support nonprofits in their mission to make lasting change, monday.com offers two significantly discounted plans to eligible nonprofits.

These apply to a Nonprofit Plan (10 seats free, and a 70% discount from the 11th seat) or a 33% discount per user on an Enterprise Plan. To see if your organization is eligible, you can submit this form or read more here.

When you use the monday CRM for your nonprofit you can expect to:

1. Meet your fundraising goals faster

Plan, track, and launch fundraising campaigns with ease. Engage with your donors, get insights into trends, and create targeted campaigns to appeal to your donor base.

Watch how Ed-tech nonprofit Upchieve uses monday.com to manage their grants, fundraising leads and donor data.

2. Recruit, schedule, and engage volunteers

Monday CRM has all the necessary volunteer management features so nonprofits can create a positive volunteer experience that increases retention and benefits the organization in the long run.

Easily organize and coordinate volunteers through intuitive, customizable boards. Assign volunteer tasks/shifts with the click of a button and instantly visualize volunteer availability and capacity with the Workload View.

Plus automatically integrate any data collected by forms into your boards so you can have a full picture of your volunteer information in one place. 

3. Maximize end-to-end project management

Since monday CRM is built upon the intuitive monday.com Work OS, you can power your CRM while simultaneously managing day-to-day operations, as well as ad hoc projects like event registration & planning, marketing campaigns, outreach, and more. monday.com helps everyone align on the same goals and collaborate effectively.

4. Centralize your operations in one intuitive platform

With a CRM like the one offered by monday.com you will have the tools and resources to better manage your organization, save time and money, and make the most social impact within communities. monday.com is the ideal nonprofit CRM as it adapts to your needs. This includes CRM for industries like social welfare, education, environmental, arts & culture, animal welfare, disaster relief, food insecurity, community development and upliftment, human rights, youth development, and more.

5. Track information seamlessly

You can track not just information about your contributors, but also information about your gifts and how they benefit your cause. Track all relevant data including the method of donation, the donation amount, the deductible tax amount for each donation, the donation contributor, and so on.

6. Enjoy easy onboarding and special nonprofit resources

Getting started with monday.com is easy and requires no technical experience. Anyone can do it. There is no training involved as the CRM is a highly intuitive and visual platform. 

We want to watch your nonprofit succeed, work more efficiently and have as great an impact in your community as possible. That’s why in addition to our special nonprofit pricing, we offer specific resources to ensure your nonprofit is best equipped for success. 

  • Nonprofit academy: Nonprofits using our software can explore a variety of courses to level up their monday.com skills and get a digital nonprofit expert certification.  
  • Nonprofit community: Ask questions on your workflow and connect with other nonprofit users 

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Donation database for non-profit

A CRM for nonprofits to generate the social impact you strive for

The fully customizable monday CRM gives you the ability to maximize your time and resources so you can generate the most impact for your organization as possible. We’re certain that using monday.com will help maximize your nonprofit impact, generate social change, and simplify operations. But don’t just take our word for it.

“Now that we’re using monday.com we have much more clarity into the information that we have. We’re better able to see volunteer trends so that we can better target new volunteers and ultimately improve our retention.” – Sharon Tal | Executive Director, Elifelet  Citizens for Refugee Children

Read more of our nonprofit success stories, and start using monday CRM to create your own success story today. 

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FAQs about nonprofit CRM

A nonprofit CRM is an essential tool for effective fundraising because it allows nonprofits to manage all aspects of their fundraising efforts from centralizing donor information, managing fundraising campaigns, and gaining insights into fundraising performance.

The best nonprofit CRM is subjective to the nonprofit’s size, needs, and priorities. There are leading CRM options that are often best for specific needs. For example
monday CRM is ideal for nonprofits of all sizes to centralize all their nonprofit operations in a simple-to-use platform
-Givebutter is ideal for users searching for a free CRM option
-Neon One CRM is ideal for small and medium-sized nonprofits looking to increase engagement
-Salesforce is ideal for large teams needing to manage a lot of nonprofit data

Our Nonprofit program was created to ensure price is not a barrier to nonprofit organizations that want to use monday.com. Eligible nonprofit organizations can enjoy 10 free seats on the Pro tier of the Work Management product. Accounts created after March 2024 can also enjoy the first 10 seats on each monday.com product for free.

To be eligible to participate in the monday.com for Nonprofit Program, you must be recognized as a charity, nonprofit, nongovernmental, or social change organization in the country in which you are located. Your organization should provide legal documentation demonstrating that you meet the above criteria. You can learn more about qualification requirements here https://monday.com/nonprofits/eligibility.

The content in this article is provided for informational purposes only and, to the best of monday.com’s knowledge, the information provided in this article  is accurate and up-to-date at the time of publication. That said, monday.com encourages readers to verify all information directly.
Originally from New York, Danielle is a writer and storyteller. When she’s not busy writing, you can find her playing with her 100-pound rescue dog or catching a spontaneous flight to explore a new country.

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