Fundraising software, also known as online fundraising or donation software, helps nonprofits manage fundraising and donations within the organization. It is designed to help nonprofits get the most out of their fundraising efforts without going over budget or depleting their resources. The software streamlines processes and strategies, ensuring that fundraising and making donations are as easy and hassle-free as possible. As any nonprofit worker knows, fundraising is a massive part of the job. In fact, no nonprofit can really exist without fundraising efforts.
In today’s digital age, many tasks can be automated and processes streamlined with the help of software. Online tools can make the process of raising funds as easy and successful as possible. This is important as it will save time and allow you to focus on what’s important – the project at hand. Fundraising isn’t always a walk in the park and it’s essential that the software you’re using is reliable and easy to use.
What is fundraising software?
Fundraising software helps nonprofits raise funds, improve their donation and fundraising strategies, streamline processes and build relationships with donors and supporters. This solution lets organizations reach out to new supporters, engage with existing donors, collect donations, plan fundraising events and collect information about their donors and supporters for future use. There are several types of nonprofit fundraising software available, with the most popular being donor management and grant management software.
Fundraising software is a vital component for nonprofit organizations as it establishes an important portion of nonprofit revenue. Along with the aforementioned processes and solutions, fundraising software also manage and promote a variety of methods for organizations to launch multi-branched campaigns. Fundraising that uses multiple methods is essential to ensuring that every possible demographic and communication method is used.
Donor management software
Donor management software assists nonprofits in their fundraising strategies and donor relationships. Communication and engagement with donors are key for donor retention and continued support. With donor management software, you can track all of your donors and supporters, all communication sent to them, engagement, previous donations, and much more. With this resource, you can make better decisions and enhance your fundraising efforts for more success.
Donor management software needs to work in conjunction with donor prospect research software to always have data that’s regularly updated. Integration with fundraising and nonprofit accounting software assists organizations to match donors with various fundraising software and keep track of all payments.
For a piece of software to qualify as donor management software, it has to do the following:
- Track donor contributions and activity to the organization
- Manage donation history and donor information
- Provide tax receipts and acknowledgement letters
- Provide the user with options to communicate with donors on a variety of channels
- Allow users to establish workflows that facilitate the contributions of donors
- Distribute value proposition administration functionality
Grant management software
Grant management software is a type of nonprofit software designed to manage and process grant applications. This software helps streamline workflow, set up task reminders, assign tasks, store contact information, and organize applications and more. A grant management system is incredibly valuable for organizations looking to reach out to government agencies for funding to get their nonprofit or project off the ground.
These tools are also used by funders to effectively track their award budgets, measure success over a set period to determine if funding priorities require change, and monitor the progress of all grant recipients. When looking at this software from a project management perspective, this is the type of tool that’s needed to assist users to track essential activities at various points of each grant application.
How nonprofits use fundraising software
Fundraising software is designed to streamline donation pages, automate donation receipts, communicate with donors, encourage peer-to-peer giving and recurring giving and boost your fundraising efforts. In many cases, it is not very efficient for your employees to do everything needed to fundraise by themselves.
Some tasks are incredibly tedious and time-consuming and can be automated with the right software. Launching fundraising campaigns requires plenty of work, whether it’s tailoring emails to donors, sending donation receipts, or communicating with donors. With fundraising software working behind the scenes, you can manage and plan fundraising events quickly and easily, allowing you to focus on other parts of the organization.
By using the right fundraising software, you can plan the best fundraising opportunities without missing a beat while building a solid, credible reputation among donors and supporters. You can tailor campaigns to suit the preferences of your event or organization, communicate to stakeholders, staff members, and donors, and follow up on any tasks to make sure they have been actioned the correct way.
This makes your fundraising efforts seamless and efficient, eliminating as many potential issues as possible and building a name for your nonprofit in its industry. This makes everything much easier and it allows for an enjoyable experience behind the scenes while allowing you to dedicate more of your time into making a significant difference in the lives of others.
How does fundraising software help nonprofit organizations?
Fundraising software helps nonprofits connect with donors in a unique way and it helps to increase the fundraising efforts associated with the organization. Daily activities can easily be managed without having to rely on mundane software that doesn’t cater to this specific purpose. The software can be accessed based on what you need and most of them have plenty of methods to boost efficiency when it comes to fundraising concepts, sending thank you letters, and eliminating drafting time.
It also helps fundraisers to make donations without any issues and one of the most useful features is that it allows donors to make regular donations via a recurring donation setting. With every new fundraising campaign, the user will be able to create the campaign via email, with the email being updated in the software database. This will also send a reminder to the donors whenever there’s a new fundraising event.
Therefore, nonprofit ticketing and events are easy to organize once the software is accessed. All it takes are a few clicks and the software will make things much easier for you. Fundraising software is designed with nonprofit organizations in mind and the fundraising system that’s used plays an important role, with monday.com recognizing this.
Fundraising software features
Every nonprofit has its own set of needs and requirements, which means some features are more important than others. That said, it’s important to understand the needs of the organization before choosing a fundraising platform as you don’t want to invest in with features that you don’t need.
The features of this software are what makes it stand out and there are other types of software that miss the point when it comes to certain features. Below are some features we think are worthwhile when planning to fundraise for your nonprofit:
- Donation pages and buttons: This is a landing page where donors can make donations quickly and easily online. Donation buttons should also be available, which act as a call-to-action so you can send donors to your donation page or any other relevant pages. These buttons should be customizable within your fundraising platform and then integrated with your website.
- Donation form: A donation form is handy as it lives on your donation page and provides users with the ability to click the donation button for an instant way to make a donation. The donation form typically includes fields that must be filled out by the donor, including donor information, donation amount, payment details, gift recurring option, and more.
- Event ticketing and registration: This tool allows you to create and plan fundraising events. Attendees can register online and collect tickets for the event. In many cases, this tool should include a landing page, event reports, and purchasing forms.
- Recurring giving: This feature allows donors to set regular or ongoing donations to your organization. This is a huge bonus for nonprofits and something that many organizations aspire to have, so ensuring that the option exists on your website is important. This can be included on your donation form or within a fundraising campaign around ongoing donations and monthly contributions.
- Crowdfunding: Crowdfunding has become quite popular in recent times thanks to software like GoFundMe. This gives supporters the ability to create their own fundraising campaigns for organizations or causes they feel passionate about. Nonprofit crowdfunding mainly takes place on social media platforms, but it’s always a bonus when this feature exists within your charity software.
- Wealth screening: This feature takes public data and makes it available to draw insights, pick up on donation trends and identify donors who may be a good fit for your organization.
- Text-to-give: This tool lets you collect donations via text message, which is hugely beneficial in today’s mobile world.
- Payment processing: As the name suggests, this allows you to collect and process donations online via credit cards or EFT payments with a variety of payment options.
- Integrations: This lets you connect your fundraising tools with other software and integrate them into one convenient location for fundraising and project management.
- Reports and analytics: Reports inform you of actionable insights and provide data on your fundraising efforts.
monday.com fundraising template
With a visual, intuitive and easy-to-use template, it’s easy to track, and you can use a range of professional templates to start a new fundraising event. Constant updates and easily trackable workflow processes updated in real time ensures that you won’t miss anything. By getting rid of mundane work with no-code automations, you’ll be able to focus on clients.
If you’re used to using certain tools, they can be integrated into monday.com.
Our intuitive dashboard and feature-rich platform have been peer-reviewed and are one of the most highly recommended and used fundraising software for nonprofits. Not only is the dashboard easy to follow, but it’s visually pleasing and a breeze to use because of the bright color schemes and the simple layout. If you’re keen to get started with the best nonprofit fundraising software then contact us today to see if you qualify for a nonprofit discount.
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