To run a successful organization that depends on donations, it's important that you have an excellent system to organize your work. You'll need to manage a donor database, onboard new donors efficiently, store donation forms, run social media campaigns, and generally streamline your fundraiser processes. Without the right software and campaign management tools in the form of donor management software, this can be a challenging undertaking.
Donor management software is like customer relationship management (CRM) software; only it's for non-profits. The software is essential for large and small not-for-profit businesses that want to run non-profit CRM, donor communication, event registration, outreach, and other fundraising efforts.
In this article, we look at the best donor management software on the market today. Keep reading to discover how you can use contemporary tools to manage your donor engagement and donor membership management.
The Best Donor Management Software List
Below is our selection of the 12 best donor management software for fundraising campaigns, peer fundraising, managing direct mail with donors, storing donor information, and maintaining the donor base at the levels you want.
- Subsplash
- Kindful
- Aplos
- Salesforce for Non-Profit
- Blackbaud
- Donorperfect
- Bloomerang
- Salsa Labs
- Little Green Light
- Servant Keeper
- Donor Tools
- Church Community Builder
Donor Management Software FAQs
Before I look at the best donor management software in our list, let's start by looking at some of the main questions I often encounter when talking about donor management tools that can help non-profit teams run some of the best fundraising events.
What is Donor Management Software?
Donor management software is a kind of computer program that assists teams in non-profit organizations involved in fundraising understand and take maximum advantage of their relationships with donors. These programs assist organizers in managing donor data and analyzing the data to ensure that donors keep funding projects.
Donor management software helps teams automate processes and manage workflows better. The technology ensures that processes that would take days when done by hand can be done in real-time in seconds. The software accomplishes this by providing user-friendly templates that can be customized for different campaigns.
Data gathered by these tools allows organizations to segment and sort both potential and current donors. This makes it possible to operate strategically and apply different approaches for diverse donors. This data includes donor behaviors and financial capacity, thus providing non-profit organizations with specific, actionable takeaways and fundraising strategies.
Why is Donation Management Software Important for NGO Teams?
Donor management software helps non-profit organizations run their processes more efficiently in a coordinated way. It makes tasks that would have taken hours, if not days, easily accomplished in minutes, if not seconds. It reduces the workload of staff members and frees up more time to concentrate on finding more donors.
The software helps organizations to put in place systems that improve relationships between the donor and the non-profit organization by building trust through secure transactions. The donation tool makes it possible for donors to share their personal and financial information without worrying that this will compromise their security.
Analysis of the donor data acquired can be used to segment the donors. Based on their experiences, messaging and support can be personalized.
What Should Non-Profits Look for in a Donation Management Software Tool?
When you’ve decided on getting software for your non-profit, there are several elements you should consider: the capacity or member size the tool can handle, how easy the tool is to use, and the type of support you can expect from its developers or vendors.
Find out the essential features that help you know who your donors are, how much they donate, the times they are likely to donate, and whether the donors have seen your correspondence. You also need to consider whether the software will assist you in monitoring donor retention.
The best way to get a grasp of each tool's features is to ask for a demonstration. Check how many users can have accounts, as well as their access levels.
Testimonials are essential to the selection process. Reach out to the fundraising tool's previous and current clientele to get real, unbiased, and independent user feedback.
Donation Management Software Comparison Criteria
To search for the best donation management software for non-profits, I use the following criteria:
- User Interface (UI) and Functionality: Is it clean and attractive? Does the software solution come with more functionality than others?
- Usability and Reliability: Is it easy to learn and master? Does the software offer good tech support, user support, tutorials, and training? Will it have mandatory upgrades to improve online fundraising processes and security?
- Integration with Other Tools: Does the software integrate with other tools, such as church management tools, non-profit management software, accounting software, and others?
- Efficiency: Does the software make teams more efficient through the consolidation of systems?
- Metrics and Analytics: Will the software assist the user in managing and analyzing donor data?
- Value for $: How appropriate is the price for the features, capabilities, and use cases? Is pricing clear, transparent, and flexible?
Donation Management Software Key Features
Below are some of the most critical features that software delivering donor management solutions should have:
Tracking Donation History
Donor management software should help teams track all volunteers, donors, and event attendees in one place. An important feature for monitoring fundraising campaigns and activities of the non-profit is the ability to provide a history of donors.
Email Marketing
In donation management, communication is vital. Therefore, it is important that you consider if the fundraising software you want will allow for automated email marketing. This can help maintain and improve the donor list and donor retention because your projects remain in the donors' minds. Also, donors want news about what their donations are being used for.
Reporting and Tracking
It is important to track all your activities to determine areas that are working and those that need improvement. Reports should tell you which campaigns are raising the most money, which campaigns lead to the most engagements, and which donors are donating to each campaign.
The ability to produce automated custom reports is also a feature that allows you to define the report you wish to have and when to get it for quick reviews of trends.
Process Automation
Process automation improves the efficiency of your organization. Some of the features you will find in the leading donation management software include creating personalized emails, receipts, and statements. All this can help to create a positive relationship with the donor community.
Online Donation Portal and Recurring Giving
Software Advice, an online resource for software buyers, carried out a study that showed that 20% of shoppers considered an online donation portal a “must-have” feature for organizations that want donations. Online donation portals allow donors to select how often they make donations and set recurring donations as well. They also allow donors to make donations as they make purchases.
Event Planning and Project Management
For most non-profit organizations, event management is an inevitable task. Therefore, the right software should allow non-profits and their teams to put their focus where it is required: attracting more donations. They can work with a greater number of donors across different fundraising campaigns and events.
The software should also allow teams to collaborate across campaigns and get an idea of what the workflow looks like. This will ensure that projects are completed within budget and planned timelines. The project management feature also allows team members to get an idea of where each campaign is in the pipeline.
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Overviews of the 10 Best Donor Management Software
Here's a brief description of each of the donor management software on my list, showing what it does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the features.
1. Subsplash - Best for setting up recurring gifts from donors
Subsplash is a church software platform that offers a suite of tools and services for churches to manage their donations and donor profiles.
Subsplash makes digital giving easy—with in-app, website, and text giving and robust donor management and analytic tools. Whether your community is browsing your website, exploring your app, watching a live stream, or joining an in-person service, there are a variety of donation solicitation features you can customize and employ.
Subsplash has no fixed monthly cost, instead charging processing fees according to collections volume—as low as 1.9% for cards and 0.5% for ACH.
Pros
- Excellent and timely customer service
- User-friendly interface with modern UI
- Great mobile app functionality
Cons
- Limited integrations with other systems
2. Kindful - Best donor management software for donor relationship building
Kindful is donor management software that focuses on building relationships with donors. It offers fundraising, donor management, and communication tools. The software also comes with tracking and reporting tools.
Pricing for Kindful starts at $100 per month.
Pros
- Excellent and timely customer service
- Scalable and focuses on helping non-profits grow
- Supports unlimited donation pages per account with numerous page designs and customization
Cons
- Takes a while to learn and get around
- Pricey for small non-profits with inconsistent income
- Report design options are limited and lack customization
3. Aplos - Best software for church accounting
Aplos is a software that assists non-profits or churches in getting a grasp on their accounting. Other features provided by the software include donor or member management and communication, automatic tracking of gifts and recurring donations, fundraising tools, and much more.
Pricing for Aplos starts at $59 per month.
Pros
- Intuitive and easy to use
- Specifically built to help non-profits or churches manage their accounting
- Great all-round solutions for donor management
Cons
- Facility management is not available
- Uses Gusto, a third-party business, to maintain payroll
- Not responsive on mobile devices
4. Salesforce for Non-Profit - Best donor management software for non-profits
Salesforce’s Non-Profit Cloud unites constituents and organizations. The software promises to help “build and maintain trusted and lasting relationships with supporters and beneficiaries by delivering the experiences they need in changing times.”
Salesforce for Non-Profit is designed mainly to cater to the needs of non-profits, educational institutions, and foundations that provide grants.
Salesforce for Non-Profit pricing starts at $48 per user per month.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Great customer service
- Customizable reports that help filter out unwanted data
Cons
- Too many functionalities make it challenging to get around in the beginning
- Report generation can take a while
- Poor integration with mobile platforms
5. Blackbaud - Best donor management software for data and analytics
Built by Microsoft Azure, Blackbaud is designed to meet the marketing and fundraising needs of non-profits. It provides excellent insight via its data intelligence.
Blackbaud pricing is available upon request.
Pros
- Mobile responsive
- Great with records generation
- Comprehensive in terms of features
Cons
- Takes a while to get accustomed to
- Poor customer support
- Expensive for small non-profits
6. Donorperfect - Best for donor segmentation and communication
Donorperfect is a suitable fundraising solution for non-profits. It provides insight into the drivers of donations, donor segmentation, and communications via personalized emails. Event managers can use its auction management tools to manage silent, live, mobile, and online charity auctions.
Donorperfect pricing starts at $119 CAD per month.
Pros
- Easy to use and intuitive
- Allows for customization
- Great for tracking donors
Cons
- Lackluster report generation
- Too many upgrades
7. Bloomerang - Best software for donor retention
Bloomerang focuses on retention and engagement solutions. It allows fund transactions and management to be carried out efficiently and on time.
Pricing for Bloomerang starts at $99 per month.
Pros
- Great user interface
- Great customer support
- It is affordable for all sizes of startups and non-profits
Cons
- Difficult to use when tracking grants from foundations
- Report customization is limited
- QuickBooks integration isn't smooth
8. Salsa Labs - Best software for advocacy and event management
Salsa Labs provides solutions for donor management, fundraising, advocacy, events, and marketing automation. Its primary focus is on providing intelligent insights and reports.
Salsa Labs pricing is available upon request.
Pros
- Unlimited capabilities
- Great customer support
- Relatively easy to learn and use
Cons
- Scheduling in email setup needs improvement
- Easy to lose some contact names when importing contacts
9. Little Green Light - Best software for simplifying processes
Little Green Light describes itself as “your natural next step to simplify your donor management.” It promises, “With our intuitive fundraising platform, you can consolidate your spreadsheets, letting you see and analyze your data more clearly than ever before.”
Little Green Light pricing starts at $39 per month.
Pros
- Intuitive and easy-to-use interface
- Seamless integration with third-party software
- Mail and online support
Cons
- Mobile support is lacking
- Difficult to manage families
- Advanced analytics are complicated
10. Servant Keeper - Best church donor management system
Servant Keeper is a church management solution by Servant PC Resources. It caters to churches and other faith-based organizations by helping them manage and run their business operations, including tracking member attendance, skills, donations, and pledges.
Servant Keeper pricing starts at $299 for one-time license cost for a small church.
Pros
- Great customer and technical support
- Great customization of reports
- Seamless integrations with a variety of third-party software
Cons
- Difficult to use
- Setting up groups is a bit taxing
- Lots of learning material and resources to consume
11. Donor Tools - Best volunteer and donor management software
Donor Tools offers solutions for donation tracking, massive spreadsheets, data entry, and high volunteer turnover.
Pricing for Donor Tools starts at $39 per month.
Pros
- Provides donor history as far back as several years
- Affordable for small non-profits
- Intuitive and easy-to-use
Cons
- Reports are standard and limited
- Social integration is not fully supported
- Email automation is limited
12. Church Community Builder - Best software for facilitating communication
Church Community Builder reinforces communications amongst church or faith-based organization members. There is a coach solution feature on the platform.
Church Community Builder pricing starts at $90 per month.
Pros
- Feature-rich software
- Seamless integration with various third-party software
- Great customer support
Cons
- Mobile responsiveness is still catching up
- The learning period takes a while
- Recurring events are difficult to schedule
Other Church Finance Software Reviews
If you are looking for other financial software for churches, here are a few other but similar lists I've put together on this site.
- Church Finance Software
- Church Accounting Software
- Church Bookkeeping Software
- Church Payroll Software
- Church Giving Apps
Share Your Thoughts about Other Donor Management Software Comparison Options
If you’ve tried any of the above-listed software, please share your experiences and recommendations in the comments section. If your preferred software isn’t listed, please let us know in the comments section, as well as why you prefer it.
If you've ever wondered about how big churches run things, here's the 10 Biggest Streaming Churches And The Software They Use.
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