Powerful Nonprofit Software To Address Your NGO’s Unique Challenges

Managing a nonprofit organization has its own unique challenges. Aside from the extra layers of compliance and accountability, non-profits don’t have customers or sell products or services in the strictest sense. Rather, they do have donors and voluntary projects which require careful administration, along with hard tasks of accounts and asset valuations.

From managing peer-to-peer fundraisers to handling marketing and promotional material sent out to the public, there’s an endless number of things on your to-do lists.

Fortunately, within the aid of technological breakthroughs, there exist several software solutions to fill out almost every single need that you concern. For everything from accounting to fundraising, there’s software ready to pick up the administrative load weighing you down.

Before diving into our pick for the best non-profit software, let’s take a look at the general context of non-profits as well as the software market.

Nonprofit Organizations & Technology

Nonprofits exist in and among the business world and, in some cases, encounter many business-like challenges; and yet, they operate under the banner of the public good, which means assets and infrastructure often take a “back seat”.

Actually, some analysts have referred to this phenomenon as a “starvation cycle”. Within the starvation cycle, these nonprofit organizations (just like yours) will feel guilty about any monetary expenditure, and then misrepresent their costs to funders, thus receiving a commensurately inadequate amount of funds, and being forced to cut corners on vital systems and technology.

As a result, nonprofits are notoriously ill-equipped especially when it comes to technology. They usually use outdated operating systems and obsolete hardware, relying on home-brewed systems of spreadsheets, rubber stamps, and rolodexes to push through their daily workflows.

Furthermore, Techsoup’s previous report further defined the biggest IT challenges for nonprofits:

• Over 40 percent find training on new apps, systems, and software difficult
• Almost the same number “struggle” with technology planning
• Around 34 percent face constraints as regards mobile technology implementation
• Also, roughly a quarter of nonprofits have a tough time updating or purchasing new software

Plus, there remain other technology-related challenges, including hosting and updating a website, maintaining a network, providing staff with IT support, managing databases, security and privacy, and backup and recovery of files.

Luckily, a solution arises to address such IT concerns. Modern, cloud-based—or “software-as-a-service” (SaaS)—systems can empower nonprofits to overcome many of these obstacles by providing access to software that’s not only powerful but also affordable and easy to learn. In fact, most cloud applications integrate with countless other business tools and can be set up in under a day, although there are also larger software suites and enterprise products available for organizations with expansive needs.

Nonprofit Software: Major Concerns Addressed

In practice, there exist a number of different areas where the right software can shore up and automate business processes. That means a nonprofit can accomplish its operational tasks with greater efficiency and thus put more energy into their bottom line, which is their mission.

Now, let’s go through some key functionalities that these awesome software solutions do perform.

Donor Management

Quite similar to lead, prospect, or customer management in the corporate world, nonprofits often use software to file, store or update donor contact records as well as other relevant information like donation history, occupation, and social data. With such donor management tools at their disposal, NGOs are empowered to solicit future donations, create receipts, and use reporting features to analyze trends.

According to the 2018 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report, every $100 gained in 2017 was offset by $96 in losses through gift attrition. Thereby, it’s no wonder donor retention is one of the biggest strategic pursuits for almost every nonprofit.

Fundraising & Grant Management

Such function is of remarkable significance particularly when it comes to enabling nonprofits to secure donations by managing fundraising campaigns and grants.

Often found in nonprofit-specific CRMs (Customer Relationship Management systems) or accounting software, such features create and track broad campaigns and the more minute, recurring tasks within, such as proposal drafting, online giving forms, and financial reporting.

Volunteer & Employee Management

Most nonprofits are operated by some mix of volunteers and paid staff, which highlights the need for a reliable solution to track hours, schedule shifts, and enter payroll when applicable.

Besides these basic functions, certain non-profits software can even allow you to coordinate work on new projects or events based on exactly who or what resources are available.

Accounting

Whereas their ultimate goal is, of course, not to turn a profit, nonprofit organizations still need to manage their money.

Budget management does include a wide range of routine tasks such as keeping donation tracking, paying bills, recording expenses, creating purchase orders for requisition, filing tax forms, building budgets, and creating financial forecasts.

Marketing Campaigns

Whilst NGOs have been sending newsletters and fundraising pamphlets for years, many of those are now venturing into various digital marketing mediums, such as email, social, and mobile device campaigns. Not only do these campaigns help you to keep constituents informed and connected but also aid you in attracting new or retaining repeat donors. 

Among many other things, marketing automation tools are going to give you powerful analytics to determine the best channels for delivering content, measuring engagement, and more importantly, turning prospects into pledges.

Event Planning

Whether it be a silent auction, charity ball, phone-a-thon, or a fundraising dinner, it does take careful foresight and planning to organize a nonprofit event. Fortunately, software with event planning features can ease your mind with its functionalities of organizing logistics (like scheduling, table arrangements, and guest speakers), inviting and following up with the right attendees or capitalizing on the new relationships that may emerge.

Best Nonprofit Software Worth Your Consideration

1. Qgiv

Qgiv’s nonprofit software is gaining growing popularity with its easy-to-use and adaptive functionalities to your nonprofit, meaning it grows as you do! In fact, it does have practically everything any nonprofit could need. From peer-to-peer fundraising solutions to giving kiosks, Qgiv has your back for fundraising and more!

A major outstanding feature of such a tool is that it grants nonprofits the chance to really engage and recognize their donors with customized and inspirational donation pages.

Additionally, Qgiv will help your organization focus on making the donation process as easy as possible. It also lends you a big helping hand in terms of sending custom thank-you’s and receipts and using their mobile giving, social sharing, and embeddable widget options.

Key Features

Speaking of Qgiv, there seem to be no limits on your online giving software with:

• Unlimited donation forms
• Unlimited simple events
• Unlimited users
• Unlimited training
• Unlimited live support

Actually, with Qgiv, there’s no need to worry about fundraising out of the scope of your software because your software will expand as you and your campaigns do.

Pricing Policy

Qgiv has multiple pricing packages offered to your NGO, so it’s up to your organization to consider exactly which one suits you best.

• Start: $0/month, 3.95% and 30￠ per transactions
• Grow: $49/month, 3.95% and 30￠ per transactions
• Mobile Suite: $99/month, 3.95% and 30￠ per transactions
• Peer-to-peer: $199/month, 3.95% and 30￠ per transactions, peer-to-peer add 1%
• Impact: Contact for rates

2. DonorSearch

If you are in search of non-profit software of wealth screening, then DonorSearch is going to be your perfect match. Actually, DonorSearch’s wealth screening tools are stellar additions for nonprofits interested in donor relationships, retention, and stewardship.

DonorSearch’s proprietary algorithm and datasets provide your organization with accurate and actionable data that identify your best prospective major gift donors, annual fund donors, and planned gift donors based on proven philanthropy and wealth analytics.

Claimed as having the “highest accuracy rate in the industry,” DonorSearch’s data is whoppingly 70% accurate, which is as accurate as wealth screening data can be without manual verification. On top of that, their specialists will review as many records as your organization needs, bumping their accuracy rate up to 90%.

Aside from DonorSearch’s success rates, your NGO can receive unlimited training for your DonorSearch software.

Key Features

• Large philanthropic database
• Unlimited use of prospect view online
• No per-person charge
• Free CFRE-Approved webinars and classes
• Free, unlimited training and support
• Manually verified prospects

Pricing Policy

Contact DonorSearch for a quote on their wealth screening tools. Also, don’t forget to try out their free demo with a DonorSearch team member!

3. Double the Donation

Should you concern as to gift matching, then Double the Donation’s nonprofit software can help you to find your own answer – it has strived to help nonprofits maximize their donations through matching gifts.

If you are in the world of non-profit organizations for a little while, you must have heard about such a term. Put simply, matching gifts are part of a corporate program enabling companies to match their employees’ donations to eligible nonprofits. Unfortunately, many nonprofits are losing out on these contributions due to the fact that only 1 in 10 eligible donors submit their request to have their donations matched.

Luckily, this is no longer your concern with Double the Donation, which does identify eligible donors and then helps them submit their matching gift requests so your organization sees as much profit as possible.

In fact, Double the Donation has worked with scores of nonprofits ranging in size from Ridgefield Library to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. From one-man shows to multi-officed organizations, Double the Donation holds furthering your cause by means of matching gifts at the top of their priority list.

Key Features

Double the Donation’s software includes a widget you can easily insert on your website or donation form. Their widget empowers your donors easily to identify their employer’s eligibility by typing in the company name.

Pricing Policy

Double the Donation offers two plans with their pricing as follows:

• Basic: $299/year
• Premium: $499/year

4. Bloomerang

Different from the above-mentioned nonprofit software, Bloomerang is a donor management solution whose focus revolves around creating stronger donor retention rates and strategic donor management practices. They have pooled together the industry’s various best practices to help NGOs decrease donor attrition while increasing their revenue.

Unlike other heavy-duty CRMs, Bloomerang does not prioritize complicated customization capabilities. Rather, it relies on simple integrations to offer users the functionality they need.

Another excellent characteristic of Bloomerang is that it does adopt the latest technologies to present a clean interface and a cloud-based system, which possibly helps your nonprofit enhance its donor loyalty.

Key Features

Amongst a wide range of features that Bloomerang offers, your NGOs should absolutely take advantage of:

• Interactive dashboards: Review your donor retention rate and track your campaign’s success
• Constituent timelines: Bloomerang’s timeline visually represents all interactions at both individual and organizational levels
• Providing summaries: View a constituent’s past giving to your organization, and their current engagement level
• Smart reports: Create comprehensive reports with just a few clicks!

Bloomerang also integrates with Qgiv’s platform, which can help your nonprofit get an even more accurate picture of how your donor base is performing!

Pricing Policy

As a part of its user-friendly principle, Bloomerang’s pricing is also simple and straightforward:

• 0 – 1,000 records: $99/month
• 1,001 – 5,000 records: $199/month
• 5,001 – 15,000 records: $299/month
• 15,001 – 25,000 records: $399/month
• 25,001 – 40,000 records: $499/month

Plus, lighter options are available for smaller nonprofits just starting out.

5. Fonteva

Speaking of Fonteva, it does deserve to be considered a perfect fit for nonprofits who are already using Salesforce with working experience with over 23,000 nonprofit organizations and higher education institutions. Fonteva, better known as Fonteva Events, offers comprehensive yet intuitive events management software, which is not only easy-to-use but also easy-to-integrate.

This cloud-based solution was built on Salesforce, hence, there’s no hassle to integrate software solutions. Ideal for any kind of event (multi-day, multi-session, etc.), Fonteva Events can handle your most complex pricing rules for event tickets and your most simple announcements.

Besides, it possesses an intuitive event setup process that includes registration flows. Let’s manage your speaker, sponsor, vendor, and venue details all in one central location, and connect with Fonteva’s 90+ payment processors to find the best fit for your organization!

Key Features

Fonteva has a list of amazing and crucial features essential to host a stellar event:

• Event management: Use Fonteva’s event setup wizard and manage exhibitors, sponsorships, venues, speakers, and vendors
• Attendee management: Easily develop and access schedules, attendee agenda builders, and wait-lists
• Advanced registration: Besides on-the-go registration, Fonteva does offer an advanced pricing engine, payment processing, ticketing, and much more.
• Event marketing: Gain access to mobile-ready event micro-sites and a customizable form launcher
• eCommerce: Use Fonteva’s full revenue accounting, eStore, single shopping cart, order management feature, and online donations capabilities
• Reports and dashboards: With an easy drag and drop report setup, there’s nothing your organization can’t report on!

Pricing Policy

Contact Fonteva for a quote on their Fonteva Events solution

6. Cloudways

Last but obviously not least, Cloudways is a Managed Cloud Hosting Platform that takes care of all aspects of hosting the nonprofit websites including security, deployments, and upgrades so that you don’t get your hands dirty with all the technical stuff and focus on creating a greater impact.

With Cloudways at your disposal, you can host your website on any of the top-tier IaaS providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Compute Engine (GCE), Digital Ocean (DO), Linode and Vultr.

Key Features

Cloudways comes with a powerful feature set, allowing you to scale hosting resources as your nonprofit organization grows. Their infrastructure is also optimized for speed, performance, and security.

• 24×7 Caring & Expert Support
• Top Five Cloud Providers
• 1-Click Scaling
• Built-in CDN
• 1-Click Free SSL Certificate Installation
• Dedicated Security
• 1st Migration Free

Pricing Policy

Different from other non-profit software’s pricing plans, Cloudways’s pricing strategy is extraordinarily flexible in which you only pay for what you use.

Cloudways’ flexible pricing starts at $10/month. For eligible nonprofits, Cloudways offers 20% Off for one year.

The Bottom Lines

Non-profit organizations have unique concerns in that they need to be able to administrate many different aspects that normal businesses do not normally have to handle. Then, let’s these easy-to-use yet comprehensive software solutions to address your unique challenges, simplifying your day and transforming your NGO.

Running a non-profit entity is already overwhelmed with several operational activities but keeping your image visible online is also crucial to the charitable success of your organization. Should you need any help with a dedicated team to get your NGO exposed to the digital world, don’t hesitate to get an online presence manager.