Your organization should be using a CRM, or Customer Relationship Manager, to simplify some of the administrative demands. With a large number of people in your network, you can’t get by without a way to keep track of all of them. Especially as a nonprofit, keeping an accurate and updated record of your donors, volunteers, fundraisers, event attendees, etc. is crucial.
Here’s where nonprofit CRMs can help! The following solutions offer all typical CRM tools, but with additional features specific to nonprofit management and member engagement. With many new programs surfacing, there are several options to choose from. We’re here to tell you about a few of them.
But first, what exactly is a CRM?
A CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) tool is a database in which an organization such as a nonprofit, a university, or a company can consolidate and store all information about its contact network. In its simplest form, you can think of it as a digitized address book, housing information including interactions, sales, contact information, and more for every individual. Whether customers, donors, or volunteers, CRMs are the most effective way of keeping track of everyone with whom your organization interacts.
If you’re not already using a nonprofit CRM (or you’re looking for a new one), we’ve put together a list of some of the best ones available right now.
Here are 8 nonprofit CRM options we’re loving:
Virtuous
Virtuous is a responsive fundraising platform (donor + marketing CRM) that helps organizations build better relationships with donors. Virtuous coined the term “responsive” to explain how their platform puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous offers integrated marketing automation and donor portals that provide donors with the kind of personalized, high-touch follow-up that creates loyalty and inspires bigger gifts. With Virtuous, your nonprofit can treat all its donors like major donors.
Top features:
|
Donor Management Designed for Relationships |
All-In-One Nonprofit Marketing Automation Software |
|
Integrated Email Marketing |
Integrates With Other Tools |
|
Online Giving |
Data Rich Contact Views |
|
Track Giver Engagement Over Time |
Donor Scoring & Social/Relational Data |
|
Easy-To-Use Searching & Segmentation |
Personas & Tagging |
|
Flexible Donation Management |
Project Impact & Tracking |
|
Back Office Tools Built for Charities |
Pre-build Workflow Templates |
|
Robust Gift Tracking |
Nonprofit Mobile Apps |
Pricing:
- Standard Plan from $199/month
- Pro Plan from $449/month
- Enterprise Plan from $849/month
- See here for information on Virtuous discounts
Salesforce.org
Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud is an integrated platform for nonprofits that allows you to manage your entire mission. Salesforce is the world’s #1 CRM, and their community counts over 45,000 nonprofits. Nonprofit Cloud powers your mission by tracking and measuring impact in real time, helping you raise more using insights from artificial intelligence on donors, and by taking every constituent on their own personal journey. Over 88% of Salesforce.org organizations have said that Salesforce helped them improve their ability to achieve their mission.
Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud encompasses Nonprofit Success Pack (CRM for nonprofits), Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Einstein Analytics, Chatter, and more.
Top features:
|
Fundraising CRM |
Marketing automation |
|
Email & social marketing |
Social Listening |
|
Campaign Builder |
Customizable Landing Pages |
|
Grants Management |
Program & Service Delivery |
|
Online Communities |
Reporting & Dashboards |
Pricing:
Although implementing Salesforce does require working with a consultant, registered nonprofits can get free consulting plus the first 10 Nonprofit Success Packs (NPSP) for free through the Power of Us program. After that, additional licenses are deeply discounted.
Salsa
Over 10,000 nonprofits professionals work with Salsa. Salsa is a supporter engagement platform that encompasses nonprofit CRM, online fundraising, digital marketing and multi-channel advocacy, including click to call, direct mail, and local/state/federal targeted messaging. Salsa is uniquely designed for nonprofits, and for those organizations already using a CRM such as Salesforce, Salsa offers an integration option, Salsa Engage.
By allowing organizations to combine all their offline and online supporter information in one place, Salsa enables you to easily segment, target, and report on your data visually. Salsa also automates regular tasks such as gift acknowledgments and targeted list building, includes a library of emails and forms for jumpstarting campaigns, and offers multiple channels for training and support.
Top features:
|
Donor Management |
Online Donations |
|
Targeted Actions |
Donor Development |
|
Online Petitions |
Donation Processing |
|
List Segmentation |
Mobile Responsiveness |
|
Mail Merge |
Email & Social Marketing |
|
Direct Mail |
Reporting & Queries |
|
Event Management |
Task Reminders |
|
Grant Management |
Membership Management Software |
|
Volunteer Management |
Security & Permissions |
|
A/B Testing |
Dashboard Analytics |
|
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising |
Gift Acknowledgement |
Pricing:
Salsa was founded to support the 98% of nonprofits who previously couldn’t afford sophisticated, personalized communication tools. Many packages and price options are available, and are based on list size. Click here to request pricing information from Salsa.
Neon CRM
NeonCRM is a cloud-based nonprofit software suite built to support the good work of nonprofit organizations. Regardless of size or industry, NeonCRM helps over 5,000 nonprofit clients and 35,000 organizations engage with donors, manage memberships, track volunteers, and more. Their database and website solutions support nonprofits in all stages of development, and their flexible packages and pricing were developed with nonprofits in mind.
The NeonOne platform extends Neon’s nonprofit solutions beyond a CRM. The platform includes options for peer-to-peer fundraising, event organization, case and program management, and payment processing. In addition to offering a Quickbooks integration, their software also supports your online store.
Top features:
|
Fundraising & Donor Management |
Membership & Association Management |
|
Events |
Marketing & Communications |
|
Web Integration |
Social Fundraising |
|
E-commerce |
Quickbooks |
|
Reports & Querying |
Volunteer Management |
|
API & Customization |
Mobile Apps |
Pricing:
- $49/month for Essentials Light package
- $99/month for Essentials package
- $149/month for Impact package
- $299/month for Empower package
- Look here for more Neon CRM pricing info
Bloomerang
Bloomerang’s simple donor database solution is built around best practices to help nonprofits decrease donor attrition and increase revenue. Bloomerang pools the knowledge of leaders in the nonprofit world, including Adrian Sargeant for fundraising, Tom Ahern for communications, Kivi Leroux Miller for digital marketing, and Jay Love for nonprofit technology. The platform focuses on the core functionality your organization needs to achieve results, without the distraction of additional bells and whistles. With Bloomerang, you’ll know how your donors feel about you, find more major gift prospects, and be able to report on the metrics that matter.
Top features:
|
Constituent Timeline (visual representation of all interaction with each individual and highlights of the most important interactions) |
Interactive Dashboard (review donor retention rate and opportunities for improvement, incoming donations by time period, check campaign success, create to-do lists, and access recent reports) |
|
Giving Summary & Engagement Level |
Smart reports |
|
Email Design & Distribution (email templates and rich performance analytics) |
Letters & Mailings (letters, gift acknowledgements, and more available for design and print) |
|
Nightly Deceased Suppression |
Nightly updates from the National Change of Address (NCOA) database |
|
Website integration (track individual’s website browsing activity, create and customize online giving forms and email sign-ups) |
Social Media Monitoring |
|
Donor Engagement Surveys |
Social Listening |
Pricing:
- $99/month for 0 – 1,000 records
- $199/month for 1,001 – 5,000 records
- $299/month for 5,001 – 15,000 records
- $399/month for 15,001 – 25,000 records
- $499/month for 25,001 – 40,000 records
- Get an additional 10% discount off Bloomerang pricing
Donor Perfect
Donor Perfect aligns staff around organizational goals by combining data in one place. One of its unique features is that it is accessible to an unlimited amount of users, based anywhere. A certain amount of customization is available for even the basic package, such as branded donation forms that have been shown to establish trust and increase donor conversions. The platform focuses on reporting, donor engagement, and event management.
Top features:
|
Personalized marketing communications, including advanced filtering, targeting, and segmentation |
Top-rated mobile app |
|
Automated workflows and scheduled reporting |
Check scanner integration |
|
Automatic monthly giving |
Ticketing integration |
|
Crowdfunding campaigns and peer-to-peer fundraising |
Text messaging integration |
|
Grants Management |
Donor research and address changes integration |
|
Dashboard reporting, including campaign and fundraising analytics |
Matching corporate gifts integration |
|
Auction management |
Advocacy integration |
Pricing:
A discount of 50% off the first year and 15% off subsequent years is available. Otherwise plans start at $89/month for 1,000 contacts, and up to $799/month for 75,000 contacts and full feature access.
Kindful
Kindful was founded on the simple idea that nonprofits should be able to spend less time focused on their database and more time focused on their mission. When your data makes sense, your mission thrives.
Kindful helps visualize data with intuitive reporting and seamless integrations that make your data mean something. Kindful helps build deeper relationships with donors and keeps your staff from wasting time on administrative tasks. By offering a modern fundraising platform, Kindful guides your organization to new and innovative ways to accomplish its goals.
Top features:
|
Complete, real-time donor records (full giving history, social media accounts, classifications, etc.) |
Automated & personalized outreach |
|
Automatic data entry for new activity |
Fundraising tools |
|
Donor analytics |
Data visualization |
Pricing:
- $100/month for 0 – 1,000 contacts
- $200/month for 1,000 – 5,000 contacts
- $300/month for 5,000 – 15,000 contacts
- Continuing up to $800/month for > 85,000 contacts
- See here for complete Kindful pricing info
Wild Apricot
Wild Apricot is a complete membership management system that is designed to fit membership organization’s needs. Easily manage contacts, process payments, send out emails, register event attendees, and create a website. With a self-serve design and a user-friendly interface, you gain the freedom to customize every aspect of your membership management system. Help and best practices are available from their support team and community of experts.
Top features:
|
Cloud-based member database |
Alerts and Automated email reminders |
|
Mobile event check-in |
Mobile event payments |
|
Automatic invoicing |
Unlimited email marketing to members |
|
Mobile app for members |
Mobile app for admins with Access Controls/Permissions |
|
Drag-and-drop workflow automation that syncs with over 950 online apps |
Integrates with external calendars |
|
Online store |
Single sign-on for Member-only content |
Pricing:
- Prices range from $60/month for 250 members to $720/month for 50k contacts.
- Save 10-15% by paying annually or bi-annually
- More WildApricot pricing information here
Need a more affordable option for a nonprofit that is just starting out?
Donate Kindly is an option with no monthly, annual, or setup fees. With no platform costs, all your nonprofit pays is the payment processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
For an entirely free donation platform, but which is not a CRM, consider GiveLively, which is funded by philanthropists and able to provide donation pages, text-to-donate, P2P, event ticketing and more.
More CRM Tech
While Blackbaud recently experienced a security incident, it is worth noting that they offer a number of unique features such as Address Finder, Deceased Record Finder, Automatic Credit Card Updater, Revenue Forecasting, and Split Gift Designation.
If you need help choosing a nonprofit CRM option that will combine with your website, you can always contact us at Elevation. We’ll be happy to talk you through it.
