The benefits of nonprofit software
The key benefits of using nonprofit software include:
Better efficiency: The software helps reduce paperwork by automating tasks such as event registrations, donor communication, and payment processing. It stores all the data, including donors’ contact details, in a centralized database that can be accessed only by authorized users. A centralized information repository helps save time and improve efficiency by letting your employees quickly find the information they need.
More transparency: Nonprofit software offers features such as donor relationships management, grant management, and fund accounting to help track your finances accurately and maintain detailed reports. This ensures donors have complete information about how and where their money is being spent, which in turn increases their trust and boosts your credibility.
Streamlined data collection and analysis: Nonprofit software allows you to collect and store large volumes of data related to your donors, fundraising events, marketing campaigns, and so on. Capturing specific data points over time helps track outcomes such as donor demographics and cash flow trends. You can also analyze the data to learn about the past performance of campaigns or fundraising events and accordingly adjust your nonprofit’s strategy.
Typical features of nonprofit software
Here are some common features of a nonprofit software solution:
Event management: Streamline the process of planning, managing, and hosting nonprofit events such as galas, concerts, art exhibitions, and auctions.
Fundraising management: Manage all fundraising operations, from tracking the budget and organizing events to communicating with donors and managing volunteers.
Marketing and outreach: Connect and engage with supporters and potential donors via multiple marketing channels, including emails, social media, and offline events.
Volunteer management: Recruit, track, engage, and retain volunteers. Store their information, including contact details and engagement history, in a centralized database.
Membership management: Create a member database to manage and track donor records. Communicate with your donors, send promotional messages, share resources, and collect donations.
Grant management: Streamline your grant fundraising efforts. Apply for funding opportunities, create grant proposals, track deadlines, and manage the grant funds you receive.
Donor management: Create dedicated donor profiles to track the complete interaction or engagement history of clients with your nonprofit organization.
Accounting/fund accounting: Manage expenses for various projects or events. Track if the funds are acquired through donations, tax payments, grants, and other sources.
The cost of nonprofit software
Most products on the market are priced on a per month basis and can be divided into three tiers based on their starting price.
Price ranges*:
*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offering found on vendor websites on April 9, 2021. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentiles of pricing information gathered from vendor websites of sample products.
The above list summarizes pricing for the base plans of most products. An enterprise or premium product that is priced higher may include additional features such as reporting and analytics dashboards, custom data fields and exporting, sponsorship management, and customizable website branding.
Considerations when purchasing nonprofit software
Some parameters to consider when purchasing a nonprofit software tool:
Reporting dashboards: Reporting dashboards help visualize your business data to assess key performance indicators such as fundraising ROI, conversion rates, and donor retention rates. They provide data-backed insights to help plan your business decisions. A nonprofit software tool that provides dashboard functionality also allows you to share data with your stakeholders and investors.
Mobile access: Nonprofit software solutions that can be accessed on mobile devices or have a mobile app let you communicate with donors and staff members anytime, anywhere. Features such as instant messaging, push notifications, and integrated payment processing lead to higher engagement among prospects and donors, resulting in more opportunities for your nonprofit.
Integration with other systems: Integration of your nonprofit tool with the other applications you use, such as social media, CRM, marketing automation, and accounting software, will allow you to consolidate and access all your campaign and donor data using a single centralized system so that you don’t have to keep switching between multiple software apps.
Organizational needs: Before purchasing any tool, understand and identify your organization’s specific needs and how software can help meet them. If you need assistance with a specific function, say donor management, opt for a stand-alone tool. But if you want help with multiple functions, an integrated platform would be a better choice.
Relevant nonprofit software trends
Rising demand for cloud-based nonprofit software systems. An increasing number of nonprofit organizations are embracing cloud-based solutions due to their varied benefits. Cloud-based nonprofit solutions remove the cost of maintaining physical servers, ensure secure data storage and backup, integrate with countless other business apps, and make data available anytime, anywhere, and on any device. In line with this trend, a large number of software vendors are offering their solutions via cloud deployment models.
Nonprofit firms are exploring voice command fundraising. Nonprofit organizations accepting voice donations are breaking the barriers of the traditional way of donating. With voice command fundraising, prospects and donors can make their contributions through a simple voice request. Accordingly, nonprofit software vendors are working on integrating voice command technologies, such as Alexa and Google Assistant, or directly incorporating voice assistance into their solutions. As of now, the use of voice commands for fundraising is in the nascent stage, but the technology is developing and could soon be available across the market.
Sources
Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from Capterra’s nonprofit software directory, sorted by the number of reviews. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in Capterra’s directory that offer them.
Essential Guide to Going Mobile for Nonprofits (Date accessed: April 9, 2021)
Digital Around the World (Date accessed: April 9, 2021)
Software Survey: Nonprofit Software in 2019 (Date accessed: April 9, 2021)
TechSoup’s Nonprofit Tech Trends for 2020 (Date accessed: April 9, 2021)
