Finding software can be overwhelming. We've helped dozens of nonprofits choose the right online fundraising software so they can create custom campaigns and accept online donations.
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Neon CRM, a Neon One company, is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software suite for nonprofits of all sizes. Applications include fundraising management, donor management, membership management, event registra... Read more
Blackbaud Fundraising is a cloud-based donation management platform, which helps businesses automate processes related to payment actions and track donor activities using communication tools. Key features include event management,... Read more
Kindful is a cloud-based online fundraising and donor management solution designed specifically for growing nonprofit organizations. With this solution, nonprofits can manage three core aspects of fundraising - managing online giv... Read more
Created in 2012, Bloomerang is a solution for small and growing nonprofits. It enables users to view an organization's donor records, track the best time to contact each donor and measure a donor's engagement level to make it easi... Read more
Network for Good offers donor management software integrated with fundraising pages and personal coaching for growing nonprofits. Donor Management Software: Search and segment donors, track gifts, and launch personalized ema... Read more
Charityproud is a cloud-based nonprofit management solution suitable for small to midsize nonprofit organizations. Key features include constituent management, donation and pledge tracking, campaign and event management, email int... Read more
MobileCause is a cloud-based fundraising and communication management solution for nonprofits of all sizes. Key features include online giving, text-to-donate, event fundraising with live thermometer, peer-to-peer and crowdfunding... Read more
Simplify your work and maximize your impact with EveryAction. By combining fundraising, digital, and organizing tools in one powerful platform, you'll eliminate data silos and easily run automated omni-channel campaigns. With best... Read more
Keela is the first affordable, nonprofit-specific CRM platform to provide intelligent tools and guided decision-making, helping nonprofit professionals make enlightened decisions based on their data.Keela's built-in CRM feature he... Read more
NationBuilder is a cloud-based website, database and fundraising solution designed for nonprofits to connect with their communities and scale their organizations. It includes features to identify key supporters, turn them into don... Read more
Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager
Trail Blazer's non-profit manager offers nonprofit organizations a complete cloud-based solution to manage every aspect of fundraising and donor management. From collecting and centralizing donor information to targeted outreach t... Read more
Givebutter is a cloud-based fundraising solution designed for nonprofits, student organizations, sports teams, fraternities/sororities and more. Key features include online giving, peer-to-peer and multi-team fundraising campaigns... Read more
iMIS is a cloud-based solution for nonprofit, association, union and membership management. It offers a wide range of optional features including CRM, membership, fundraising, online payments, website management, email marketing, ... Read more
Anedot is a cloud-based solution that helps non-profit organizations manage fundraising campaigns and collect donations. The centralized platform enables users to create customizable forms and embed them into websites. Furthermore... Read more
NetForum Enterprise is a web-based association management system and is used by associations, nonprofits, and government agencies. The system includes modules for managing events, member profiles, membership levels, and dues. ... Read more
Wild Apricot is a cloud-based membership management system used by business and trade associations, chambers of commerce, nonprofits, charities, clubs and community organizations. It supports organizations from a few members to 15... Read more
GiveGab is a cloud-based giving management solution designed for small and midsize nonprofits. It offers campaign and event management, contact management, donor management, peer-to-peer fundraising and crowdfunding management fun... Read more
Silent Auction Pro is a cloud-based event management solution designed for charitable institutes, clubs and other nonprofit organizations. It provides tools to manage contacts, track donations, bundle auction items and generate au... Read more
Raiser’s Edge NXT is an integrated, cloud-based fundraising and relationship management solution for nonprofits. Raiser's Edge NXT provide tools to streamline various activities of a nonprofit organization and provide a singl... Read more
Auctria is a cloud-based fundraising management solution designed for small and midsize nonprofits. It offers website management, payment processing, bid sheets, donor receipts and reporting functionalities within a suite. Au... Read more
Popular Comparisons
Whether it’s for an annual appeal, capital campaign or special event, nonprofits in every sector use online fundraising tools to collect donations and connect with supporters. In fact, according to a report on charitable giving, online donations accounted for nearly 7 percent of all contributions in 2014: an 8.9 percent increase over the previous year.
With this guide, you can learn more about how online fundraising platforms can help you handle these important donations.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
What Is Online Fundraising Software?
Common Functionality of Online Fundraising Systems
Key Considerations for Comparing Products
Case Study: Click & Pledge Online Fundraising Software
What Is Online Fundraising Software?
Online fundraising tools power online donation processing. When users arrive on a website’s donation page, they enter credit card billing, contact and other information into an online donation form. When the information in that form is submitted, the credit card is validated and charged.
Donation pages in Kindful
When processing is complete, the system typically sends donors to a confirmation screen and emails them a tax receipt. At the same time, the funds are electronically deposited in the nonprofit’s merchant account, minus processing fees.
Then, donor and contribution details can be reviewed and analyzed using reporting functionality. Reporting tools may be built into the online fundraising system, or users may choose to export the data and use different software.
Some online fundraising tools are more comprehensive, allowing users to:
- Customize donation forms, such as the visual design, URL and donation amounts
- Add custom fields to handle “in memoriam” donations and other unique data, including gifts targeted to a specific program
- Automatically track and process recurring donations and pledges
- Process payments using multiple methods, including credit card, PayPal or electronic funds transfer (EFT)
- Create peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising pages that allow supporters to solicit donations from their friends, groups and social networks
- Accept and process text-to-give donations
Common Functionality of Online Fundraising Systems
Products can vary from vendor to vendor, but certain capabilities are offered by most systems. The most common are described in the table below:
| Custom donation forms | Allows users to define donation form-fields and contribution amounts, then generates code to embed it on websites. |
| Custom campaign pages | Helps users create complete campaign websites, including donation forms, videos and images, goal progress counters, supporter comments, social sharing functions and more. |
| Recurring payments | Donors can choose to make automatic contributions—for example, $20 every month or $200 every December—without having to re-enter credit card and contact information each time. |
| Mass communication tools | Allow users to connect with supporters via emails and text messaging. |
| Social sharing | Many cloud-based fundraising platforms include built-in social media publishing functions, which let supporters share campaign pages on Facebook, Twitter and other social channels. |
Campaign reporting dashboard in Classy
Key Considerations for Comparing Products
Nearly all online fundraising products let users create custom donation forms, process payments and acknowledge supporters. Here are five other factors to consider when comparing products.
Processing fees. Online fundraising platforms charge transaction and processing fees for each donation. The fee is either a flat rate (e.g., 30 cents per donation); a percentage of the total donation (usually between 1.5 percent and 9 percent); or a combination of both. Some vendors also charge a monthly or annual subscription fee to use the software, whether donations are processed or not.
Tip: To calculate how processing fees impact the software’s total cost, determine the number and dollar amount of donations your nonprofit expects to process through the platform in a month, year or single campaign. Then apply the processing fees for a ballpark estimate.
Social fundraising. Social (or “peer-to-peer”) fundraising functionality is built into many online fundraising systems. It lets supporters create and personalize campaign pages and share them with their friends through social media and email.
If your nonprofit hosts events or uses social fundraising in its campaigns, look for products that specialize in peer-to-peer fundraising and that support individual and team fundraising pages.
White label capabilities. If you’ve made online donations, you’ve probably noticed that some websites redirect you to a donation form on a different URL that doesn’t match the look of the rest of the site. This confuses supporters and can reduce a nonprofit’s trustworthiness. To prevent this, some products let users control the HTML and styles on the page, so donation forms match the core website.
If your nonprofit wants to accept donations on its website, look for “white label” or “custom donation pages” in the vendor’s features and benefits lists. Keep in mind that the skills of a Web designer or developer might be needed for this purpose.
Constituent relationship management (CRM). When someone makes a donation on a fundraising page, the system should automatically email a receipt to the donor. But most nonprofits want to build a relationship with supporters beyond this interaction. If this applies to you, look for systems that retain donor information.
Find out if the online fundraising platform lets you export donor information, or if it integrates directly with a best-of-breed donor management system. This allows your organization to track interactions and communicate with those donors in the future.
Usability. “Usability” refers to how easy it is for people to learn and use a product. If software is confusing and hard to use, employees won’t use it. So it’s important to find a product that is simple enough for everyone in an organization to understand—no matter what their technical ability.
Tip: If your organization relies on many short-term employees or volunteers to facilitate fundraising campaigns, usability is even more important, since there is less time to train them how to use the software. Look for such terms as “drag and drop,” “WYSIWIG” and “turn-key”: These often indicate that a product was built with usability in mind.
Case Study: Click & Pledge Online Fundraising Software
To learn more about how online fundraising platforms can help improve operations, consider the case of Immigration Equality, a New York-based legal services nonprofit that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and HIV immigration rights. The organization realized many benefits after implementing the Click & Pledge online fundraising system.
In this case study, we explain how the software improved inefficiencies in the organization’s donation forms, multiple payment accounts and donor management tasks.