Beacon

RATING:

4.9

(32)

About Beacon

Beacon is a cloud-based software solution that offers nonprofits the benefits of modern technology to manage fundraising, donations, and volunteers. It gives users the ability to manage people, member information, and relationships from a unified platform. It also allows members to raise money and brand their communications without having to design any emails. Additionally, fundraisers can manage events, build campaigns, handle grants, and accept volunteering applications. Beacon provides an API, which lets users integrate the platform with several third-party applications, including Stripe, PayPal, Outlook, Mailchimp, Sendgrid, Gmail, Donr, Facebook Donate, Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, Drupal, WordPress, and Google Analytics.

Beacon Pricing

Pricing is based on the number of contacts that you need to store and the features that you need, with three distinct plans (Starter, Professional, and Premium) covering all budgets for small to medium sized charities.

Starting price: 

£30.00 per month

Free trial: 

Available

Free version: 

Not Available

Beacon member account
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Beacon Reviews

Overall Rating

4.9

Ratings Breakdown

Secondary Ratings

Ease-of-use

5

Customer Support

5

Value for money

5

Functionality

4.5

Most Helpful Reviews for Beacon

1 - 5 of 32 Reviews

User Profile

André

Verified reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2022

The best non-profit CRM, period.

PROS

Super easy to use, brilliant features, easy reporting, great pricing structure, incredible support team.

CONS

There are only a few integrations and no open API, although I know this will change in the future.

Reason for choosing Beacon

Much nicer interface and easier to use

User Profile

Adam

Verified reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed August 2019

Beacon takes the Bacon for a nonprofit needs

With Beacon we’ve simplified our entire process for handling donations. Beacon automates everything - from taking donations via an easy to build & integrate 'drag and drop' donation form builder (that's easily associated with the leading payment portals - Stripe, PayPal etc) to acknowledging donors / staff immediately via custom notification templates. The admin heavy task of a Gift Aid submission has been cut dramatically with a built-in Gift Aid tracker. Reports are submitted directly to HMRC from with the Beacon portal without any spreadsheet in sight.

PROS

Chapel & York has been advising and assisting charities for over 20 years. We've had experience using multiple Donation Processing CRMs, and Beacon is by far the easiest CRM to use for any type of staff skill level. The navigation is simple and straight forward and the flexibility of the system can suit as bespoke need.

CONS

The excellent customer support team means that any small con is quickly dealt with. Beacon developers are constantly approving the system and actively set out to listen to users recommendations when rolling out updates and improvements.

Reason for choosing Beacon

The pricing structure was more suitable.

Reasons for switching to Beacon

Little Green Light could not guarantee that their system would meet GDPR regulations.

Vendor Response

Many thanks Adam! Really glad to hear Beacon is working for you and the team.

Replied September 2019

Sarina

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed August 2019

Big Change - Beacon Review

PROS

- We like that the platform was built specifically for non-profits and with smaller teams in mind - Beacon is customisable and is super easy to build and great for a team with limited resources - With Beacon being an innovative and agile product we've been able to build the product around what we need so it's fit for purpose, rather than trying to make something that already exists fit to our needs.

CONS

- With the product being so new there have been some teething problems and barriers where critical functionalities are not yet built, such as integration to gmail and calendar.

Vendor Response

Thanks Sarina! I'm glad that Beacon is working for you. Appreciate the feedback on email/calendar integration - these are certainly coming.

Replied August 2019

Jane

Fund-Raising, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed July 2021

Beacon CRM

We have the ability now to record a lot more donor information. We can now tag our donors to learn more about their journey and what interests they have. We could not manage without it now, I really don't know how we coped before Beacon it has just made life much easier and accessible.

PROS

We started using Beacon nearly 12 months ago and it has been a complete game changer for our medium sized charity. It can do so much that our previous CRM could never have done. It is very intuative and easy to navigate which is a real positive, it is like one of the team! It works out much cheaper than other CRMs we looked at because we have a small team of users. We can take payments through an embedded form on our website which is then recorded directly into Beacon, something we had to do manually previously saving so much time and resource. Event ticketing is a new feature which is also really useful. The Beacon support is so good, they are always on hand to answer queries and help with any problems.

CONS

Beacon does not have an auto address fill function so our analytics for demographic are not very precise. However if you need something that Beacon does not currently provide then just ask their support team. This particular problem will be short lived as Beacon are now working on an automated system for inputting addresses so this should be up and running very soon. We have also had some teething problems with duplicate records but I believe this would be a problem for every CRM and after a bit of training and input from the support team this is much improved over time.

Reason for choosing Beacon

We looked at 3 CRMS and Donorfy and Beacon were our favourites for similar reasons. We chose Beacon because of cost and projections over the next 5 years with donorfy would be a lot more expensive. Also heard a lot of good things about Beacon from users in our field of work.

Reasons for switching to Beacon

We had a major software virus and the old system was not cloud based.

Ruth

Philanthropy, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed August 2019

Highly recommended, personal service

This is an excellent product from a fantastic company with unparalleled user experience.

PROS

The software is extremely user-friendly; my colleagues found it very easy to take over and populate. It's very easy to edit, giving a fantastic degree of flexibility (something we need due to the nature of our beneficiaries). However, the absolute best thing so far has been the fantastic and personal customer service.

CONS

It would be great if it had a ticketing function.

Reason for choosing Beacon

CRM is easy to download and you can do almost anything with it, but it's very hard to use - this means you rely on a lot of support. I've found that companies like Civi have a lot of costumers and therefore can't prioritise you unless you're paying them a lot of money via a user service agreement. We are a small charity with no IT team and therefore need support for less money.

Vendor Response

Thanks Ruth - really glad to hear Beacon is flexible enough for your organisation :)

Replied September 2019