Find the best Online Fundraising Platforms

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GivingDNA

GivingDNA is a cloud-based data analytics and wealth screening solution designed to help nonprofits in creating highly precise donor segments. With GivingDNA, fundraisers and nonprofit marketers gain invaluable insights to profile...Read more about GivingDNA

4.9 (9 reviews)

ExceedFurther

Arreva is tech with purpose; driven by a cause. For over 30 years, they have been the trusted advisor and market leader in digital fundraising, donor relationship management, healthcare hospitality, and auction software. What be...Read more about ExceedFurther

4.5 (85 reviews)

9 recommendations

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PCR Educator

PCR Educator is a comprehensive system with grades, communication tools, conference sign-ups, report cards, forums, attendance and electronic assignments. It is a cloud-based K-12 School Information System that is an all-inclusive...Read more about PCR Educator

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT

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 about Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT

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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 about Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager

4.3 (70 reviews)

6 recommendations

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DonorSnap

DonorSnap is a cloud-based donor management and fundraising solution for the nonprofits who are having problems with tracking donors, spreadsheets or homegrown databases. It helps users centralize donors, volunteers and members in...Read more about DonorSnap

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Little Green Light

Little Green Light helps small and midsize nonprofits manage fundraising and development efforts by offering a cloud-based constituent relationship management database, as well as event planning, activity tracking, mail merges, an...Read more about Little Green Light

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Click & Pledge

Designed to offer nonprofits in any segment an affordable, effective online fundraising solution, Click & Pledge delivers online fundraising capabilities, as well as donor and event management through world leader Salesforce.com a...Read more about Click & Pledge

Panorama

FrontStream’s fundraising software helps nonprofits and socially-responsible corporations raise and process more funds. Panorama helps plan, create, execute and measure the successful of fundraising campaigns and charity events. ...Read more about Panorama

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ClearView CRM

ClearView CRM by Softrek is a software solution that gives nonprofits the tools they need to manage both their fundraising activities and their donor relationships. ClearView CRM includes a suite of applications that bring to...Read more about ClearView CRM

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ResultsPlus

ResultsPlus is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution that is designed for small to midsize nonprofits to assist users in communicating with donors and volunteers. Key features offered includes fundraising and event man...Read more about ResultsPlus

Agilon One Donor CRM

Designed to equip nonprofits with cloud technology to manage their organization, Agilon’s ONE donor management and customer relationship management (CRM) system offers best-of-breed solutions for fundraising, donor management and ...Read more about Agilon One Donor CRM

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FundRaiser

FundRaiser Software is a fundraising and donor management solution that meets the requirements of small to midsize nonprofits. The software is suitable for a range of nonprofits including churches, public broadcast, healthcare, an...Read more about FundRaiser

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NewOrg

NewOrg is a configurable cloud-based solution designed to help small and midsize nonprofits manage donors, volunteers, marketing efforts, events and grant management in an integrated suite. It's suitable for veteran organizations,...Read more about NewOrg

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Blackbaud Altru

Blackbaud Altru is a cloud-based membership management solution that includes tools to manage ticketing and admissions, cultivate a membership database, convert ticket buyers and visitors, run merchandise, and much more. Designed ...Read more about Blackbaud Altru

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Blackbaud eTapestry

eTapestry from Blackbaud is an online fundraising and donation management solution designed for small and midsize nonprofit organizations. The web-based solution helps organizations to streamline their fundraising activities inclu...Read more about Blackbaud eTapestry

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Neon CRM

Neon CRM is a software platform that enables nonprofit organizations and membership associations to manage their constituents and members more effectively. Its relationship-focused approach provides a comprehensive view of support...Read more about Neon CRM

4.4 (543 reviews)

139 recommendations

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CharityEngine

CharityEngine's nonprofit CRM software simplifies the fundraising process, so you spend more time on your campaigns and less time struggling with technology. It has the tools for managing donors, receiving donations, processing pa...Read more about CharityEngine

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Causeview

Causeview is a cloud-based advancement and fundraising management system suitable for higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations looking for donor management and payment processing. The system is built on the Salesf...Read more about Causeview

3.7 (5 reviews)

Aplos

On Sale Now! Get 50% Off 6 Months. Limited-time Offer. Start your free 15-day trial today! No credit card required. Aplos is a cloud-based system designed specially to serve the needs of nonprofit and church organizations. The Ap...Read more about Aplos

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Buyers Guide

Last Updated: November 21, 2023

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.