The 14 best nonprofit CRM solutions for 2024

You may already know that there are customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for businesses of all sizes. However, you may not realize that this software is also effective for nonprofits. In fact, many nonprofits use CRM solutions for fundraising and donor management.

Nonprofit CRM platforms offer many benefits to organizations, but it might be challenging to choose the best relationship management solutions for your group. This guide will help make the decision a little easier.

What is a CRM platform?

Organizations use CRM platforms to manage relationships with customers or clients. In the case of nonprofits, CRM stands for constituent relationship management. For most nonprofits, constituents include donors and volunteers.

What is the benefit of CRM for a nonprofit?

Nonprofit organizations can leverage CRM software to help attract and retain donors and volunteers by segmenting and personalizing outreach efforts, including marketing and fundraising campaigns.A nonprofit CRM platform can also track the efficiency of these efforts by measuring donor retention and engagement levels on an individual basis. Typically, these platforms also integrate with other software solutions for greater functionality, including sales and marketing tools, accounting software, and payment systems.

What are the must-have features for nonprofit CRM software?

When it comes to CRM software for your nonprofit, it must include a few key features if you want to avoid logistical headaches and have a successful campaign. Here are a few must-haves:

  • Donation pages: For your nonprofit to keep its gears running, you’ll need to be able to accept donations. An essential feature you should consider when looking for the right CRM software is online donation pages (or forms), so you can have everything in one place.

With donation pages, donors can conveniently support your organization, and you can easily gather necessary information about them. It helps if your donation page has multiple payment processor options — that way, donors can choose a service they trust.

  • Profiles: CRM software must be able to help you manage your relationships with your constituents. That means that you should be able to build individual profiles based on information in your CRM, such as a constituent’s donation history, contact information, concerns, and personal skills or interests. You can use that information to strengthen donor relationships and personalize campaigns.
  • Integrations: While your CRM software can cover a significant number of your needs, it can’t do everything. Check whether your software of choice integrates with other programs you need to manage your nonprofit, such as tools for marketing, accounting, or payment processing. 
  • Communication tools: You need to contact your constituents to make sure they feel appreciated, thank them for donations, send reminders about upcoming events, and more. And while communicating with each constituent individually adds a personal touch, in most cases it’s too time-consuming to be practical. 

Here’s where automation comes in. Your CRM should allow you to automatically send out communications, whether it has a function built into the platform itself or it integrates with apps like Mailchimp. By automating this part, you can quickly and easily set up messages and free up more time for advancing your cause.

  • Data reports: Your nonprofit will want firm evidence to back up any big decisions, so being able to show them the numbers is especially helpful. That’s why a CRM software should provide you with viewable data reports, whether they show how much total funding you’ve raised or how many additional people have joined your cause. That way, when someone wants to make a suggestion or a change, they’ll have access to data that’s easily presentable and digestible.

What are the best CRM solutions for nonprofits?

We selected our list of the top CRM options for nonprofits to consider based on cost, scalability, features, functionality, ease of use, and customization and upgrade potential. Here are some top recommendations for user-friendly nonprofit CRM solutions.

1. Jotform

Best for: Overall use

Jotform’s user-friendly form creation tools make it easy to build forms to collect volunteer information and other data for your nonprofit. Several nonprofit CRM sheet templates allow you to track all types of organizational information within one database.

Overall Capterra rating: 4.6 out of 5

You can use customizable table templates to organize fundraising and schedule volunteers. And you can easily collect donations with donation forms and custom donation apps. Once you get those donations, use the donations list to keep track of what you raise.

You can upload data from a CSV or Excel file to Jotform Tables or share a custom template with team members, who can then access it from any device.

Jotform hosts a range of 100-plus integrations, from CRM tools such as Salesforce and Zoho to payment processors like PayPal and Square. Other integrations include Mailchimp, HubSpot, Unito, Google Sheets, and more. 

Jotform offers a free plan, but nonprofits can get a special discount of up to 50 percent off on paid plans.

What users say about it

Jotform has been my favorite form builder since 2016. For me, it has been the most useful supporting my work in education advocacy and non-profit project management (for supporter intake, needs assessments, consulting clients, accountability for weekly goals and benchmarks, etc.).” — Danny H.

Overall, Jotform is one of the easiest form builders to explore. It’s packed with advanced features such as widgets and integrations. Indeed, Jotform is worth every penny.” — Mellen D. 

2. HubSpot CRM

Best for: Pricing

The 14 best nonprofit CRM solutions for 2024 Image-1

Overall Capterra rating: 4.5 out of 5

HubSpot CRM is one of the best free CRM tools available based on its functionality and ease of use. It has a comprehensive database to store major contact information, including donor data. You can organize donor profiles and communications, such as fundraising campaign messages. In addition, the CRM platform includes an email marketing tool for your fundraising efforts.

HubSpot CRM offers integrations with Gmail, Zapier, Google Sheets, Mailchimp, and more.

HubSpot CRM has a free plan, but you can get more features and higher limits on the number of contacts you can have with a CRM Suite Starter plan for $20 per month.

What users say about it

We’ve made amazing sense of our mountains of data collected over the years, and Hubspot’s great user interface has made it so much easier.” — Dan V.

As a small business, managing my customers has become easier with HubSpot. Everything which I need for customer relationship management is offered by the software. I especially love the lead management feature because that is exactly what a business needs to grow and I can safely say, it has made a huge difference in the relationship which I have with my customers and clients.” — Mashudu Hilary M.

3. Neon CRM

Best for: Training resources

The 14 best nonprofit CRM solutions for 2024 Image-2

Overall Capterra rating: 4.4 out of 5

Neon CRM is a fairly low-cost, cloud-based management platform that helps nonprofits scale as they expand their membership or donor base. Key features include communication and marketing automation, revenue dashboards, and a range of integrations. 

Nonprofit experts design the features, which is a plus — they understand how to deliver tools that help organizations optimize resources like time and money.

Neon CRM’s integrations include essential apps like Mailchimp, QuickBooks, DonorSearch, and Eventbrite.  

Its pricing starts with the Essentials plan at $99 per month. For additional functionality like events management and unlimited workflow automations, it offers an Impact plan at $199 per month and an Empower plan at $399 per month.

What users say about it

Overall, Neon CRM is a great product for the cost. As a smaller nonprofit, most of our budget goes directly back into youth programs.” — Hayley W.

Neon CRM is able to track information relating to all major aspects of our business model, making it easy to consolidate our data. I also love how easy it is to run a custom report on any set of data collected by Neon; this allows us to answer specific questions about our donor base quickly and painlessly.” — Hannah F.

4. Kindful

Best for: Productivity (tied with Salesforce)

The 14 best nonprofit CRM solutions for 2024 Image-3

Overall Capterra rating: 4.5 out of 5 

Kindful is one of the most comprehensive and intuitive tools available for fundraising. The software provides tools that assist with crowdfunding, online giving, and more. It also uses automation to minimize time spent on certain fundraising tasks.

Kindful is now part of Bloomerang, another platform on this list, so Kindful’s fundraising features are available for an additional cost to a Bloomerang plan. Contact Bloomerang’s support team for Kindful pricing information.

What users say about it 

The organization is responsive to my questions and needs. I have seen changes to the software since we purchased that have directly addressed my or other users’ issues.” — Beth T.

Overall, I love the ease of use of the software. My team isn’t intimidated by it and are able to get on and navigate it well. Usually, if there is something that isn’t easily available, the Kindful team will find a work around for the problem.” — Nikki W.

5. Blackbaud CRM

Best for: Large nonprofits

The 14 best nonprofit CRM solutions for 2024 Image-4

Overall Capterra rating: 3.6 out of 5

Blackbaud is a robust CRM solution made for larger nonprofit organizations. It includes fundraising tools that help attract, support, and nurture donors.

A number of multichannel marketing features help your organization develop and maintain strong donor relationships. The CRM system also offers tools for enhancing direct mail campaigns and creating content for donation pages.

On top of these features, Blackbaud CRM can help you achieve more through integrations with apps like Salesforce, Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and Workday. 

Contact Blackbaud to request a demo and pricing information. 

What users say about it

Blackbaud CRM has given us a baseline for what to look for in a software. It has a lot of features and functionality that can be adapted for an organization.” — Adrienne G.

I like the user experience, it is easy to use and very user friendly. Customer support is also very quick and helpful!” — Mariam R.

6. DonorPerfect

Best for: User-friendliness

user interface of donorperfect

Overall Capterra rating: 4.5 out of 5

DonorPerfect’s centralized fundraising data capabilities help organize donor data and make it accessible across your nonprofit team. Features include a visual dashboard, fast donation processing, event management tools, and mobile accessibility.

Popular integrations on DonorPerfect’s platform include Double the Donation, DonorSearch, QuickBooks, PayPal, and Qgiv, so you can connect multiple trusted apps and work from one unified platform.

Plans for DonorPerfect start at $99 per month. Contact its sales team for a demo and a free, custom quote.

What users say about it

Overall, DonorPerfect has been a great asset for our nonprofit, especially for the price. It is really cost effective and extremely powerful.” — Jenny S.

As a first-time fundraiser, I am thrilled to have DP as a partner! It has been easy to learn and customize to my organization’s needs. Having the customer service team right beside me makes downtime due to questions and confusion negligible. Simple record keeping and synergy with my other programs keeps everything organized in one place.” — Michael B.

7. Bloomerang

Best for: Implementation support

The 14 best nonprofit CRM solutions for 2024 Image-5

Overall Capterra rating: 4.7 out of 5

Bloomerang focuses on assisting nonprofit organizations with their donor retention objectives. The donation management solution delivers a full-stack CRM to improve contact record maintenance. It also includes an online payment processing tool and social media listening tools so you can oversee your online presence and reputation in real time.

Bloomerang hosts thousands of integrations, so whether you need to track data with platforms like Google Analytics or Salesforce or you want to connect with social media apps like Facebook or Instagram, Bloomerang has you covered.

Bloomerang’s plans start at $125 per month for up to 1,000 records and 5,000 emails per month. 

What users say about it

Bloomerang makes it possible for us to keep up with our donations and track our communication with donors which is a huge plus. It’s easy to run reports and get accurate information to use in writing appeals and impact reports.” — Linda G.

We use Bloomerang at our non-profit, which raises $10M. As a team of one, I rely on Bloomerang to keep me organized and make reporting + tax receipts quick and easy. The seamless integration with Qgiv also makes my life easier.” — Sarah M.

8. Virtuous

Best for: Fundraising resources

The 14 best nonprofit CRM solutions for 2024 Image-6

Overall Capterra rating: 4.6 out of 5

Virtuous is a responsive CRM solution designed to improve the donor experience — which can improve donor retention and increase donations. The automation features optimize the time your organization spends on donor engagement, fundraising campaigns, and follow-up messaging.

Nonprofit-specific integrations on Virtuous include Double the Donation, DonorSearch, DonorSee, and more. It also integrates with various social media platforms as well as Mailchimp, Quickbooks, Qgiv, and Zapier.

Virtuous offers three tiers of pricing plans: Standard, Platform, and Enterprise. With the Standard plan, you can send up to 5,000 emails per month, and more expensive plans will provide higher limits. Contact the Virtuous sales team for pricing.

What users say about it

With many different ways that someone can enter our ecosystem, Virtuous has helped us be UBER responsive and deliver targeted and contextually relevant messaging to various audience segments. Everyone is on a unique journey, and it is being steered as we learn more about a contact.” — Nicholas K.

It is an immense help to our organization to implement an API between Virtuous and our mission-trip tracking platform. Also, having a single location where we can house our contact database and seamlessly interact with our website and marketing efforts is excellent!” — Leanna M.

9. CiviCRM

Best for: Customization

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Overall Capterra rating: 4.1 out of 5

CiviCRM is the best CRM solution if your organization is looking for customization. This open-source CRM platform allows you to customize all its tools, including those for membership, reporting, advocacy campaigns, contact management, and more.

Users have also developed extensions with DonorSearch, Outlook, Mosaico, Mailchimp, Stripe, Authorize.net, and more, so you definitely have an extensive toolbox at your fingertips when you use this software. 

CiviCRM is free to download and use. 

What users say about it

The flexibility of this platform is truly amazing. You can customise it to your exact needs and the range of features is unbeaten. Most powerful CRM I have come across.” — Youssef Y.

Overall, it’s done what we’ve needed it to do, reliably, for a long time.” — Brian S.

10. Bonterra (formerly EveryAction, Network for Good)

Best for: Number of features

user interface of bonterra

Overall Capterra rating: 4.5 out of 5

Bonterra has everything you need for a successful campaign since it’s so robust. Whether you need tools for managing donors, projects, or grants, they’ll provide what’s necessary and more. For example, they offer marketing features, analytics, and contact data specifically for your fundraising efforts. 

Like other CRM solutions in this list, Bonterra partners with several other nonprofit-dedicated platforms. Examples include DonorSearch, DonorVoice, Double the Donation, and Raise the Roots. 

Contact Bonterra for a demo and pricing information. 

What users say about it

Bonterra Development + Digital (formerly EveryAction) has made managing our records of pledge signers, donors, and our outreach missions extremely simple and pain-free. The database also allows for pulling contact information for targeted emails and mail lists very easily, which we use daily.” — Wilhelmina I.

Good experience overall. We have doubled our online giving revenue and grown our email file by a third in a year and a half!” — Jeremiah B.

11. Keela

Best for: Fundraising automations

user interface of keela

Overall Capterra rating: 4.3 out of 5

Keela’s CRM platform boasts a variety of features that’ll help both manage and boost your fundraising. By using your stored donor data, Keela will automatically make predictions about future donations and recommend next steps. You also can generate a suggested donation ask amount for both new and recurring donors. 

You can even utilize Keela’s wealth screening technology, donation forms, marketing automations, and customizable dashboards to ensure you’re getting the most of your fundraising efforts. 

Keela integrates with widely known platforms and apps like QuickBooks, Mailchimp, Eventbrite, Double the Donation, DonorSearch, and Zapier so you can make sure that you and your nonprofit are as productive as can be in fundraising efforts.

Access to Keela starts with a free plan that comes with up to 250 contacts. If you need more than 250, pricing scales with the number of contacts and add-ons you have.

What users say about it

Keela has fundamentally changed how I manage my organization’s donors and how I communicate with our community. The interface is so easy to use and affordable for a small community museum like ours.” — Kat W.

Keela has been easy to set-up, use, and teach to our team. Their customer service has also been excellent and easy to communicate with.” — Kayla Jo L.

12. Givebutter

Best for: Free platform

landing page of givebutter

Overall Capterra rating: 4.8 out of 5

Givebutter has everything a nonprofit could possibly need. On top of Givebutter’s donor CRM, the platform also offers donation forms, event management, auctions, and a mobile app. These features will make it easier on your nonprofit to achieve multiple goals, all from the comfort of one platform.

Givebutter integrates with other nonprofit software and CRM platforms like Bloomerang, DonorSearch, and Double the Donation. It even has a Twitch integration to livestream fundraising events.

Givebutter is free to use and runs off tips from donors. However, they do have payment processing fees of 2.9 percent plus 30 cents for donations to your organization. You can give donors the option to cover those fees.

If you choose to disable donor tips, Givebutter will charge a platform fee of one percent for donation forms, three percent for fundraising pages, and five percent for events and auctions. 

What users say about it

Easy, exciting, and engaging to use. We have an older population of donors and folks were able to use it easily!” — Sierra M.

AMAZING!! Would recommend Givebutter to anyone looking for a great fundraising platform.” — Joan H.

13. Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud

Best for: Productivity (tied with Kindful)

landing page of salesforce nonprofit cloud

Overall Capterra rating: 4.7 out of 5

Salesforce is already widely known for its range of CRM capabilities. Their nonprofit cloud in particular is set up with organizations like yours in mind. You’ll have many of the constituent management and data analysis features Salesforce is famous for, all at a discounted nonprofit price.

With this package, your nonprofit will get access to the Sales and Service cloud, accounting subledger, programs and outcomes, and fundraising features. This covers areas such as grants, fundraising, and case tracking.

Salesforce’s integrations are available via its AppExchange marketplace. Integrations include Jotform, DonorSearch, and WealthEngine, but Salesforce has also made some of their own apps, like the Nonprofit Success Pack, Volunteers for Salesforce, and an Inventory Manager for Nonprofits.

Salesforce offers enterprise pricing for $60 per user per month and an unlimited plan for $100 per user per month. Both are billed annually.

What users say about it

We are ecstatic to have this program in order to grow and enhance our organization. It has been the best thing we have purchased. You have to try it!” — Michelle B.

I’m so happy that our org switched from our old software to Salesforce. It has really made our donor management processes so much easier and less time consuming.” — Alexandra K.

14. Little Green Light

Best for: Customer service

landing page of little green light

Overall Capterra rating: 4.8 out of 5

Manage your constituent data seamlessly with Little Green Light’s platform. Along with constituent management tools, you’ll also get key features like a customizable dashboard, communication features, a report builder, volunteer management, and data analysis. With these, you get all of the essential tools in one platform.

Little Green Light integrates with well-known and useful apps like Mailchimp, QuickBooks, and WordPress, as well as other nonprofit-specific tools such as Double the Donation, Fundraising Report Card, and DonorSearch.

Little Green Light’s pricing scales with the number of constituents stored in your database. Pricing starts at $45 per month for up to 2,500 constituents.

What users say about it

Little Green Light provides our small organization with a user friendly, thoughtful, and responsive constituent relationship management solution, and at one of the most reasonable prices in its field. We use it primarily to manage donations and relationships. Bottom line is the product is excellent and I recommend it to others.” — Lori H.

Little Green Light has everything you need, nothing you don’t, and is an excellent value for nonprofits on tight budgets.” — Anonymous user

Compare your options

CRM platformBest forKey featuresUser rating (Capterra)Pricing
JotformOverall useCRM database, donation forms, donation apps, payment integrations, automations4.6Free plan; paid plans start at $19.50 per month for nonprofits
Hubspot CRMPricingCRM database, email marketing, donation forms, marketing automations4.5Free plan; paid plans starts at $20 per month (nonprofit discount available)
Neon CRMTraining resourcesCRM database, donation pages and forms, event management4.4Starts at $99 per month
KindfulProductivity (tie)CRM database, online fundraising, email marketing4.5Contact Bloomerang
Blackbaud CRMLarge nonprofitsCRM database, multichannel marketing, donor prospect data, grant management3.6Contact Blackbaud
DonorPerfectUser-friendlinessCRM database, event management, online and mobile donation processing4.5Starts at $99 per month
BloomerangImplementation supportCRM database,  donation processing, detailed reporting, mobile app4.7Starts at $125 per month
VirtuousFundraising supportCRM database, event registration, automations, personalization features4.6Contact Virtuous
CiviCRMCustomizationOpen-source CRM database, case management, event management, peer-to-peer fundraising4.1Free
Bonterra# of featuresCRM database, marketing tools, data analytics, grant and case management4.5Contact Bonterra
KeelaFundraising automationsCRM database, predictive analytics for donors, donation forms, automations4.3Starts with free plan
GivebutterFree platformCRM database, donation forms, auction management, event management, mobile app4.8Free, with 2.9 percent plus $0.30 payment processor fee
Salesforce Nonprofit CloudProductivity (tie)CRM database, marketing tools, grant and case management, online user community4.7Starts at $60 per month
Little Green LightCustomer serviceCRM database, report builder, data analytics, volunteer management4.8Starts at $45 per month

What should you keep in mind when making a decision?

Like business-oriented CRM solutions, platforms built for nonprofits typically offer a trial period. This gives you a way to better assess whether the platform meets your nonprofit’s needs and objectives before you commit. In doing so, you can feel more confident that you’ll get the best return on your investment.

AUTHOR
A journalist and digital consultant, John Boitnott has worked for TV, newspapers, radio, and Internet companies for 25 years. He’s written for Inc.com, Fast Company, NBC, Entrepreneur, USA Today, and Business Insider, among others.

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