The top 15 online fundraising platforms for nonprofits

Fundraising is an ongoing challenge for nonprofits, but fundraising platforms can be valuable tools. With features like custom donation forms, detailed reports and analytics, and integrated payment processing, these tools can help you run an effective fundraising campaign, even when you’re on a limited budget. 

Whether your nonprofit has run dozens of fundraising campaigns before or you’re planning your very first, these tools can contribute to your success.

The following online fundraising platforms can help streamline the fundraising process, increase your nonprofit’s reach, and encourage donors to give.

1. Jotform

With Jotform’s donation forms, your nonprofit can easily collect donations. You can customize any form template you choose or build your own from scratch. 

These forms integrate with more than 30 of the most popular payment processors, including PayPal Checkout, Square, Stripe, and Authorize.Net, so you can collect donations directly. Jotform doesn’t charge any extra fees for these transactions, so your nonprofit receives all of the donations, minus the payment processor’s fees.

Tracking your donor data is just as important as getting the donations, and Jotform Tables can help you organize and store that data. To save time, consider using one of the many nonprofit templates, including a fundraising calendar template and a donation list template.

As an added bonus, nonprofits enjoy a 50 percent discount on Jotform’s Bronze, Silver, and Gold plans.

2. Fundly

Fundly is a crowdfunding platform designed for both individuals and nonprofits. With Fundly, you can customize your donation page and then share that page with friends, coworkers, and family. Those very people can help you raise money by sharing the campaign to their social media, generating awareness of your fundraising work.

If you’ve never created a campaign before, Fundly’s guides, tips, and tutorials will walk you through the process. All donation pages are mobile-friendly, and they work with any browser. The free Fundly iOS mobile app keeps you updated and lets you edit your campaign from your phone, no matter where you are.

Fundly has no startup fees, and you don’t have to raise a specified minimum to access your donations, although it does charge a 4.9 percent fee per donation as well as a credit-card processing fee. 

3. Donorbox

If you’re looking for a platform that’s quick and easy to use, then add Donorbox to your list. This fundraising software lets you create an optimized donation payment system in just 15 minutes, so you’ll be up and running quickly.

While this platform is easy to use, it’s also plenty powerful. You can embed the donation form into your website or use Donorbox’s popup widget.

Donorbox puts donors in control of their giving, enhancing the donor experience and encouraging recurring donations. Donors can manage their monthly recurring donations, and you can give them the option to cover processing fees so your nonprofit sees more of each donation.

You can get started for free, and there are no upfront costs. Donorbox has a 1.5 percent platform fee, plus payment processing fees. There are also fees for optional integrations like Mailchimp, Salesforce, and employer gift matching.

4. Donately

With Donately, you can easily streamline your fundraising, keeping all of your efforts centralized within a modern dashboard. 

This comprehensive tool offers donation pages, embeddable donation forms, recurring donation options, data reporting, peer-to-peer fundraising, a donor portal, and many other features so you can leverage your fundraising and donor relationships. This platform is suitable for nonprofits, churches, businesses, and agencies.

Donately features text messaging tools that can support your organization’s communication and help you spread news of your campaign. Options like customized text codes and responses put you in charge of your campaign. Donately even integrates with other apps like Zapier, Google Sheets, HubSpot, and Insightly to save you time.

You can choose from three plans, including a free startup plan with a 4 percent platform fee.

5. Snowball

Snowball offers an array of useful tools that can help your nonprofit raise money for your causes and programs. Features include custom text-to-give keywords, live event tracking and thermometers, the ability to sell event tickets, customizable online donation forms, and more. 

The platform’s CRM helps you manage donor data, track donations and gifts, and sort and export data. With Snowball, you can even create silent auctions.

With all of these tools located in one place, Snowball can become a valuable asset for any nonprofit, whether you’re gathering donations for a campaign or hosting an event that requires attendee registration.

Snowball offers upfront pricing, and its Essential plan carries no monthly or annual fee. Instead, the company applies fees of 2.5 percent plus 30 cents per transaction, giving you access to many of the platform’s features without subscription fees. Additional paid plans are available, and they include more of the platform’s features.

6. Qgiv

Qgiv features the essentials you need to support all of your fundraising efforts, including donation forms, text fundraising, events, auctions, and peer-to-peer campaigns. 

Top perks include the ability to customize your donation receipts to demonstrate each donation’s impact, donation forms that you can customize with your nonprofit’s branding, and mobile-friendly donation pages.

With Qgiv, you even have the option to purchase a handheld giving kiosk that you can use to process donations at events and board meetings or right in your lobby.

Qgiv offers seven different plans, and its Start plan has no subscription fees. Paid plan costs and features vary, but the upper-level plans offer the features and capabilities that can support even a large nonprofit with extensive fundraising efforts.

7. OneCause

A versatile fundraising solution, OneCause supports custom online giving pages, mobile bidding and auctions, peer-to-peer giving, and Text2Give. You can also add gamification tools like contests and badges to your donation pages to encourage donors to stay engaged. 

This platform offers more than 125 reports and analytics to keep you up to date on your campaigns and events. Payment processing, live software support, and CRM integration are just a few of the other perks.

OneCause offers a variety of tiered plans, depending on the type of fundraising you want to do.

8. RaiseDonors

With RaiseDonors, you can easily create donation pages that convert and motivate viewers to donate. With unlimited donation pages and embeddable donation forms, you can use this platform for all of your fundraising needs. Custom reporting keeps you up to date about your campaign’s progress. 

RaiseDonors also offers many features — like custom receipts and thank you pages — that save you time while maximizing your campaign’s effectiveness.

You can connect this fundraising software with your CRM as well as with your email, marketing, and analytics tools.

RaiseDonors offers a Starter plan for $99 per month. The Plus and Pro plans offer additional features.

9. Vision2

Designed for churches, Vision2 is a giving platform that allows members to donate online, by cash and check, or through mobile and text-to-give options. Churches can access customized donation forms with the option to create recurring gifts.

This platform is versatile, and there’s no limit on transactions, donation amounts, the number of users, or support. There are also no contracts or annual or monthly fees.

10. Double the Donation

Designed to harness the power of matched giving, Double the Donation can help maximize your donations. 

This platform makes it easy for donors to match donations and includes matching gift forms and guidelines to help donors make their contributions. Donors can even search the matching gift database to find out if their employers will match their donations, which can help encourage donors to give or to give more.

Double the Donation offers three plans. The 360MatchPro Standard plan starts at $1,200 per year and is for nonprofits that raise more than $10,000 in matching gifts per year. Double the Donation also offers a 360MatchPro Standard plan for $799 per year for small nonprofits that raise less than $1 million in total revenue or $10,000 in matching gifts. 

For larger nonprofits, Double the Donation offers a 360MatchPro Enterprise plan with customized pricing.

11. 4aGoodCause

The 4aGoodCause campaign builder will guide you through the process of developing your campaign step by step. This all-in-one solution also supports event registration, crowdfunding, and donor management. The platform’s CRM can help you track giving history and build donor relationships.

4aGoodCause is affordably priced and offers three plans. Its Grassroots plan is $84 per month and supports up to 2,000 contacts.  

12. Funraise

Funraise offers everything you need to get your fundraising campaign off the ground. The platform provides donation forms that connect your site to your database for streamlined data collection and processing. 

Peer-to-peer fundraising can help you build campaign support, and the Funraise mobile app lets you stay on top of your campaign no matter where you are. This platform also includes donor communications like automated emails and texts.

Nonprofits looking for guidance and education on fundraising can find it in the Funraise University. Six video courses detail everything you need to know about fundraising, including how to create and manage transactions, how to use fundraising intelligence to your benefit, and more. These video courses are free to access, regardless of whether you have a Funraise subscription.

Funraise offers a free plan and only charges a transaction fee if donors opt in to cover it. You can also upgrade to a paid Enterprise plan.

13. Donate Kindly

For nonprofits exploring fundraising for the first time or for those working with very limited budgets, Donate Kindly offers a free platform full of fundraising tools. Setup is easy and streamlined, and Donate Kindly says you’ll be able to start accepting donations in as little as five minutes. 

Donate Kindly features industry-leading encryption, the ability to easily embed forms into your website, and customizable donation form fields and colors.

Donate Kindly doesn’t charge any setup fees. You also won’t have to worry about monthly or annual fees. The organization charges a small 2.9 percent fee plus 30 cents per transaction.

14. 99Pledges

With 99Pledges, it’s easy to harness the power of social media for fundraisers. When you create a campaign, each participant gets their own donation page that they can share through social media and email. 

You’ll be able to track and share your progress, adding a fun, competitive element to your fundraising — see which participant can raise the most! 

After your fundraiser ends, 99Pledges will send you a check within 24 hours.

This platform offers many advantages over traditional pledging. Setup is simple, and you can easily add participants. Donors can donate from anywhere, and they don’t have to pay any transaction fees. With less paperwork and management for organizers, this platform is ideal for many nonprofits.

99Pledges has no startup costs and no platform fee. Organizations just pay PayPal’s fees of 2.9 percent and 30 cents per transaction.

15. Bonfire

Bonfire is a T-shirt fundraising platform that allows you to sell shirts without having to hold any inventory. 

It’s easy to do — just upload your shirt design, launch your fundraiser, and encourage supporters to order shirts. At the end of your campaign, Bonfire will print the shirts and ship them to your donors — and you’ll collect the money you’ve raised.

Bonfire has an 8 percent donation fee, but it reduces that to 3.5 percent after verifying that your organization is a nonprofit.

Make the most of your fundraising

The right fundraising platform can help you create an ideal donation page, develop your donor relations, explore different fundraising opportunities, and more. These platforms are suitable for nonprofits of many sizes and in many stages of their fundraising journey. With the right platform, you can get more out of your fundraising efforts so you’re better able to accomplish your nonprofit’s mission.

Hand photo created by jcomp – www.freepik.com