Nonprofit Fundraising Platforms
Updated: April 2024
“Which nonprofit fundraising platform should I use?”
This is the number one question that our team is asked. In today's digital landscape, selecting the right platform for your nonprofit can significantly impact the success of your fundraising efforts. To guide you through this decision-making process, we've curated a comprehensive list of our favorite solutions, each offering unique functionalities tailored to various fundraising needs.
From versatile donor management and event coordination tools to innovative peer-to-peer fundraising and CRM systems, these platforms cater to nonprofits of all sizes and objectives.
The Three Categories of Nonprofit Software
There are dozens of great software options for nonprofits of all sizes. Typically, nonprofit software falls under three categories:
1. Fundraising Platforms for nonprofits
Peer-to-peer fundraising platforms allow individual supporters to create donation pages on behalf of your nonprofit. When supporters solicit donations through their pages, the funds are transferred directly to your nonprofit. Each of these platforms offers different potential benefits to your organization.
2. CRM Systems
A Customer Relationship Management Platform (CRM Platform) refers to the technology a nonprofit employs to manage interactions with a donor or customer.
3. Donor Management Software
Donor management software is a type of nonprofit software that helps organizations understand and maximize their relationships with their donors.
Best Fundraising Platforms for Nonprofits
1. GIVEBUTTER: One of our favorite nonprofit fundraising platforms
As fundraising consultants, we've had the privilege of working with numerous nonprofit organizations, each with its unique set of challenges and goals. Through our experience, we've come across various fundraising platforms, but one solution consistently stands out: Givebutter. Here's why it's one of our favorite nonprofit fundraising platforms:
Donor management
Build your donor database and fundraise smarter with easy tracking, email, filter, and export functionality across unlimited Givebutter campaigns.
Event management
Manage your attending tickets easily, activate the live-event mode, scan tickets, check-in attendees, and assist your attendees on the day of the event.
Chapter management
National organizations can create accounts for their chapters right from the dashboard, control access and activity, track member and donor data, and consolidate funds raised.
A look inside the Givebutter nonprofit platform
2. Sodality.app
Sodality stands as a cutting-edge fundraising platform tailored for nonprofits, member organizations, and religious groups. Its top-tier features empower these entities to foster novel and impactful engagement strategies with their members. Notably, Sodality offers the opportunity for organizations to cultivate a branded digital presence through its nonprofit management application, facilitating continued growth and expansion. Recognizing the vital contributions of nonprofit organizations nationwide, Sodality extends additional support to aid in member organization, donation streamlining, and event management. Developed by OTS Solutions, the newly introduced Sodality app presents a valuable asset for organizations striving to enhance their operational efficiency and outreach.
3: Fundly
Fundly operates as a versatile crowdfunding platform designed for online fundraising endeavors. It serves as a hub for nonprofits, charities, political organizations, clubs, schools, teams, churches, and various other causes to raise funds digitally. Through Fundly, organizations can leverage the support of friends, family, colleagues, donors, and other supporters by facilitating online donations via email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and other social media networks. Additionally, Fundly offers a dedicated app compatible with popular social platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Donations processed through Fundly are facilitated by WePay, ensuring seamless transaction handling. Donors are billed upon making their contributions. Similar platforms to Fundly include GoGetFunding, Indiegogo, and Kickstarter.
4: Qgiv
Qgiv is dedicated to empowering individuals to enact positive change through their passions. Born from the vision of two friends in 2007, Qgiv emerged from humble beginnings as a solution to simplify online donation and payment acceptance for nonprofit, faith-based, and political organizations. Over nearly 15 years, Qgiv has evolved from a dorm room idea into a leading provider of thoughtfully-designed, user-friendly fundraising software. Today, Qgiv serves a diverse community of over 6,500 organizations across the United States and Canada, enabling them to effectively pursue their missions and engage supporters.
5: 360MatchPro
360MatchPro is a fundraising and gift matching solution designed by Double the Donation. This means that an individual’s organization matches their pledge to their preferred cause if they are eligible. This does not change the way a donor gives—they only have expanded options with the addition of gift matching. 360MatchPro initiates this process on the donation form, confirmation page, and on follow-up emails. Even if your donor overlooks the gift matching procedure, the solution automatically finds a match for them by running their email address against prospective candidates. 360MatchPro offers you matching gift status tracking and opportunities monitoring as well. The latter is especially beneficial as you can tap into additional prospects for fundraising, thereby enabling you to reach your goals faster.
6: Donately
Donately is trusted by nonprofit organizations of all sizes to improve their donation experience and grow online fundraising at a great value. Donately’s top features include custom donation forms that can be embedded into a nonprofit’s site, beautiful donation pages, text messaging, donor management, recurring donations, automatic donation receipts, and robust integrations via Zapier. Donately gives donors the option to pay via credit card, ACH/bank transfer or PayPal, and allow them to cover all donation fees. Plans start at $0/mo + 4% platform fee!
7: Classy
Classy is a social enterprise that creates online fundraising tools for nonprofits, modernizing the giving experience to accelerate social impact around the world. Since 2011, more than 4,000 nonprofits have collectively raised over one billion dollars on the Classy platform.
8: CoinUp
Coin Up is an innovative mobile donation app that allows users to "round up and donate" the spare change from their everyday credit/debit card transactions to their choice of qualified nonprofits.
9: Bonfire
Bonfire is a fundraising platform that gives nonprofits a way to raise money by selling t-shirts. You don’t need money to launch your campaign. The merchandise sold will pay it for you. With Bonfire, you can create a custom t-shirt, market it, sell it, and have it shipped. There are no merchandise fees upfront, and nonprofits get a discounted processing fee of just 3.5% (reduced from 8%).
10: DoJiggy
DoJiggy is a fundraising platform with the ultimate tools for nonprofit organizations. With DoJiggy, nonprofit organizations can create their own website, control all their content, and receive donations. If your organization is hosting an event such as a golf tournament or walk-a-thon, DoJiggy is an excellent choice to help you advertise and get pledges. Prices do vary, so check their website for the latest pricing information.
11: Mightycause
Mightycause has been around since 2006 and continues to be one of the best online fundraising platforms for nonprofits. They offer nonprofit organizations the opportunity to create, edit, and manage their personal branded page. Donors can access your page on a desktop or any mobile device. Nonprofits can choose the Essential plan for $79/month; or they can upgrade to the Accelerate plan for $119/month. On their platform, nonprofits will pay a 0.95% plus .29 processing fee.
12: Firespring
Firespring is a complete alternative to most fundraising platforms for nonprofits. They have been creating nonprofit websites for over 20 years. Using this platform helps a nonprofit organization build an entire website that attracts potential donors. Their sites will showcase your cause and help you interact with your audience. You can create events, use email automation, and process donation payments. It is an all-in-one solution for fundraising. Pricing starts at $95 a month.
13: Snowball
Snowball is a mobile-friendly platform that can take your fundraising campaign to the next level with a bundle of useful features. Not only does Snowball have all the necessary marketing tools, but the platform also offers a unique feature “event ticketing” which can be used to sell an events’ tickets and share the receipts with the buyers hassle-free. It is an all-in-one platform covering all the aspects of online fundraising.
14: Double the Donation
If your nonprofit is targeting big corporations, then matching gift programs is perfect for you, and the Double the Donation platform can certainly help with your fundraising cause. This online donation platform lets the businesses keep track of the donations made by their employees and then match it, essentially doubling the initial deposit.
15: iATS Payments
The success of an online fundraiser depends on how well you are marketing your campaign and making things easy for the donors—this is where iATS shines. Founded 20 years ago, iATS Payments is the only dedicated payment processing solution purpose-built for the needs of nonprofits. From cost-effective pricing to an effortless payment processing system, iATS Payments is a great way to accept donations online and raise money for a good cause.
Other Helpful Fundraising Information
Looking for more fundraising help? Our blog posts cover a wide range of topics related to nonprofit campaigns. Check out our blog about “13 Ideas On How You Can Increase Funding.” We also offer a wide variety of digital marketing solutions. Read our blog that covers “Why Do Nonprofit Organizations Need Digital Marketing?”. Lastly, visit our best tools page to find a list of our other favorite nonprofit resources.
Want to discuss if online fundraising is right for you? Contact Linda Handley today to schedule a free consultation!
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