Nonprofit CRM Software

What is Nonprofit CRM Software? 

Nonprofit CRM software is an application that can help nonprofits track and manage their relationships with donors. Nonprofit CRM software can store necessary donor data, give your nonprofit organization valuable and actionable insights, and help you implement tailored outreach strategies to reach more donors and raise more donations.

Do nonprofits need a CRM?

Yes, CRM for non-profits is vital. Using a CRM can make your work life more enjoyable and effective by improving your existing CRM.

Like how businesses use customer relationship management, Nonprofit organizations use CRM to organize their data more efficiently and keep track of everything. They can manage their supporters’ relationships more efficiently using CRM software and consolidate all their data in one place.

CRM software provides valuable reports and insights that can help Nonprofit organizations better understand their donors to build stronger relationships with their existing donors.

It also allows you to boost your social media outreach and share your content with more people to engage your existing donors and acquire new donors.

Some CRMs also offer essential event management tools to help your organization streamline the planning process, eventually leading to a better-organized event and event experience for your donors and you.

But CRM software doesn’t stop helping you manage donors; it should also help you manage your staff and volunteers and streamline their workflows to make planning and executing successful campaigns take less money and effort.

Top Nonprofit CRM Software Features 

How useful a CRM will be to use business depends on what features the Software offers, and if you have no prior experience with CRM solutions, you may not know exactly what to look for. So here are nonprofit CRM features should have:

1- Contacts (Donors) Profiles

Any nonprofit CRM will store the contact details of all donors in a single, easy-to-access database. It should also be easy to update the information and data of your donor profiles when needed, and you should be able to input any extra info.

The CRM should also store all records of donations and have a complete donation history for every donor. For some Nonprofits, CRM also allows you to group donors into different groups.

2- Donor Management 

A Nonprofit CRM system ought to have tools and features for donor management. For example, you can have features like receiving an online donation through online payment, storing all the data, and backing it up.

3- WebForms 

Customizable web forms are essential for optimizing the online fundraising and donating experience for both you and the donors. You should be able to create web forms and customize them easily without needing any technical background.

Customizable web forms will also take the hassle of manual data entry out of your organization and enable you to track online transactions in real time!

4- Automation 

A Nonprofit CRM should make it possible to build automated workflows for your team to increase the efficiency of your organization and save you precious time. When everything becomes streamlined, you and your team will have more time to plan better events and collect more funds, contributing more to your cause.

5- Event Planning & Management 

Holding a fundraising event is one of the main ways to attract donations, and nonprofit CRM software solutions can help in this area.

Event Management features and modules are essential for any nonprofit CRM. It should make it possible for donors to register online, allow you to manage reservations and design tickets, track event attendance and donations, and give you insightful reports about the finances of your event.

6- Reporting 

Since nonprofit CRM systems will store and manage all your data, they will also be able to produce compelling reports on many aspects of your work to help you gain a deeper understanding of the performance and future of your organization.

Powerful reporting can help you identify the areas performing well to analyze their success and the areas that need improvement. Some advanced fundraising tools will even have real-time reporting showing you things like the donations as they roll in.

A Nonprofit organization doesn’t have plenty of resources to run on, so powerful reporting should help you optimize the use of your resources so none is wasted.

7- Mobile Access

You and your team may be traveling a lot around the country or even internationally to meet donors and organize events, so mobile access becomes very important to manage your organization while going with the same efficiency you would have while at the office.

8- Donor – or prospect – Research 

A good CRM fundraising software should not only help you manage your current donors and motivate them to donate more, but it also should help you attract new major donors to your cause. This is where prospect research comes in.

Prospect research is a set of features that will help you gather and analyze the data of your prospects, assign donor categories based on the data you have on them, and import data from other sources – such as wealth screening services.

9- Matching Gifts

Matching gifts are done by integrating your fundraising CRM software with a matching gift tool. This enables your organization to place a field on the donation form that your donors can check for their matching gift eligibility.

If the donor were working for a company that gives matching gifts, you would be able to send matching-gift-tailored emails to them.

Matching gifts is a great way to attract more substantial donations with little to no extra work, making it more likely for your donors to submit their paperwork to their employers.

How Much Does a Nonprofit CRM Cost?

NonProfit CRM software is priced between $ 90 and $ 499 per month. Costs will depend on the number of users needed, the number of applications needed in a program, and the customization or service needed, for example, maintenance.

How to Choose Nonprofit CRM Software? 

For you to choose the best nonprofit CRM software for your business, there are three questions you need to answer for yourself before making the decision.

• What is your budget? 
• What are your needs? 
• What is your experience with CRM software? 

Let’s tackle them one by one.

First Question: What is your budget? 

The cost of CRM software is the most critical question to answer, so you should start with this. Then, we can break this into even more questions; how much are you willing to pay upfront? How much are you willing to pay each month? Are you ready to pay for more features or hidden or unexpected costs while using the solution?

Many CRM solutions will charge you based on the size of your data set and how many users will have access to the solution, but others may also charge you for things like setting up the software or software updates.

The first step in choosing a CRM software for your nonprofit is to decide on the pricing range you can afford, then you can start looking at the solutions that have an offering in your field, this way, you will narrow down your search quite a lot and save yourself a lot of time.

 Next question; what are your needs? 

This also needs to be broken into different questions; how large is the size of your data? What features do you want in the solution? What is the biggest problem you currently have that you expect the CRM solution to solve for you?

You may want to dig deep into how your nonprofit is performing, or you may have seen a decline or a plateau in your fundraising and want to break through it. Naturally, you will want a nonprofit CRM with robust reporting capabilities in such cases.

On-premise vs. Cloud-based should also be answered here; do you deal with many VIPs and want more security by keeping their data only the on-premise solution, or do you want the freedom, convenience, convenience, and scalability of Cloud-based software?

Sit down and write a list of what you need the software to do, then compare your list to what each software offers in your determined earlier pricing range. This will narrow it down to just a handful of choices that you can choose from.

Last Question; How experienced are you with CRM software?

Why is this important? Because this will determine how easy-to-use you want your solution to be and how helpful and easily accessible, you need their customer support to be.

Suppose you have some experience with CRM solutions or have someone on your team who does. In that case, you may be able to go for free software that offers just basic support because you know you might not ever need it. Still, if you don’t have any experience with CRM software, you will want to choose one with excellent customer support to help you get started with the software and get you through any issues you may face late down the road.

After answering these three questions and comparing them, you should make the right choice. You can also learn more about choosing the right CRM software for your business.

Is there a totally free CRM?

HubSpot is a leading CRM software platform. Free HubSpot options include a mix of HubSpot CRM, marketing, and selling tools. It is equally suitable for sales teams requiring CRM and marketing automation.