The 6 Best CRMs for Nonprofits for 2019

A CRM for nonprofits helps organizations like charities and churches raise money and manage donor and volunteer relationships. We compared several nonprofit-specific CRMs as well as general use options to determine the top six and overall best CRMs for nonprofits using criteria like ease of use, affordability, and nonprofit-specific features like donor management.

Top 6 CRM for Nonprofits for 2019

How We Evaluated the Best CRM for Nonprofits

The nonprofit industry includes organizations with different funding models, like churches relying on recurring donations, trade associations offering memberships, and activist organizations doing fundraising, selling products, or hosting events. When considering the best CRM options, we looked at nonprofit-specific and general use CRMs with industry adaptable features.

Based on nonprofit CRM needs, we used the following criteria to identify the top six:

• Value for money: We looked at tools that nonprofits of varying sizes could afford for the value they receive.
• Ease of use: The best options should be easy to use and include options that require little-to-no technical expertise.
• Donation tools: We looked at nonprofit CRMs that made it easy to accept donations and payments for events and physical items. We also looked at tools that tracked information donors would find beneficial for tax purposes
• Training and resources: Training and resources are key to nonprofits that don’t have time to figure out how to use CRM software on their own.
• Non-profit specific features: We included options with niche-specific features like peer-to-peer fundraising, crowdfunding, non-monetary donation management, event management, donation tracking, and member and volunteer management.
• Core CRM functionality: We considered nonprofit CRMs with both specialized and core CRM functionality like prospective donor outreach and management, contact management, sales tools, and marketing campaign features.
• Automation tools: Our criteria included nonprofit CRMs with tools that help automate repetitive tasks and increase productivity in the fundraising, donor, and volunteer management processes.
• Reporting and analytics: Reporting and analytics tools were considered, as they are important to how nonprofits target donors and plan for the future.
• Customer support: We looked at the level of customer support each provider offers to their nonprofit clients.

Based on this criteria, we’ve determined that NeonCRM is the overall best nonprofit CRM. It offers core CRM features like contact and donor management, reporting and analytics, and communication tools. It also offers nonprofit-specific tools to manage grants, events, volunteers, and memberships. It’s easy to use, affordably priced, and offers a variety of tools to fit most fundraising models, making it a great solution for small and large nonprofits alike.

Best Overall CRM for Nonprofits: NeonCRM

NeonCRM is a full-featured nonprofit CRM that provides tools to raise money from a variety of sources, from securing grants to securing individual donations. What makes it unique is its diversity of fundraising tools combined with robust relationship management features and nonprofit reporting and analytics tools. It’s great for organizations wanting a robust, out-of-the-box nonprofit CRM with multichannel fundraising tools with prices starting at $50 per month.

NeonCRM Pricing

NeonCRM pricing starts at $50 per month for Essentials and goes up to $200 per month for their Enterprise tier. Each tier’s pricing is based on the number of records. The $50 starting price for Essentials includes up to 1,000 records. Additional records can be added for a fee depending on the number needed.

NeonCRM’s pricing also includes the following details:

• There is an additional 2.6% + 30 cents per transaction fee.
• The Essentials tier includes a choice of donor and fundraising management or membership and association management.
• The Impact and Empower* tiers include both donor and fundraising management as well as membership and association management.

* Note: Our focus for this article is on plans most suitable for smaller nonprofits. The Empower tier is an enterprise-level plan we mention should our readers’ organizations and needs expand.

NeonCRM Tiered Features

Note: All tiers include unlimited users, forms, custom fields, ticket support, dashboards, and KPIs.

Essentials

Essentials offers a core set of nonprofit CRM features to help manage contacts, donor fundraising, memberships, grants, and volunteers. At this tier, you must choose between membership and fundraising tools. Pricing starts at $50 per month for unlimited users up to 1,000 records and increases as records exceed 1,000. These core nonprofit tools offer a solid starting point to begin raising money and managing volunteers and donors.

For small nonprofits only needing core contact management and fundraising or membership features, this is a robust starter plan. The starting price point is a lot higher than the low-cost nonprofit-focused and general use CRM options in this article, but it offers more robust nonprofit specific features.

Impact

The Impact plan builds on the Essentials plan, offering access to both fundraising and membership features unlike having to choose just one in the Essentials plan. It also offers more sophisticated fundraising tools like peer-to-peer fundraising and online store creation to sell products. It includes QuickBooks integration and a survey builder. Prices in this tier start at $110 per month for up to 1,000 records, similar to Kindful but higher than the low-cost options.

This plan is great for medium to large nonprofits wanting to utilize specialty fundraising strategies like peer-to-peer fundraising and selling products online. It’s also great if they want to integrate their nonprofit CRM with QuickBooks. This tier’s pricing is on par with Kindful’s pricing, but higher than the low-cost, general use options.

What NeonCRM Is Missing

NeonCRM is missing unlimited phone and chat support at the Essentials and Impact tiers; this level of support is available to customers in the Enterprise level tier. If this level of support is important, you could upgrade to Empower, which starts at $200 per month. You could also consider Kindful, which offers free phone and email support during business hours, or consider a lower cost, general use CRM like Freshsales.

What Users Think About NeonCRM

Overall, users like NeonCRM. They like the robust features, attractive user interface, and ease of use. Some user dislikes revolve around not having a few aspirational features like managing social media from within the tool or not being able to generate tickets to fundraising events in addition to email confirmations.

Best CRM for Fundraising With No Fees: Kindful

Kindful is a nonprofit CRM offering transaction tools like peer-to-peer fundraising and recurring gift management. Pricing is based on number of contacts, has no transaction fees, and gives access to all features in every pricing tier starting at $100 per month. It’s great for nonprofits wanting specialty fundraising tools like crowdfunding, but without paying additional fees. It’s also great for those wanting to avoid transaction fees.

Kindful Pricing

Kindful has contact-based pricing, meaning that each pricing tier is based on the number of contacts. Pricing starts at $100 per month for the first tier, which includes up to 1,000 contacts, and goes up to $400 per month, which includes 25,000 contacts. Each tier gives unlimited user access to all features.

Kindful’s contact-based pricing is as follows:

• $100 per month: Manages up to 1,000 contacts
• $200 per month: Manages up to 5,000 contacts
• $300 per month: Manages up to 10,000 contacts
• $400 per month: Manages up to 25,000 contacts

Kindful Features

Kindful offers nonprofit-focused features, including peer-to-peer and recurring giving. They also offer donor reporting and analytics, email marketing tools, tools to generate receipts and tax information, and integrations with third-party tools like QuickBooks, Shopify, and dozens of others. Kindful’s tools are similar to those of NeonCRM, with the exception of grant management, and more robust than the low-cost nonprofit CRM and general use options.

Below is a list of Kindful’s tools and features:

Fundraising Tools

Similar to NeonCRM, Kindful offers a variety of fundraising tools, including peer-to-peer fundraising and recurring giving. These tools offer the ability to be creative with raising money and support ongoing giving campaigns. Kindful also provides tools to create donation pages, donation buttons, and forms to include on websites and other places online to solicit funding, similar to NeonCRM and DonorPerfect.

Donor Reporting & Analytics

Kindful offers donor reporting and analytics to keep track of how campaigns are working and to identify your best contributors and the reasons they give. Information in reports and analytics helps you track how you’re doing against your funding goals and helps you plan for the future. These features are similar to reporting and analytics available in the nonprofit-focused CRMs, but, unlike other options, are accessible no matter your pricing tier.

Email Marketing Integration Tools

Kindful offers two-way syncing of emails with third-party email providers like Constant Contact. You’re able to segment your email list and send out marketing campaigns by using filtering features in Kindful and the campaign tools from the email provider. With email integrations, you’re able to create new contacts automatically within Kindful when there are new contacts added to your email provider. See our article on best email marketing software.

Automatic Receipts & Tax Summaries

Automatic receipt emails allow you to provide your donors with receipts right after they’ve made a contribution. There’s also a tax summaries tool that allows you to pull year-end donation summaries for contributors and send it to them for tax purposes.

What Kindful Is Missing

Kindful is missing grant management features and built-in features to create an online store. It integrates with Shopify, but this requires having both Shopify and Kindful. If you sell products and rely on grants for funding, a more suitable option would be NeonCRM. If you don’t rely on grants but sell products, Bitrix24 would be a lower cost alternative for you with its ecommerce tools.

What Users Think About Kindful

Overall, users like Kindful. They like the robust features and the information you have access to once it’s in the system. Some users comment that the system is not as intuitive as they’d like, although these dislikes can be overcome with some initial upfront training or with their phone or email support.

Best Low-cost, Nonprofit-specific CRM: Donor Tools

Donor Tools is a no-frills CRM for nonprofits. It offers the core features nonprofits need to raise funds and manage donor contact information, with a low monthly flat fee pricing starting at $39 per month. This low price, combined with its core nonprofit, no-frills CRM features, make it a great fit for smaller nonprofits needing simple fundraising tools for a good price.

Donor Tools Pricing

Donor Tools has one low monthly price of $39 per month in addition to transaction fees of 2.3% plus a 30-cent additional fee per transaction. Unlike other nonprofit-specific CRMs, there are no tiers or limits on users and contacts. There are also no complicated feature tiers.

Donor Tools Features

Features included are online donation pages, donor contribution tracking, automated donation receipts, the ability to record offline transactions, and donor summary statements. It doesn’t offer specialty fundraising tools like peer-to-peer fundraising or grant management like NeonCRM or Kindful. Therefore, it’s best for nonprofits only needing a very basic CRM.

Donor Tools nonprofit-specific features include:

Fundraising Tools & Donor Contact Management

Donor Tools offers very basic fundraising tools, like donation web pages that allow donors to visit and click a few buttons to donate. They also offer tools to accept in-person donations that can be recorded in the CRM alongside online donations. There are donor contact management tools so that you can store and manage contact details for your donors, but these tools are very basic compared to the nonprofit niche CRMs and the general use CRMs we evaluated.

Donor Reporting

Reporting is also available to offer basic information about donors and their contributions. For instance, you can pull a donation summary report that generates a list of donors and the amounts they’ve contributed within certain time frames. You can even do year-over-year comparisons. This is great for nonprofits that don’t put a lot of emphasis on multiyear trends found in advanced reporting in the other nonprofit CRM and general use tools we reviewed.

Email Marketing Integration Tools

Donor Tools does not offer any email marketing features, which is an unfortunate shortcoming in a CRM. However, users of Donor Tools can overcome this gap by utilizing a third-party dedicated email marketing tool such as Constant Contact or Mailchimp for monthly newsletters or other announcements.

Automatic Receipts & Tax Summaries

Like the other nonprofit CRMs, Donor Tools has features that allow you to send an automatic receipt via email after a donation was received, similar to functionality in Kindful and NeonCRM. You can also pull year-end summaries for your donors that can be sent to them at the end of the year for tax purposes.

What Donor Tools Is Missing

Donor Tools is missing specialty fundraising features like grant management and peer-to-peer fundraising tools. It’s also missing online store creation as well as advanced reporting and analytics. If specialty fundraising tools are important, NeonCRM, Kindful, and DonorPerfect are great options to consider.

What Users Think About Donor Tools

Overall, users like Donor Tools. They like the price point and how simple and straightforward it is to use. However, some user dislikes include not offering many integrations and not offering advanced features like workflow automations.

Best Nonprofit CRM for Donor Insights: DonorPerfect

DonorPerfect is a full-featured, nonprofit CRM offering comprehensive support from free live training webinars to online chat and premium support that includes a dedicated support team. With prices starting at $89 per month, it offers specialty features like matching gifts management and donor profile enrichment, plus free and paid customer support and resources perfect for nonprofits needing advanced donor insights for nurturing.

DonorPerfect Pricing

DonorPerfect pricing starts at $89 per month for the Lite tier and increases to $259 per month for Essentials, which is geared toward larger nonprofits. Each tier’s pricing can increase based on the number of records. Our review covers the Lite and Express tiers, as they are the most appropriate tiers for small to medium-sized nonprofits.

Additional tools and functionality can be added on for the following fees:

• QuickBooks integration: $29 per month add-on fee
• Workflow automation: $29 per month add-on fee
• Crowdfunding tools: $49 per month add-on fee
• Phone and email support: $29 per month add-on fee for Lite; $49 per month for Express

DonorPerfect Tiered Features

Lite

Lite offers nonprofit CRM features such as text-to-give, volunteer management, and integration with advocacy tools like Votility. In addition, it includes five-year giving reports along with comprehensive summaries of donor history and highlights for $89 per month for unlimited users for up to 1,000 records. Other features include custom reports and live chat customer support along with live webinar training and a knowledge base.

The Lite plan is best suited for nonprofits needing donor management and fundraising tools with robust customer support and educational resources. It’s great for nonprofits without budget constraints, seeking a nonprofit CRM with a la carte features and advanced reporting. The starting price point is a lot higher than the low-cost, nonprofit-focused and general use CRM options in this article, but it has a lot more add-on features than the other CRMs featured.

Express

The Express plan builds on the Lite plan, offering a few more features like Constant Contact integration and hosted file storage in its monthly pricing. Prices in this tier start at $159 per month for up to 2,000 records, and it allows you to add additional records at $29 per month for every 2,000 records.

This plan is great for medium to large nonprofits wanting hosted storage and Constant Contact integration. It’s also great if they want to integrate their nonprofit CRM with QuickBooks for an additional $29 per month. This tier’s pricing starts lower than Kindful’s second tier pricing, but it can go higher depending on the number of add-ons you choose from integrations and the number of records.

What DonorPerfect Is Missing

DonorPerfect is missing a number of features, such as basic phone support and integrations with tools like Constant Contact and QuickBooks without paying for an upgrade. If basic phone support is important and you don’t want to pay for it, consider NeonCRM’s Empower tier, which starts at $200 per month. Other options include Kindful, which offers free phone and email support during business hours, or consider a lower cost, general use CRM like Freshsales.

What Users Think About DonorPerfect

Users like DonorPerfect overall. They like the robust features and especially find the training and support top-notch. User dislikes include the learning curve involved in becoming familiar with the system’s features.

Best CRM for Nonprofits With an Online Store: Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a low cost, general use CRM with a free plan and features well-suited for nonprofits like online payment tools, a built-in dialer, web forms, and product catalogs. This makes it great for budget-conscious nonprofit startups or smaller nonprofits that fundraise through purchases made via an online store or over the phone.

Bitrix24 Pricing

Bitrix24’s free plan is for up to 12 users and includes up to 5GB of online storage. Paid plans start at $31 per user, per month for the Plus Plan and go up to $79 per user, per month for the Standard Plan. They also offer a 15% discount on paid versions for nonprofits.

Bitrix24 Tiered Features

Free

Bitrix24’s Free plan, which supports 12 users, offers a variety of features, including lead and contact management (which can be used for donor and prospective donor management) and 5GB of storage. In addition, this plan supports one online store, which nonprofits can use to sell products. Users can also make fundraising calls with the built-in phone or accept donations from a landing page.

This plan is great for small nonprofits or startups with no budget that only need basic, yet effective tools to start raising money and managing contacts and donors. Of all the nonprofit CRMs we compared in this article, Bitrix24 and Freshsales are the only ones offering a free plan. However, Freshsales’ plan does not include ecommerce tools.

Plus

The Plus plan builds on the Free plan, offering more storage (from 5 GB to 24GB of online hosted storage). It also doubles the number of users, from 12 to 24. You’re able to record more calls with the built-in phone, from 100 to unlimited call recording. The number of landing pages also expands from one to five. Pricing starts at $31 per month and includes 24 users. Nonprofits also get a 15% discount.

This plan is great for growing nonprofits out of the startup phase needing to accommodate more than 12 users and also needing more online hosted space. In addition, pricing is substantially lower than the out-of-the-box nonprofit CRMs. In addition, Bitrix24 is also the only provider offering a nonprofit discount. It also offers a restricted number of recorded calls, unlike Freshsales, which doesn’t have this restriction.

Standard

The Standard plan builds on the Plus plan, expanding its number of users to 50 and amount of online storage to 100GB. Call recording is expanded to an unlimited number of records. You can also create up to 10 online stores and 10 landing pages. Prices in this tier start at $79 per month.

This plan is great for medium-sized expanding nonprofits with no more than 50 users. The 10 online stores allow you to create a variety of stores to sell different categories of products. Ten landing pages also allow you to create a variety of donation or giving campaigns. Unlimited call recording allows you to listen to calls, provide feedback, and showcase best practices when you hear good calls. The phone features in this tier are on par with Freshsales.

What Bitrix24 Is Missing

Bitrix24 is missing unrestricted built-in phone features and nonprofit-specific features like donor management and donation pages out-of-the-box. For fewer phone restrictions, you’ll have to use a tool like Freshsales. If out-of-the-box nonprofit tools are important, consider one of the nonprofit-focused CRMs like Donor Tools, which is low cost.

What Users Think About Bitrix24

Users like Bitrix24 because it’s easy to use, has robust features, offers a free option, and has affordable paid options. Dislikes revolve around its mobile app having limited capabilities. For more information on user reviews, checkout our Bitrix24 review article.

Best CRM for Corporate Donor Phone Outreach: Freshsales

Freshsales CRM is a versatile, customizable, and affordable general-purpose CRM with a free tier that can adapt to serve nonprofits targeting corporate donors and volunteers. It offers nonprofit-friendly features like a built-in phone with call transfer and call recording, profile enrichment, a robust mobile app, and access to a number of integrations. This makes it a budget-friendly option for nonprofits that do most of their outreach efforts over the phone.

Freshsales Pricing

Freshsales’ pricing ranges from $12 per user, per month to $49 per user, per month for paid plans geared towards small to medium-sized nonprofits. There’s also a free version that includes the built-in phone and offers basic lead and contact management functionality for unlimited users.

Freshsales Tiered Features

Sprout

Sprout is Freshsales’ free plan that offers CRM features like a built-in phone with call recording and basic lead scoring, but does not offer the more advanced features like advanced lead scoring, workflows, territory management, and lead assignments found in the paid plans. Its contact management features accommodate individuals and companies, making it great for nonprofits targeting corporate donors and volunteers.

Additionally, nonprofits can use the Sprout plan’s lead scoring to help them target their most promising donors. Sprout offers core CRM features that are beneficial to nonprofits in targeting and communicating with current and prospective donors. However, compared to Bitrix24, it’s missing key fundraising tools like a landing page and an online store to drive funding. Unlike Bitrix24, Freshsales offers unrestricted call recording in its free plan.

Blossom

This plan builds on Sprout and provides more advanced business-to-virtual-centric (B2V-centric) CRM tools like advanced lead scoring, workflow automation, expanded bulk emails, pipeline management, and advanced reporting. It also offers call forwarding and transfers. Starting at $12 per user, per month, this plan can help nonprofits become more productive by using tools that keep them even more focused on the right corporate donor leads and eliminate tasks that can be automated.

Features like advanced lead scoring enhance a nonprofit’s ability to focus on the best leads, making Freshsales a great CRM overall, and its bulk emails allow you to reach a wider audience of donors and prospects. Freshsales’ Blossom plan is, therefore, the best option for nonprofits looking to take their fundraising and operational efficiencies to the next level.

Garden

Starting at $25 per user, per month, the Garden plan expands on Blossom and includes sales rep activity reports and territory management. It also offers forecasting features, lead scoring by email activity, lead assignment rules, and expanded automation workflows. Unlike the first two plans, Garden allows you to create multiple pipelines, which is great for nonprofits fundraising with multiple campaigns.

Features like territory management can help nonprofits segment their sales or volunteer teams by campaign, product, or territory. Features in this tier can also facilitate grouping reps or volunteers by function. This plan is, therefore, best for nonprofits that have scaled to the point of segmentation and specialized roles.

Estate

The starting price for the Estate plan is $49 per user, per month. It offers expanded sales campaigns, lead scoring, and bulk email capabilities. It also offers auto profile enrichment, which enhances account profiles with additional information found on customers’ social profiles and other places on the web without manual research.

Expanded sales and marketing capabilities, along with the ability to auto populate lead and account enrichment details into individual profiles, help nonprofits scale and personalize their marketing and outreach efforts. The Estate plan is therefore great for nonprofits with a rapidly growing donor base wanting to scale their efforts while offering a personal touch during current and prospective donor interactions.

What Freshsales Is Missing

Freshsales is missing nonprofit-specific features like grant management or peer-to-peer fundraising that Kindful, NeonCRM, and DonorPerfect have. It also lacks marketing tools like the landing pages and online stores offered by Bitrix24 and NeonCRM. If these features are important, consider one of the out-of-the-box nonprofit CRMs or Bitrix24.

What Users Think About Freshsales

Freshsales users find it easy to use with great support. User dislikes usually fall into the category of minor glitches or occasionally, the system running slowly. For more information on reviews, see our Freshsales review page.

Bottom Line

Nonprofit CRMs help organizations fulfill their missions, save time, and raise money. The nonprofit-specific CRMs featured in this article offer great options for busy nonprofits of varying sizes and budgets. However, if tools like gift management, integration with government advocacy lists, or text-to-give are more functionality than you need, general use CRMs can also be easily adapted for nonprofits, and often come at a much lower cost.