The Best Nonprofit CRM Solutions

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Salesforce – Nonprofit Cloud is our favorite solution for nonprofits, closely followed by monday CRM. These CRMs are comprehensive and offer great solutions for managing your nonprofit operations. 

A CRM solution streamlines donations, fundraisers, campaigns, and queries. You can deal with every aspect of your organization from one place. 

Below, we’ll explore five of our favorite CRMs and discuss their features and benefits. Carry on reading to find out more, or use our free quote tool to be matched with CRM providers for your nonprofit. 

Provider Price Free trial Expert rating 
Salesforce –  Nonprofit Cloud$36 – $96 30 days4/5
monday CRM$0 – $39Free plan 4/5
Pipedrive US$14 – US$9914 days 3.5/5
DonorPerfect $99 – $49930 days 3/5
Neon CRM $99 – $2997 days 3/5

Salesforce – Nonprofit Cloud

Salesforce is the most used and most comprehensive CRM system in the world, and this version has been created to suit the needs of nonprofit organizations. Salesforce provides solutions for fundraising and marketing. You can track donors, personalize fundraising, set up timely communications, and use tools for upgrades and donor retention. 

You can view your paid and pledged donations in real time to keep a close track of your fundraising. You don’t need to hunt around for figures, because they’ll be displayed for easy access. You can create engaging and personalized email campaigns with the data stored in your system. You can also track and manage interactions to provide personalized, consistent communication. 

Salesforce – Nonprofit Cloud’s extensive customizability means the system can be difficult to implement unless you want no customization at all. In other words, it might not be very suitable for those who aren’t the most tech-savvy. But it also means you can customize the system to suit your exact needs, and even set up automation to reduce time spent on admin tasks. 

You should be aware that Salesforce – Nonprofit Cloud comes with limited storage, and you’ll need to pay for more if you need it. The bigger your organization, the more storage you’ll need. 

Read our Salesforce review

Pros

  • Flexible and scalable platform
  • 30-day free trial
  • Comprehensive

Cons

  • Need to pay extra for more storage

Salesforce – Nonprofit Cloud’s Pricing:

PackagePrice (per user, per month)
Sales & Service Cloud Enterprise Edition + Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)$48
Sales & Service Cloud Unlimited Edition + Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)$96
Sales Cloud Enterprise Edition + Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) $36
Sales Cloud Unlimited Edition + Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)$72

monday.com

monday CRM allows you to easily view entire donation pipelines, giving you clear insights without having to rummage around for info and make calculations yourself. You can automate personalized emails to provide an engaging experience for potential and current donors. 

monday CRM offers solutions to help manage your volunteers. You can assign tasks and shifts, view volunteer availability and integrate recruitment forms. Being able to manage your volunteers with ease helps create a smoother environment. 

You can automate admin tasks to relieve yourself and others of mundane tasks, freeing up your energy to be used on more meaningful duties. The system allows you to customize your workflows so you can prioritize, assign and track tasks to streamline processes and increase efficiency. 

Collaboration is made easy and you can work with others in multiple locations so that everyone’s always on the same page. You can integrate Monday.com with tools you already love, such as Slack and Zoom. 

Pros

  • Workflow automation
  • Automated personalized emails
  • Collaborative tools

Cons

  • Automations take some time to set up

monday.com’s Pricing:

PackagePrice (per user, per month)
Free$0
Basic$18
Standard$23
Pro$39
EnterpriseBespoke – contact monday.com

Pipedrive

Pipedrive gives you the ability to automate workflows, assign tasks and develop rules to provide great customer service. You can create targeted email campaigns with personalized emails, and you can follow up with donors. Piedrive allows you to create your own pipelines for your organization’s specific needs. This means you can create pipelines for workflows, communications and outreach efforts. 

Pipedrive offers a mobile app, making it easy to work on the go and stay on top of everything. You can easily organize and segment donors based on custom variables, meaning you can more efficiently track and target donors. You can also view customized dashboards for each donor, creating accurate forecasts based on their activity.

Pipedrive offers real-time reporting, so you’ll always know what’s happening at any given time. The 14-day trial makes it easy to test out this CRM system and see if it works for you. 

Pros

  • Mobile app
  • Insightful analytics
  • Donor dashboards

Cons

  • Limited functionality for its price

Pipedrive’s Pricing:

PackagePrice (per user, per month)
EssentialUS$14
Advanced US$29
Professional US$49
Power US$64
Enterprise US$99

DonorPerfect

DonorPerfect is a CRM system geared towards effectively managing donors and donor contributions. You can create forms within minutes with intuitive customization features, drag-and-drop tools, and colour selection. These tools let you create forms aligned with your organization’s branding. 

According to DonorPerfect, nonprofits tend to raise 20% more funds in their first year of using the system, and it can be integrated with QuickBooks and donation processing systems to further streamline the process. A user-friendly CRM, the system is easily implemented and comes with a mobile app, making it more accessible to everyone in your organization. If you still find you’re struggling to get to grips with it, paid and free webinars are available to help you learn it better. 

DonorPerfect specializes in dealing with donors, but it doesn’t manage event tracking well, and you can’t track and see which events a donor has attended. This can make it hard to engage effectively with a donor. 

Pros

  • Easy to use
  • Mobile app
  • Integrations

Cons

  • Can’t customize reporting

DonorPerfect’s Pricing:

PackagePrice (per month)
1,000 constituent records$99
2,500 constituent records$179
7,500 constituent records$299
25,000 constituent records$499
75,000 constituent records$799 

Neon CRM 

Neon CRM is easy to use, flexible, and customizable, with automation features that mean you can spend less time on admin tasks and more time on the important stuff. This CRM sends out membership renewal reminders, which are important for retaining and engaging members and donors. 

The platform is donor-centric and will suit you if you need a comprehensive system that has great reporting features – although the integrations are not as robust as they could be. The system is affordable and suitable for new or small organizations. You only need to pay for the features you need and use, so you’ll know exactly where your money is going. 

Pros

  • Easy to use
  • Workflow automation
  • Affordable

Cons

  • Limited integrations

Neon CRM’s Pricing:

PackagePrice (per month)
Essentials $99
Empower $299

Add-ons (one-off fees):

  • Data and implementation (assistance with data conversion and configuration: $600
  • Training and consulting: $600 

Next Steps

Choosing the right CRM is key to running a smooth and successful nonprofit as you can organize, collaborate and scale with ease. Being able to run campaigns, contact donors and view your current donations makes it easy to achieve your goals and track several aspects at once.

If you’re not yet sold on a CRM listed above, you can use our free quote tool to be matched with the best CRMs for nonprofits. Just give us a few brief details and we’ll do the rest. You’ll then be contacted by trusted CRM suppliers with no-obligation quotes so you can make an informed decision. 


How We Test CRM Systems for Businesses

We tested 13 market-leading CRM systems to evaluate them in terms of functionality, usability, cost, scalability, and more so we can make the most useful recommendations to Canadian businesses.

Our rigorous testing process means these products have been scored and rated in six main categories of investigation and 13 subcategories – in fact, we covered 84 areas of investigation in total. We then gave each category score a ‘relevance weighting' to ensure the product's final score perfectly reflects the needs and requirements of Expert Market readers – and that's our product testing algorithm in a nutshell!

Our main testing categories for CRM systems are:

Features: the functionalities and capabilities provided by the CRM software, such as contact management, lead and opportunity tracking, and task and activity management.

Help and Support: the resources and assistance available to users when they encounter issues or require guidance while using the CRM software.

Customization: the ability to tailor the CRM software to suit the specific needs and processes of the organization, e.g. customizing fields, layouts, and workflows.

Scalability: the ability of the CRM software to accommodate the growth and changing needs of the organization, such as the capacity to handle a growing customer database.

Price: the cost associated with using the CRM software. It includes factors such as licensing fees, subscription plans, and additional charges for add-on modules or features.

Team Structure – Sales CRM: determining if a platform makes it easier to manage large sales teams, including team dashboards, team hierarchies, and team inboxes.

Usability – Small Business CRM: assessing the simplicity of the interface, the ease of navigating through menus and options, and the overall user experience.

 


FAQs

What is a CRM system for nonprofits?

A CRM system is at its core a database, storing customer data and information. A CRM system spins this info into donor profiles, analytics and solutions to re-engage with previous donors.

Depending on the package you choose and the solutions a provider offers, you may be able to set up campaigns, personalized emails and automated tasks to increase productivity and efficiency. 

What’s the best cloud-based CRM for nonprofits?

Salesforce – Nonprofit Cloud, monday CRM, Pipedrive, DonorPerfect and Neon CRM are all great cloud-based CRMS for nonprofits. 

Almost all CRM systems are now cloud-based, which means you can access the system from multiple devices. As long as you have an internet connection, you can access the CRM from any corner of the world. 

What features can I expect in a CRM for a nonprofit?

Most standard CRMs for nonprofits will include the following features:

  • Donor management 
  • Volunteer management 
  • Online fundraising
  • Project management 

If your organization is in need of extra features or a customizable platform, you might find yourself paying a bit more. If you don’t need these, no need to worry – there are plenty of CRMs that offer a basic platform or package. 

If you expect your nonprofit will grow steadily in the near future, choosing a system that’s easily scalable is a good idea, as you don’t need to worry about switching CRMs and migrating all your data later on. 

Written by:
Zara Chechi
Zara is a Payments Expert, specialising in writing about Point of Sale systems. With a Law Degree from City University of London, she has used her legally-honed research and analytical skills to develop expertise in the Business Services world. Featured in FinTech Magazine, she quickly became an expert in payroll, POS systems, and merchant accounts.
Reviewed by:
James draws on his 4+ years experience as a researcher to offer specialized advice on a wide range of categories from CRM to Fleet Management. He believes all businesses can grow if they use the right tools and services.