16 Apps Your Nonprofit Needs: The Master List

Technology is key to operate any nonprofit successfully. Everything from website building to email communication to fundraising and event planning – technology is required. However, now more than ever phones are taking over the once computer-driven world.

Think about it: tap to pay is used in almost every store, concerts require mobile entry rather than a printed ticket and QR codes have taken over traditional menus at restaurants.

To stay on top of the game, your nonprofit needs to implement a mobile app. But the question is, which one is right for your nonprofit organization?

In this comprehensive list, we cover apps to help you save time on your administrative tasks, optimize your fundraising efforts, improve donor communications, revamp your events and so much more!

Ready? Let’s dive in.

16 of the Best Apps for Nonprofits

Canva

• Marketing App: Easily design graphics for newsletters, website, social media, etc.
• Available: iOs and Android.

Canva makes it easy to build graphics for anything your nonprofit wants to share or promote. If you’re working on a tight budget, it’s easy to create professional-level imagery without a graphic designer. Plus, your whole team can collaborate on your projects and share files with one another. Canva is very user friendly and you can even integrate it with your social media accounts to use their content planner for automating posts

If you’ve only ever used the desktop version, no worries! Canva’s app works the same, allowing you to create images for any platform using their preconfigured sizes, templates and graphics.

Pricing: Free for nonprofits —you just have to apply.

Read More: 10 Inexpensive (or Free) Nonprofit Marketing Tools That Create Stunning Visuals.

Toggl Track

• Time Management App: Easily track and manage time spent on tasks.
• Available: iOs and Android.

Does your nonprofit struggle with efficiency? Perhaps you’re spending too much time on one project and you’ve neglected your marketing and social media strategy. Using Toggl will allow you to track and manage your time, knowing what is truly worth your limited time.

Toggl will learn your schedule over time and will generate suggestions for time entries based on your habits. Use Toggl’s reporting features to visualize the data of your time spent on different projects. One of the best features it offers is calendar integration, allowing you to use meetings, events and interviews as time entries easily.

Pricing: Free for up to 5 users

Slack

• Communication App: Check in with your team and volunteers
• Available: iOs and Android.

Sending out information on your website, group chats, email chains or even Facebook pages can result in a lot of missed messages and communication errors, especially if you have a lot of members in your nonprofit. You need one central spot for communication that doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. Considering that people nowadays are always on their phones, why not use an app to do it?

This is what Slack is for. In Slack, you can create channels for different groups of people or topics, host 1:1 video calls called huddles, and message individually. If you’re on a tight budget, there is a free plan but you won’t be able to save your message history over long periods of time. So consider if this online tool is right for your nonprofit, plus there’s a browser version too!

Pricing: Free limited plan. Paid starting at $7.25 per user

VolunteerMatch

• Volunteer Management App: Finding volunteers and manage your event.
• Available: Cloud-based software accessible from any device

Volunteer match is exactly what it sounds like! It’s a platform for your nonprofit to find new volunteers who care about your cause and would be a good match. This software has over 1.3 million visitors and will give your nonprofit access to so many skilled and interested individuals in one easy place.

All you need to do is share your volunteer opportunity details on the platform, and VolunteerMatch ensures the opportunity is searchable to potential volunteers that fit your location, interest and skill type to help you find the right fit. (Much faster than posting on a bulletin board, right?)

Pricing: Free to be a part of their basic site. Paid plans for different functionality starts at $500/month

Zoom

• Video Communication App: Video call your team members.
• Available: iOs and Android.

Zoom is the top option for most individuals who like to video conference with others. If your nonprofit’s management team is all over the place, you’ll be able to easy meet and coordinate on projects virtually. This is also a great option if you don’t have a physical office to meet in!

Zoom will also allow you to meet with your volunteers and help you go through orientation and onboarding processes. A special bonus is if your members prefer desktop, they can still join calls if they don’t download the app.

Pricing: Free basic plan. Paid starting at $13.32/month per user.

Trello

• Project Management App: Keep your organization’s activities organized
• Available: iOs and Android.

Trello is a project management tool to help your nonprofit schedule and coordinate projects, manage calendars and due dates, share with your team members and manage tasks. Your nonprofit will love Trello for its ability to color code different projects/tasks, so all your volunteer activities can be blue, fundraising green, internal meetings are yellow and events red; or whatever your heart desires.

Trello will ensure your team meets deadlines and allows you to see what’s going on in your nonprofit in a calendar view. It also syncs across platforms, meaning the less tech-savvy can use it on their desktop if they aren’t a fan of managing projects handheld.

Pricing: Free basic plan. Paid plans starting at $5/month per user

Read More: 9 Super Productivity Tools for Nonprofits

Buffer

• Social Media App: Schedule social media posts in advance.
• Available: iOs and Android.

Social media is an important for all nonprofits. You need to raise awareness of your cause to increase membership, fundraising and volunteers. Did you know that 55% of people who engage with nonprofits on social media take some sort of action afterwards? However, managing your social media accounts and being consistent can be challenging when there are 500 other things demanding your attention.

That’s where Buffer can help. It’s a social media management app that allows you to connect your accounts and schedule your posts — saving you from having to be constantly online. Buffer is an app for nonprofits that allows you to maintain you social media presence without manually posting every day. Plus you can analyze your performance in their dashboard, allowing you to evaluate your reach to potential donors and volunteers online.

Pricing: Free basic plan. Paid plans start at $5/month

Coin Up

• Donation App: Connect and organize your members and supporters
• Available: iOs and Android.

Every little bit helps, right? Coin Up allows its users easily donate to a cause of their choice – and it could be your nonprofit! Users can either set a monthly donation amount or round up any debit or credit charge they make throughout the month, and then donate all of their spare change to the nonprofit of their choice within Coin Up’s platform.

Having consistent, recurring donations makes a huge difference for a nonprofit. Being able to process online donations makes your donor’s life easier too! Which is why Coin Up is a great tool to use. You can be one of the selected charities in their list by, registering here.

Pricing: Free non-partner program with 12.25% transaction fee deducted from donations. Paid partner program is $25/month for a 10% deduction.

DialMyCalls

• Communication App: Donor and supporter outreach through calls and texts
• Available: iOS and Android

When you have thousands of donors or supporters in your database, contacting each of them with info about your latest fundraiser or nonprofit event quickly becomes an onerous task — especially when you rely on phone calls and SMS messages as a big part of your outreach strategy.

DialMyCalls app automates your communication efforts. Use the app to notify your supporters in bulk text messages or automated calls. Create customized voice messages and/or texts with fundraising details or event specifics, and DialMyCalls will deploy your info to up to 3,000 numbers per minute.

Pricing: Plans are credit ($9.99/month) or contact based ($7.99/month).

Givelify

• Fundraising App: Receive donations from new users.
• Available: iOs and Android.

If you’re struggling to get donations at your events, you might be wondering if there’s an alternative to handing out your contact information and hoping for the best?

That’s where Givelify comes in. Their software allows you to create an app that’s branded in your organization’s colours to ask supporters for donations. They also provide donation management so that you can track exactly who your donors are and what amount they gave.

Pricing: 2.9% + $0.30 per donation.

Humanity

• Scheduling App: Create schedules for your nonprofit staff members and volunteers and process payroll.
• Available: iOS and Android

When juggling the availability of employees and volunteers, it’s almost impossible to create the perfect staff schedule. Issues like double-booking employees and understaffing for particular periods crop up often, causing the task to be a major time suck.

However, using a scheduling app like Humanity can take the pain out of staff schedules. You can view employee and volunteer availability, schedule them for shifts, manage vacation requests, and process payroll — all in one platform.

Pricing: Trial available upon request.

GiveButter

• Donor Management & CRM App: Manage your team and volunteers
• Available: iOS and Android

GiveButter is a game changer when it comes to an all-in-one fundraising software. It allows you to do everything in the fundraising process from building donation pages to executing fundraising events to engaging with donors. GiveButter makes the donation process easy and your events seamless by giving you the flexibility of in person, hybrid or virtual events.

Use key features like payment processing, build branded marketing campaigns through email and text, create customized donation forms and so much more. Their app allows you to accept in-person donations, check in event attendees and get live campaign updates right from your mobile device.

Pricing: Free with a 2.9% + 30¢ payment processing fee.

ConnectTeam

• Management App: Manage your team and volunteers
• Available: iOS and Android

ConnectTeam is an all-in-one solution for nonprofit professionals. It has features like scheduling and time tracking, internal communications, employee growth tools and task management. The best part about ConnectTeam is that there’s a free version! So you’ll be able to use a wide variety of features within a tight budget.

This type of software for nonprofits allows you to save a lot of time and money for you simple day to day tasks.

Pricing: Free basic plan. Paid plan starts at just $29 per month for up to 30 users

Wave

• Finance: Management App: Manage your accounting and invoicing.
• Available: iOs and Android.

Are you still handling your finances in a an Excel spreadsheet?

Still figuring out how to manage your nonprofit’s financials? It’s time to try something a little more robust. Wave helps you manage your income and expenses, as well as tracking your invoices and payroll — perfect for many small nonprofits who don’t have time to do it themselves. Their easy to use dashboard will give you a birds-eye view of your cash flow and any overdue invoices and bills.

The majority of their software is cloud-based, but they offer apps for mobile invoicing and receipt scanning so it’s easy for you to keep tracking your expenses on the go.

Pricing: Free starter plan. Pro plan is $16/month.

Bench

• Finance Management App: Manage your books and monitor your financials.
• Available: iOs and online.

Do you panic every time tax season rolls around? Although keeping your financial statements up to date is key to maintaining 501c3 status, it’s easy for it to slip to the bottom of your to-do list.

Enter Bench. They pair you with a team of bookkeepers so you don’t have to do any of the work of managing your financials yourself, and never have to worry that you’ll fall behind on filing form 990.

Pricing: Starts at $249/month

WildApricot

• Use it to: Manage your organization’s membership from your mobile device.
• Available: iOs and Android.

If you’re working as a membership manager, you probably find it difficult to keep track of who’s paid or who’s been to which event — not to mention duplicated, erroneous, and out-of-date contact entries.

That’s where WildApricot’s mobile app comes in. Our app for admins allows you to register new members, accept online payments, communicate with members, and set up events — wherever you are.

We also have an app for members, which allows your members to register for events, contact other members, and edit their profile.

If you want to test out the system, you can access our free, 60-day trial here.

Pricing: Free for any paid user of WildApricot.

Test out these options and see what works for your nonprofit! Whether you were looking for donor management tools, a way to make volunteer scheduling easier, fundraising management or an app to manage your tasks – we think this is a pretty comprehensive list!

Apps for nonprofits make a huge difference when managing your day to day activities. These are all powerful tools to help you achieve your mission, save you time and money and make a bigger impact. If you have an app that should have made our list – let us know!