BlogWebsite & Technology 46 Unique Nonprofit Software Tools to Bring You Success in 2024! Website & Technology 46 Unique Nonprofit Software Tools to Bring You Success in 2024! Author: Tatiana Morand April 12, 2024 Contents 🕑 17 min read Feeling like you’re doing too many tasks by hand? That’s because you probably are. Being able to automate many of your day-to-day tasks will completely change how you manage your nonprofit, allowing you more time to focus on your mission. We’ve compiled a list of 46 online tools to help you succeed. Why Invest in Nonprofit Software Many nonprofits are resistant to change and ask the question: Can’t I just do it in spreadsheets? You can… if your community is still small (less than 50 members and/or donors). However, as your community grows, it will get increasingly difficult to keep track of all of your relationships, communications, events, initiatives, programs, partners and finances. By investing in quality software tools, you and your team members will be able to: Automate most of your administrative tasks so you can spend more time on more important work like building and serving your community building Scale your activities and results with minimal effort Save money in the long-run Bring in more revenue thanks to proven marketing and fundraising tools Avoid human error mistakes that come with doing everything manually Easily pass on institutional knowledge and data to new staff members Easily analyze data to help identify what you’re doing well and where you can improve What Nonprofit Software Do I Need? There are countless software tools that could help your organization operate more effectively and provide a better experience for your community. You certainly don’t need to invest in all of them — the costs would quickly add up, and practically speaking, too many tools in your tech stack would get complicated and inefficient. Where possible, look for tools that serve more than one need and integrate with each other, so you can make the most of your software budget. To help you decide which software tools to invest in, we’ve broken our list down into the following categories: Accounting, Invoicing, Billing Tools Keep track of things like your expenses, payroll, donations, and member dues. Discussion Forums, Online Community Tools These will help members of your community stay in touch with you and each other when they’re not meeting in person. Events Management, Registration, Scheduling Tools Manage things like invitations, registrations, payments, and logistics. Fundraising Software, Online Payments, Donor Management Tools Accept and process donations, manage donor relationships, and communicate with prospective and current donors. Mailing List Management, Email Marketing, Newsletter Tools Send timely, relevant, and personalized communications to members of your community. Meeting Management, Conferencing, Virtual Meeting, Webinar Tools Collaborate with team members and meet with donors or partners in the virtual space Membership Management, Contact Management (CRM) Nonprofit Tools These will help you manage memberships and keep your community engaged Presentation, Video, and other Multimedia Tools Create visual media to support marketing, fundraising, or other initiatives Project Management, Document Editing, Sharing, Collaboration Tools Collaborate more effectively and be more productive as an organization SMS Text Marketing Tools Send timely updates to members of your community via text message Social Media Tools Grow a social media community through scheduled posts and timely engagement Time-Tracking Tools These will help you and your team members be more productive and spend your time more effectively Volunteer Management Tools These will help you recruit, schedule, and manage volunteers Website Analytics, Data Collection, Tracking Tools Track the effectiveness of your website and make improvements accordingly Website Builders, Blogs, Content Management (CMS) Tools Build and maintain a website All-In-One Solutions for Nonprofits These are tools that include any number of the above features, so you can take care of everything in one place What Should I Consider Before Implementing Nonprofit Tools? With each new tool you’re thinking of implementing, especially the more substantial ones, consider the following: Timeline: How long will it take to buy and implement the new software? Is there a deadline by which you need everyone to be comfortable with it (for example, if you’re using an event management software before an upcoming event or a virtual conferencing tool before an important meeting)? Budget: What kind of pricing plan is most appropriate for your organization? How many users do you need to pay for? Is there room in your budget for this new software? ROI: What’s your projected return on investment? Is the cost of the software justified and will it help you save money and time or bring in more revenue? Buy In: Who will be using the new software? Have they had a chance to trial it? Are they happy with the choice? Will it make their work easier or more efficient? Board Approval: How will you go about getting approval to purchase the new software? Have you put together a presentation or proposal? What are your options if you get denied? Nonprofit Discount: We know budgets can be tight, it’s important to check if the software provider offers a nonprofit discount. If you don’t see it mentioned on their website, ask their support or sales agent. You can also receive nonprofit software discounts when you sign up with techsoup. How to Choose Your Perfect Nonprofit Software Follow these 6 steps when choosing your nonprofit software: Assess needs: Where are you struggling currently with managing your nonprofit? Are you spending too much time handling the accounts? Are you frustrated with sending out newsletters manually through gmail? Consider the things that you wish could be simplified and automated through a software. Review with team: Present your thoughts to the team and express how you believe there is a better way. Your time and your team’s time could be used better if there was a tool to assist. Get their input on what tasks they find time-consuming or unnecessarily complicated. Explore Options: research the best tools to solve your problem. Find at least 3 options to test out before committing. Don’t forget to get your team’s input on the research. Seek Demos: Most software companies will offer demos of their product. This is the best way to ensure it will be able to solve your pain points. Test Run: Try out the software option you researched. Make sure that the team members that will be using the software the most have tried it out. Confirm: Ask yourself and your team if the software is optimizing tasks and that the adjustment was smooth. The All-In-One Nonprofit Software You Need to Try One of the best nonprofit software solutions is an all-in-one software called membership management software. It saves time and money by automating all of the major administrative tasks of any nonprofit. For example, it can: Process online payments for events, membership, renewals, and donations Update an easy to search and filter contact database Improve member communication through automated invoices, emails, and newsletters Easily create a website where you can host events, donations, news, a blog, member-only resources, a directory, and more Instantly access simple financial reports and analytics And more! Here at Wild Apricot, we’re proud to be voted the #1 membership management software on the market and help over 26,000 membership organizations save time and money. If you’d like to see whether Wild Apricot may be the right choice for your organization, you can start your free, 60-day trial of a premium Wild Apricot account here. Keep reading to discover other software options we’ve collected for you! Best Nonprofit Accounting Software These are tools that will help you manage your finances — all the money that’s going in or out of your organization, whether that’s expenses, payroll, member dues, or donations. All organizations need accounting software, but nonprofits especially, because they need to maintain extremely accurate records of their financial transactions. This is used to report financial information to the government to maintain their nonprofit status. Accounting tools will help make this process much quicker, easier, and free of human error. Quickbooks A cloud accounting software that allows you to access your data on any device. They offer unlimited invoices, income and expense tracking, downloadable bank transactions, professional templates, and many other features. Quickbooks also provides a completely free invoice generator, which doesn’t require a login and has no limit to how many invoices you can send. You can add your own logo, customize the invoice, and download it immediately. Pricing: Free 30-day trial. Plans start at $15/month. What we like: This is a super user-friendly experience with all the features you’d need: accounting, expense tracking, reporting, invoicing and payments. MoneyMinder MoneyMinder is Non Profit Central’s web-based accounting software for nonprofit treasurers. Enter transactions, reconcile accounts and generate reports quickly and accurately, track and manage events and fundraisers, and share financial reports with your board. Pricing: Free limited account. Paid plans start at $199/year. What we like: A great free accounting software for nonprofits with features like an online store, budgeting and membership tracking. Their full version has even more features and is easy to learn with great customer service. Freshbooks FreshBooks online invoicing service lets you track time and expenses, create, send and track invoices and estimates, and collect payments quickly. Add-ons are available to expand its capabilities. Pricing: Plans start at $5.70/month. What we like: They have multiple pricing tiers, making it budget friendly for everyone. Plus they frequently offer discounts. This also integrates with a lot of commonly used apps, making the transition easier Best Community Discussion Forum Software These are online spaces where you can keep your community engaged, and where they can engage with each other and discuss topics related to your mission. While the best form of communication is face-to-face, this isn’t always possible. That’s where building an online community can be the next best thing. A forum moderator will also have key insight into the concerns, pain points, aspirations, and motivations of your members and can use that knowledge to help your nonprofit work on increasing the value it offers. CreateAForum A free online forum tool which supports unlimited posts, topics, and boards. Create A Forum allows you to create photo galleries and supports an e-commerce system to help you grow your business. Pricing: Free limited account, paid plans start at $5/month. What we like: A free plan option allows for any nonprofit to add this to their repertoire. Plus we love the ability to build an ecommerce system for non-dues revenue. Crowdstack Pro Crowdstack Pro provides an online environment for your community interact and give you feedback. Create public or private forums that can scale to any size. Pricing: Free trial. Paid plans start at $999/month. What we like: No usage limits with unlimited members, page views, bandwidth and file storage. Unison.io Unison is communication software for groups. From small clubs and committees to large churches and non-profits, Unison strengthens and grows communities through better communication and organization. Pricing: Free limited account, paid plans start at $15/month. What we like: Features like being able to see when a message is opened, polls and forms in emails and the ability to filter out members for personalized messaging. Best Events Management Software for Nonprofits These are tools that will help you plan and execute events — they can take care of registration, payment processing, attendee communication, and even marketing. Events are one of the best ways to attract new members, but they can also be extremely overwhelming. Event management software automates most of the work and ensures that everything runs smoothly. Amilia Registration, reporting, CRM, fundraising, billing and more, Amilia is a complete event management tool for any organization. Pricing: Plans starts at $99/month. What We Like: The option to demo the software. Ability to track payments and registration in real time with detailed account reporting. Bizzaboo An all-in-one event platform offering a website builder, mobile app, CRM, and analytics. Pricing: Multiple tiers available. Prices are available upon request. What We Like: Great visuals and user experience with the ability to really brand and customize your event app and website. Plus they have personalized attendee journeys you can track and leverage for marketing. Eventbrite for NonProfits Set up an online registration page for your nonprofit event in minutes, then take advantage of Eventbrite’s promotional tools to send email invitations or publicize your event on social networks. Pricing: Multi-level pricing. Starts at $0 per event for up to 25 tickets. What We Like: Easy ticketing and marketing tools with built-in payment processing. Best Nonprofit Fundraising Software & Donor Management Tools These are tools that can help you fundraise online, execute peer-to-peer or crowdfunding campaigns, collect payments and donor information, and much more. When it comes to fundraising, you want to spend more time generating leads, and less time completing paperwork. Fundraising software can automate all your payments, ticket sales, and reports, plus it can help you create donation pages and spread the word online. We also have a post on fundraising ideas to get you inspired. Donorbox Donorbox is powerful fundraising software that is super simple to set up and attracts more recurring donors. Start fundraising with a fast, optimized donation payment system in 15 minutes. Pricing: Starts at $0 per month + 1.75% or 2.95% Donorbox platform fee + payment processing fees. DonorPerfect DonorPerfect provides a complete fundraising and donor management solution to help you reduce your workload and build relationships with your constituents. Pricing: Plans start at $99/month. Network For Good Network for Good is a donation management tool that has processed over $1 Billion in donations for more than 100,000 nonprofits. It’s 3 main capabilities are peer-to-peer fundraising, donation pages, and donor management. Pricing: Demo available. Pricing available upon request Best Mailing List & Email Marketing Software A comprehensive mailing list management tool can keep track of all your contacts, newsletters, campaigns and even provide analysis on open and click rates. If your contact list is growing and you’re still using outlook and excel to communicate with your contacts, you’ll soon reach a breaking point. ActiveCampaign Beautiful templates, robust tracking (including social media reactions), plus a user-friendly interface makes ActiveCampaign one of the most popular choices for small business and nonprofits as well as some of the Fortune 500 big boys. Loads of guides and resources will help new users learn best practices for email marketing and get up to speed with this service. Pricing: Plans start at $29/month for up to 1000 marketing contacts. Constant Contact SpeakUp! Email Marketing by Constant Contact lets you create professional-looking emails with no technical expertise, manage your contact lists and measure results. More than 400 templates, a step-by step Email Wizard, and point-and-click interface. Pricing: Plans start at $12/month. MailChimp MailChimp do-it-yourself email marketing service lets you create attractive HTML emails, build subscription forms, manage your contact lists, and track results. Integrates with Excel, Salesforce, Highrise, etc. Pricing: Free limited account. Paid plans start at $13/month. Top Nonprofit Board Management Software These are tools you can use to organize virtual meetings and events. Software can help you increase engagement and communication amongst your team. Plus, holding a virtual meeting may be more convenient if your staff has to travel or lives in different regions. BoardEffect Features include online board books, scheduling, approvals, archives, new member orientation tools, surveys, ad hoc groups, and more. Pricing: Demo and pricing available upon request. BoardPaq Cloud service and app for planning, running, and managing paperless board meetings. Pricing: Demo and pricing available upon request. LucidMeetings Automate and standardize your meetings in one centralized platform. Features include automated tracking, timing, reminders, scheduling polls, professional email invitations, calendar invites, and meeting templates. Pricing: Plans start at $12.5/host/month. Best Nonprofit CRM Software Reaching the limits of maintaining your membership database in Excel? There’s a better way, and it’s called membership management software. Easily search, update, organize, and filter all your members using this type of software. Membership management allows small associations and nonprofits to automate the ‘boring stuff’: managing contact records, automating membership applications and renewals, handling website updates, tracking event registrations, and sending out receipts and reminders. AddressTwo Organize your contacts, manage leads, follow-up, tasks and activities with this simple CRM. It’s designed for small business, not just a downscaled version of enterprise-level software, so may be a good fit for many smaller nonprofits as well. Pricing: Free 14-day trial available. Plans start at $14.95/month. SageCRM SageCRM.com is a low-cost, easy-to-use on-demand CRM solution. A fixed monthly price covers the hosted CRM application, support, training, backups and updates. SageCRM.com also offers the flexibility to migrate to an on-site CRM software system as your needs evolve. Pricing: Available upon request. Salesforce Salesforce is the leading customer relationship management solution. Salesforce Group Edition starts for less than $9 per user per month, nonprofits receive a 50% discount on training, and qualifying nonprofits may apply for a Nonprofit Edition license donation. Pricing: Available upon request. Best Project Management Software for Nonprofits These are tools designed to help you and your team members manage projects effectively and productively. Ever tried to dig for an attachment in an email that starts like this: RE: FWD: RE: RE: RE: ? Use these tools to eliminate the frustrations of coordinating projects through email and help increase your team’s productivity. Asana Asana is an easy way for teams to track their work. From tasks and projects to conversations and dashboards, Asana enables teams to move work forward. Pricing: Free limited account. Paid plans start at $10.99/month. Basecamp Basecamp web-based project management and collaboration software lets you share files, meet deadlines, assign tasks, and centralize feedback. Pricing: Free 30-day trial, starts at $15 per user per month or $299/month for pro. Dropbox An easy and secure way to upload and share any type of file with anyone. Pricing: Free limited account. Paid plans start at $9.99/month for 1 user or $15/month for 3+ users. Best SMS Marketing Tools These tools allow you to communicate with members and donors via text message. Did you know that text marketing has the highest digital communication open rate at 95%? That’s a hard-to-ignore stat with a lot of opportunity: marketing campaigns, event reminders, member chat, etc. The list goes on and on. EZTexting EZTexting is a bulk SMS messaging service that supports all major Canadian cell phone carriers as well as US. It allows easy creation of segments so that you can send targeted texts. Plus they have an open API so that you can integrate your text messaging into your website or internal CRM system. Pricing: Plans start at $20/month. JA.TXT Reliable text software capable of sending a variety of different campaigns including quizzes, surveys, coupons, and other customizable campaigns. An account manager will work with you one-on-one to deliver the best possible outcome for your team. Pricing: Plans start at $99/month. TextMagic A text messaging service for any type of business, foundation, or association. It allows you to craft personalized text messages, schedule and send out alerts. You can check out the stories of their nonprofit customers in their Case Studies. Pricing: $0.049 per text. Best Social Media Marketing Tools for Nonprofits These are tools that can help you schedule posts and publish them automatically, as well as analyze their effectiveness. Being active on social media can help you grow your online community and spread your message to more people. Hootsuite Automatically find and share content your audience will love, and keep your social presence active even when you’re not. Schedule 100s of posts at a time. Use Suggestions to find great content to share. View scheduled messages by day, week, or month in calendar view. Pricing: Free 30-day trial. Plans start at $99/month. Bitly Shorten any URL and track how many clicks it gets. Pricing: Free limited account. Paid plans start at $8/month. Canva Create any design using Canva’s pre-made designs and graphics. Pricing: Free limited account. Paid plans start at $119.99/year. Google Alerts Get notified whenever your organization or any other organization you wish to follow gets mentioned on the internet. Pricing: Free Volunteer Management Software Volunteer management tools are used to recruit, schedule, and manage volunteers. Volunteers are the lifeblood of many nonprofit organizations. These tools can automate a lot of the administrative work so you can spend more time building personal connections with them and making sure they have a great volunteer experience. BetterImpact Easily keep track of all your volunteers on the cloud. Features include volunteer application forms, training tracking, email communication, scheduling and reporting. Pricing: Utilize the handy pricing calculator to find the cost for your nonprofit. Galaxy Digital All-in-one community engagement software that can help recruit, manage, track and retain volunteers. Mobile-friendly. Pricing: Free demo. Pricing available upon request. Volgistics A comprehensive volunteer management system with scheduling, tracking, reporting, volunteer portal, group tracking, and text and email communication. Start a free trial, or a trial pre-loaded with sample data. Pricing: Utilize the handy pricing calculator to find the cost for your nonprofit. Most basic plan starts at $9/month. Website Analytics, Data Collection, Tracking Tools These tools help analyze how well your website is working, what pages people are visiting, and how long they’re staying there. You have a good website, but you want to make it better. An easy way to understand where there’s room for improvement is by integrating an analytical tool. And if you’re maintaining a membership database, here are 10 mandatory membership fields to keep track of. Google Analytics Google Analytics is a powerful web analytics solution, now with Google Adwords integration to track the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. Detailed reports help you learn who your website visitors are, where they come from, and how they interact with your website. Pricing: Free QuestionPro QuestionPro’s Nonprofit Waiver Program offers registered nonprofit organizations free access to the survey software for data-collection and analytics for as long as they need. Pricing: $49/month for nonprofits. Premium plans start at $99/month. Clicky Clicky is a real-time web analytics service that allows you to track site pageviews. Pricing: Free limited account. Paid plans start at $9.99/month. Best Nonprofit Website Builders and CMS Solutions These tools help you build and maintain a website as well as your content. If you don’t have the finances to hire a site developer, an easy-to-use online website builder is the next best route to go. Many common features include a custom domain, a blog, and member-only areas. If you want a more in-depth review, you can also see our list of the best website builders for nonprofits. WordPress.com The hosted version of WordPress blogging software is available in over 50 languages. Set up a single-author or group blog (public, private, or password protected) on a WordPress.com subdomain, with a selection of design themes, 3 gigabytes of file storage, and more. Pricing: Free limited plan. Premium plans start at $4/month. Squarespace A fully hosted and managed website solution, Squarespace sites come standard with an integrated statistics system and 20+ integrated modules including a blog package. Pricing: Plans start at $16/month. Weebly Weebly offers easy-to-build hosted websites with 65+ templates, WYSIWYG drag-and-drop content widgets, and unlimited blogs within your site. Pricing: Free limited account. Paid plans start at $10/month. Elevation Web Nonprofit Website Design Elevation Web is a full-service agency that builds high-quality websites for nonprofits. They specialize in website design, graphic design, search marketing, and copywriting. Pricing: Available upon request. All-In-One Solutions for Nonprofits All-in-one solutions blend together many of the features we’ve already discussed in a single platform. From maintaining a contact database, to coordinating events, processing payments, managing member communication, and building your website… the list goes on and on. Don’t spread yourself thin trying to learn so many different systems. All-in-one software can rid you of this headache. WildApricot WildApricot is all-in-one web software that helps small associations and nonprofits to automate the ‘boring stuff’: managing contact records, automating membership applications and renewals, handling website updates, tracking event registrations, and sending out receipts and reminders. Pricing: Free 60-day trial. Paid plans start at $60/month with free upgrades and support, no long-term contracts, and no setup or processing fees. WildApricot takes all the capabilities of MailChimp, Excel, EventBrite, Outlook, and WordPress and combines them all into one comprehensive platform. MemberClicks While WildApricot is perfect for small organizations, MemberClicks serves professional associations, trade associations and chambers of commerce with more staff members and a larger contact base. It’s an all-in-one website solution, including an online CMS and permission-based group management to donation forms for collecting information and payments. Click here to learn more about MemberClicks. Pricing: Available upon request. Blackbaud Blackbaud incorporates nearly every tool a nonprofit of any type and size could ever need. Look through their A-Z list of more than 20 products. Pricing: Available upon request. Cvent All-in-one event management including features for conferences, on-site check-in, email marketing and payment processing. Pricing: Available upon request. Go Beyond Spreadsheets With Nonprofit Software! With all the work your nonprofit does, you shouldn’t have to spend on tasks that your software can simplify and automate for you. We hope this exploration of software for nonprofits has shown you some fresh possibilities! Curious about what an all-in-one management software could do for you? Sign up for your 60-day free trial of WildApricot today. Related Website & Technology Articles Website & Technology 🕑 7 Min Read 14 Best Club Management Software Tools That Save Time and Money Website & Technology 🕑 14 Min Read 12 Best Grant Management Software for Nonprofits Website & Technology 🕑 9 Min Read The 15 Best Software Solutions to Manage Volunteers The Membership Growth Report: Benchmarks & Insights for Growing Revenue and Constituents Get the report now!