Nonprofit Marketing Software: An Ultimate Guide to Fundraising Software for Nonprofits

Fundraising is essential for a successful nonprofit organization. Collecting donations from your community and getting the word out about your cause is what keeps the lights on and keeps you working toward your mission. 

Luckily, there are several software options available to help you with your fundraising efforts. 

ArcStone has worked with nonprofit organizations for decades, so we understand the benefits of having the right tools for the job. We put together this ultimate guide to fundraising software to help you decide which tool is right for your nonprofit.

Let’s dive in!

MobileCause

MobileCause touts its fundraising tool as an all-in-one solution. And with a wide breadth of functionality, they’re not wrong. MobileCause offers everything you need to start a fundraising campaign in minutes, including: 

• Online and mobile donation forms and text-to-donate functionality
• Event fundraising with a live-giving thermometer to track donation progress toward your goal
• Peer-to-peer campaigns that expand your reach
• Text messaging for fundraising, so you can reach your community no matter where they are
• Easy to use reporting to track your progress and measure success

In addition to all this, MobileCause can manage donations, donation receipts, recurring contributions and help you raise more money with auctions and events.

A standout feature of MobileCause is their belief that nonprofits should receive 100% of the funds they raise. They don’t charge any processing fees and have negotiated for low credit card processing fees.  

DonorPerfect

DonorPerfect is a comprehensive fundraising solution for nonprofit organizations of any size. It is ready to scale with you as you grow. Their donor management functionality helps you grow your donor database and retain donors over time. The integrated donor communications tools help you reach your donors by email, mail, and other ways with personalized messages.

Additionally, DonorPerfect has:

• Integrated donation forms and payment processing for easy fundraising
• Event management tools that help you plan your event, track tasks, and metrics visualization 
• Automated donation receipts and thank you messages, including gift recording and recognition
• Customizable analytics and reporting so you can measure the effectiveness of your fundraising campaign
• Integration with ConstantContact and auction management, among other popular software integration partners

What stands out the most for DonorPerfect is its focus on donor relationship management. They offer custom reporting that helps you track a donor’s activity and have automated communications to help retain and inspire inactive donors. 

Blackbaud Fundraising

Blackbaud is a cloud-based fundraising solution and donor management system. Their tools are intuitive and easy to use for even the less than tech-savvy amongst us. They help consolidate and streamline fundraising and donor management so your organization can spend more time on mission-driven work. 

Blackbaud offers:

• Streamlined online donation payment processing
• Intuitive dashboards that help you visualize and share what’s working and what’s not across your team
• A donor database that helps you identify missing contact information so you can reach your donors in the way they prefer
• Marketing and engagement tools that help you raise awareness with email campaigns and other channels
• Analytics tools to gain insight into event and fundraising performance, volunteer turnout, and more

Blackbaud’s standout functionality is its focus on tech tools that make your life easier. From analytics to donor cultivation to their robust database, these tools will help you streamline your processes so you can focus on what matters most, your mission.

Kindful

Kindful offers fundraising and donor management software that keeps things simple, so you can focus on other tasks, like promoting your mission. Kindful leverages integrations for a tool that is bound to work with some of the tools your nonprofit is already using. With more than 50 integrations, Kindful has created not just a fundraising tool but a software ecosystem that works seamlessly to handle many of your organization’s needs.

Additionally, Kindful offers:

• Easy online fundraising with unlimited donation pages and embeddable donation buttons
• Event ticketing and registration with landing pages to sell tickets and check guests in, as well as performance metrics so you can see how well your event performed
• Accept donations, pledges, and recurring donations along with text-to-give functionality
• Peer-to-peer and crowdfunding pages to expand your reach
• Donor accounts so they can check on their giving history, manage payment information, and more

What stands out about Kindful is its many software integrations. While they focus on creating easy-to-use fundraising and donor management system, they realize the pain points that can arise when your disparate tools can’t communicate. Their integrations with industry-leading tools like Quickbooks, Mailchimp, and GoFundMe make that hassle a distant memory. 

EveryAction

EveryAction enables nonprofits of all sizes to advance their missions with their unified customer relationship management and fundraising tool. Their unified platform merges donor activity, communication, and donations into one place, so you have easy oversight of all your fundraising activities. They also allow you to segment your donor list for targeted campaigns, which can be a highly effective strategy. 

EveryAction also includes:

• Digital communication across channels such as email, text messaging, social media, and more
• Mobile optimized donation pages with one-click contribution functionality for a fast and smooth donation process
• Easily manage multi-channel campaigns with planning, execution, monitoring, and tracking 
• Reporting dashboards with visually stunning charts and graphs to share progress and celebrate wins
• Virtual events management for online and offline fundraising 

EveryAction’s standout feature is the ability to segment your donor list and reach out to them across many different channels. This means that you can nurture new community members and inspire inactive members to become involved again with targeted messaging and campaigns. 

Bloomerang

Bloomerang is another cloud-based fundraising and donor management solution. They have pored over donor management and retention best practices to deliver a tool that helps you maintain and grow your donor community. Bloomerang offers a clean, sleek interface that is intuitive, easy to use and minimizes any less used functionality that can crowd other software. 

Bloomerang offers:

• Management of not just donors but your entire community, including volunteers, sponsors, grantees, and more
• Customizable, embeddable donor forms that automatically create and update donor records
• An engagement meter that provides insight into donor behavior, down to the individual level
• Intelligent reporting that allows you to highlight the information that matters to your stakeholders 
• Integrations with popular tools such as Quickbooks, Eventbrite, ConstantContact, and more

What makes Bloomerang stand out is the ability to measure and quantify donor engagement and generosity. With this insight, you can focus on the most likely donors to contribute and nurture those relationships with targeted campaigns.  

Choosing the Right Fundraising Software for Your Nonprofit

When it comes to selecting the right software for your nonprofit, there are several things to consider. First and foremost, understand the budget you are working with to find software that meets your needs but doesn’t break the bank. Secondly, take a close look at the tools you are currently using. Try to find a tool that integrates with or plays nicely with the solutions you’ve already invested in. Lastly, ensure that the software will do what you need it to do, doesn’t overlap with tools you already have, and makes your life easier. After all, what’s the point of investing in a solution that adds more to your already full plate? Look for solutions that streamline and automate as much as possible, and you’ll be grateful after your next fundraising campaign.