Which CRM Should My Nonprofit Use?

Have you ever wondered: Which CRM should my nonprofit use?. The truth is, when it comes to which Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software your nonprofit should use, there’s no “one size fits all” answer.

On that note, I’ve put together a list below for you that breaks down the good and the bad of popular CRMs designed for nonprofits. Take a look…

1. Salesforce for Nonprofits

(+) Pros: 

1. Boasts itself as being a leader in providing a single, unified view of all interactions between clients, supporters, fundraisers, volunteers, etc., allowing you to get a high level understanding of all communications taking place
2. Provides 10 free user licenses with membership, and each additional memberships are sold at a discount for qualified nonprofits
3. Does a great job of integrating social media functionalities
4. Has great mobile compatibility
5. Is an excellent platform for workplace collaboration

(-) Cons: 

1. Requires significant upfront costs (if you need more than the 10 free user licenses that already come with it)
2. Is hard to customize to fit your organization’s needs. Hiring a consultant to customize the platform for you is likely the best solution.
3. Can be challenging to utilize according to customer reviews

($) Price: 

1. First ten licenses are free, additional users are up to around $70 per month

2. Neon

(+) Pros: 

1. Applications that are included in the platform are extensive ranging from donor and member management, to marketing and outreach, to fundraising and more
2. Designed for small to medium sized nonprofits
3. Great for growing nonprofits
4. Excellent for tracking revenue and constituent data
5. Offers customizable online donation pages that look exactly like your nonprofit’s current website
6. Users experiencing problems or those that have questions with the platform report that customer service is helpful and responsive

(-) Cons: 

1. A few of the platform’s tools, such as the event module and the social fundraising function, have been rated by customers as quite difficult to use
2. Training time is necessary for getting out of the platform what you pay for

($) Price: 

1. Starts around $50 a month

3. Salsa

(+) Pros: 

1. Provides excellent donor management, fundraising, and reporting tools
2. Includes digital marketing tools like email marketing and social media functions that help you engage your current and potential audience in a variety of ways
3. Offers unlimited users and custom fields
4. The support team has been described as informative and accessible by the platform’s users, offering free software training webinars and phone and email support

(-) Cons: 

1. While the extensive features that are included in the Salsa tool can be seen as a positive, a significant amount of training time is needed in order to properly use the tool at its full functional capacity  

($) Price: 

1. Starts around $250 a month

4. Blackbaud

(+) Pros: 

1. Includes online engagement tools, marketing, fundraising, and prospect research
2. Great for smaller nonprofits
3. Offers a variety of software packages that you can custom-tailor to fit your nonprofit’s specific needs
4. User reviews highlight that the software is intuitive compared to other CRM platforms, and that support is readily available when problems arise

(-) Cons: 

1. Customer reviews state that the social media and social fundraising function are not as strong as other CRM software tools
2. Reporting and data querying tools are cumbersome to use

($) Price: 

1. Price not immediately available

5. NationBuilder

(+) Pros: 

1. Known to be a very strong nonprofit CRM marketing software
2. Combines content management and CRM providing incredible audience engagement tools
3. Geared towards attracting more of your nonprofit’s potential audience to engage with your mission
4. Integrates with your nonprofit’s website and other current communication tools (i.e. email, social media platforms, financial tools)
5. Includes an unlimited number of users and storage
6. Users describe its user interface as “easy to use for everyone”

(-) Cons: 

1. More about attracting new members than managing your current audience base
2. All of the software plugins (i.e. donations management and the event planning tool) are built in, so if you are using a WordPress site you would have to convert it first

($) Price: 

1. Starts at $19 per month and you “pay as your grow”

Contact us at Creative Science to chat!