ARTICLE
27 Recommended Affordable or Free Nonprofit Software Tools
Topics -
Software solutions keep the nonprofit sector in motion. 67% of nonprofits use a constituent relationship management system (CRM) to track donations and manage supporter communications. That’s just the start—nonprofit software tools come in many varieties, offering support for marketing, event and auction planning, form building, and much more.
However, many nonprofits operate with tight budgets. According to a National Council of Nonprofits report, the vast majority of nonprofits operate at the grassroots level, and 88% have budgets less than $500,000. If your organization falls in this range, you may be interested in free, discounted, or affordable software solutions to help carry out your strategies while staying within budget.
This guide highlights the top affordable and free nonprofit software solutions to turn to for support. We’ve grouped these solutions into the following categories:
- Donor Management
- Fundraising
- Project Management
- Communication
- Design
- Forms
- Marketing
- Events
- Website Content Management System
As you assess each option, keep in mind that seemingly “free” platforms may still come with costs. Even platforms with no recurring monthly or yearly fee may require a transaction or processing fee to process donations. Carefully consider fee structures to find the right balance between access to features and a high net donation amount.
Free Nonprofit Software Disclaimer
When looking at software solutions, it can be tempting to choose a free or the cheapest option available. On one hand, this saves your team the time you’d spend researching products and determining which one is a worthy investment, as well as the money you’d spend making that investment.
There are many reasons why opting for a free fundraising solution could be tempting to your nonprofit:
- You might be curious about the impact that paid donor database solutions can have on your nonprofit. Is it worth it to spend the money?
- You may not see a significant difference in the features you’ll use when comparing free and paid options.
- You may not want to change how you currently manage donors, which means you’d like to invest as little as possible in a different solution or approach to donor management.
These are all reasonable considerations. However, we’ve seen that when it comes to free fundraising software, you often get what you pay for. That means you likely won’t see the results—increased fundraising revenue, increased donor retention rate, increased average gift size—that you would likely see when using a paid solution. Plus, these free solutions can often limit your ability to fundraise effectively, costing you even more money than what you’d spend to invest in a paid fundraising software solution.
Why you might not want to choose free nonprofit software
An important thing to keep in mind when looking at free fundraising software solutions is that they often come with additional costs, meaning they’re not actually free.
Let’s take Salesforce, for example. Many of our nonprofit customers have switched from Salesforce to Bloomerang. In almost every case, customers were drawn to the fact that the Salesforce nonprofit CRM was free. However, once they started using the software solution, they realized that it was more complicated than they thought.
Often, they had to pay a consultant to help them set up their database and teach them how to use it. We’ve even heard some customers say they paid up to $15,000 to do this! Even with the consultant’s help, they had to endure a lengthy implementation period; it was months before the system was set up.
As you can imagine, customers ultimately ended up paying more money and spending more time than they would have if they had just invested in a dedicated donor database like Bloomerang.
Now let’s look at Excel, which a lot of nonprofits initially use to track their data.
Although it may seem like this is an easier way to manage data, it comes at the cost of the following drawbacks:
- Security: What happens if your computer is stolen and someone gains access to all of that donor data?
- Features: You’ll likely need to invest in other software solutions to send emails, collect online donations, etc., which will make it harder to organize and sync your data.
- Accessibility: It may not be easy to share the sheet with others at your organization. And, the more people you share the spreadsheets with, the more potential security risks there are.
- Support: There’s no one readily available to help answer your questions or fix something if you have an issue with the program.
Based on what our customers tell us, it’s often better to seek out an affordable paid solution built specifically for nonprofits.
Best Free Nonprofit Software for Donor Management
Donor management software, also known as nonprofit CRMs, are solutions that allow nonprofits to store donor information, track interactions over time, identify prospective major donors, and maintain ongoing communication with supporters.
Bloomerang
Platform overview: Bloomerang is an affordable, powerful, and easy-to-use fundraising software solution that will give you the functionality you need. You can access the full functionality of our platform starting at just $125/month.
Top features: With Bloomerang, you’ll get access to essential features like:
- Unlimited users
- Access to Bloomerang Academy, where you’ll find free resources and classes that are designed to help you become a more effective fundraiser
- Unlimited online forms, including online giving and event registration pages
- Email marketing tools
- Complimentary email and chat support
You’ll also get exclusive features not offered by any other software solutions, like:
- Constituent Engagement Level™
- Constituent Generosity Score™
- Communications Audit Tool
- Research-backed Donor Engagement Surveys measuring donor satisfaction, commitment, trust, and intimacy
- Sustainability Scorecard
- Donor Retention Wheel
Because Bloomerang is built to grow with you, you’ll also have the option to upgrade to other features as you need them.
Want to learn more about what Bloomerang’s user-friendly, robust, and affordable nonprofit donor database has to offer? Schedule a demo to find out how your nonprofit can leverage Bloomerang’s tools to better manage and retain your donors.
Client success story: We’ve seen plenty of examples of organizations that have switched from free fundraising solutions to Bloomerang and experienced a boost to their fundraising and donor management strategies. One of those organizations is the German American Heritage Center (GAHC), a nonprofit dedicated to preserving German heritage and sharing knowledge about the German immigrant experience.
The GAHC had been using Excel to manage campaigns but didn’t have a way to view each donor’s giving history and other crucial donor information. They sought a more expansive, easy-to-use system to manage donor data and grow supporter relationships.
Their team found its solution in Bloomerang. They were able to benefit from Bloomerang’s intuitive interface, donor-centricity, and custom field functionality.
Kelly Lao, Executive Director at the German American Heritage Center, said the Bloomerang system allowed the GAHC to turn more lapsed or new donors into sustained givers. The team can now easily view top donors, consistent donors, and lapsed donors who are most likely to give again.
View Bloomerang’s customer results page for more success stories from organizations that have made the switch to Bloomerang.
Fees or limitations: Bloomerang is committed to transparent pricing. The Bloomerang Payments processing fee is 2.2% + $0.30 for credit and debit card transactions, 2.2% + $0.49 for PayPal transactions, and 0.8% + $0.30 for ACH transactions. Our platform also gives donors the option to cover processing fees, which they choose to do about 70% of the time. When donors cover processing fees, nonprofits take home about $99 for every $100 raised.
Donorbox
Platform overview: Donorbox is an online fundraising platform that prioritizes increasing nonprofit revenue through donation forms that convert. Nonprofits can access a donation button they can add to their websites, along with text-to-give, peer-to-peer fundraising, crowdfunding, membership, and events features.
Top feature: Donorbox’s UltraSwift Checkout feature allows donors to quickly complete payments in just a few clicks, promoting higher conversion rates.
Fees or limitations: The Donorbox standard plan is $0/month with a 1.75% platform fee. With a 2.95% platform fee, users can access more features, like events and memberships.
GivingFuel
Platform overview: GivingFuel offers donor management and fundraising software at affordable rates. The platform contains a donation page builder, nonprofit CRM, recurring gift functionality, and more.
Top feature: Users gain insight into online traffic, transaction times, website visits by device type, and conversion rates with real-time analytics.
Fees or limitations: The starter plan is $0/month with a 4.99% credit card fee per donation.
Top Free Fundraising Software Solutions
Fundraising software solutions are tools nonprofits can use to accept online donations and report on giving trends. These solutions give organizations a trustworthy, reliable platform to securely and quickly process donations.
Qgiv
Platform overview: Qgiv’s fundraising platform was designed with the donor experience in mind. Nonprofits can use the platform to create mobile-friendly donation pages, personalized touchpoints, and other elements that optimize the giving experience.
Top feature: Through Qgiv’s integration with Bloomerang, nonprofits can launch peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns that make it easy for supporters to create personal fundraising pages.
Fees or limitations: Qgiv offers a plan for smaller nonprofits that is $0/month with a 3.95% (Qgiv + Merchant) + $0.30 transaction fee.
PayPal
Platform overview: PayPal is an online payment processing platform. Nonprofits can use PayPal to add a donate button to their websites, create a branded donation process, send invoices, and manage payment transactions.
Top feature: PayPal allows donors to choose specific programs or projects to donate to, giving a greater sense of flexibility and control over the giving process.
Fees or limitations: There is a transaction fee of 1.99% and a fixed fee depending on the currency used.
GoFundMe
Platform overview: GoFundMe is a crowdfunding platform that has helped raise over $25 billion in donations since 2010. Individuals or nonprofits can create fundraising pages to share their missions and raise many individual donations that add up over time.
Top feature: GoFundMe makes it very simple to start a fundraiser on the platform, providing an easy option for urgent fundraising needs or nonprofits just starting with fundraising campaigns.
Fees or limitations: There are no fees to start a fundraising campaign, but there is a 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee per donation.
Best Free Project Management Software for Nonprofits
Project management software is specialized productivity software that makes it easier for teams to collaborate on projects, set deadlines, and keep their fellow team members up to date on the status of different tasks. Nonprofits can use this software to track fundraising campaign progress or assign roles within a larger project.
Asana
Platform overview: Asana’s project management platform supports streamlined workflows with features like customizable project layouts, multiple ways to visualize task lists, custom labels and fields, and more. Ultimately, the platform seeks to make it easy to customize your workflow to your nonprofit’s needs.
Top feature: The tasks feature helps teams break down large projects into manageable steps with clear task owners and agreed-upon timelines.
Fees or limitations: Asana’s Personal plan for individuals and small teams is free but only allows for 10 team members to use the platform. Eligible nonprofits can receive 50% off of the Starter or Advanced plans.
Trello
Platform overview: Trello is another project management and productivity platform focused on giving organizations greater insight and control over their workflows, with boards, views, and templates.
Top feature: Trello’s no-code automation function, called Butler, helps ensure that tasks don’t fall through the cracks by triggering automated actions, suggesting automation based on common repetitive tasks, and integrating with other apps for cross-platform automation.
Fees or limitations: Trello’s free plan allows for up to 10 boards per workspace and 250 Workspace command runs per month.
Monday.com
Platform overview: Monday.com enables workflows based on your organization’s needs, including views like Gantt charts, Kanban, and more. Run Agile sprints, marketing campaigns, and other initiatives to support your nonprofit’s goals.
Top feature: Monday.com’s mobile app allows you to stay organized while on the go. You can create new tasks, communicate with stakeholders, and share updates across teams.
Fees or limitations: The free plan is targeted toward individuals, with a three-board and two-user limit.
Top Free Communication Tools for Nonprofits
86% of employees and executives attribute workplace failures to a lack of effective communication. Communication and messaging tools help employees get in touch quickly and efficiently to keep projects moving forward and promote accountability.
Slack
Platform overview: Slack is a messaging platform that enables employees to send and receive multimedia messages, including regular chats as well as audio and video clips.
Top feature: Slack’s foundational feature is channels. You can create channels for different projects, campaigns, teams, or topics. This keeps all conversations focused.
Fees or limitations: Slack’s free plan is limited to 10 app integrations and limited version and messaging histories.
Google Workspace
Platform overview: Google Workspace for Nonprofits is a flexible productivity and communication platform with multiple apps to streamline team collaboration. This includes Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Slides, Meet, and more.
Top feature: Google’s Drive app is a helpful resource management solution for nonprofits. You can centralize your team’s documents, images, videos, and other resources into one accessible location. This can streamline everything from new employee onboarding to cross-team collaboration and secure file sharing.
Fees or limitations: The free plan for nonprofits is limited to 100 participants for video meetings and 30 GB of cloud storage per user.
Dropbox Sign
Platform overview: Nonprofits may need to share important documents and agreements, such as employment contracts or conflict of interest policies. Dropbox Sign enables organizations to prepare, send, sign, and track documents.
Top feature: Dropbox offers automated reminders so your nonprofit doesn’t have to chase down missing signatures.
Fees or limitations: Dropbox Sign starts at $18/month for one user and 3 TB of storage.
Best Free Nonprofit Software Tools for Graphic Design
Your nonprofit’s brand is an essential marketing tool—81% of consumers say brand trust is a deciding factor when determining whether to make a purchase. Graphic design tools help your nonprofit develop and distribute cohesive branded materials while staying within your budget.
Canva
Platform overview: Canva is a free online graphic design tool with special features for nonprofits looking to increase brand awareness. Using Canva, you can start a new design from scratch or choose a template based on your marketing goals and needs.
Top feature: The platform’s AI solution, Magic Studio, helps kickstart the creative process by brainstorming ideas for written copy and images. The solution can even generate videos and images based on text inputs.
Fees or limitations: Canva’s free plan for nonprofits allows for one team of up to 50 users. Additional users are 50% off.
Adobe Express
Platform overview: Adobe offers several paid graphic design tools, like Illustrator and Photoshop. Their free tool is Adobe Express, which allows users to develop everything from newsletters and presentations to videos and annual reports.
Top feature: Adobe users have access to a robust asset library of over 195 million royalty-free Adobe Stock collection photos, videos, and music.
Fees or limitations: The Adobe Express Premium Plan is free for all nonprofits. Nonprofits can have 250 generative credits per month for generative AI features like Text to image and Text effects.
Top Free Nonprofit Software for Forms
There are many moments throughout nonprofit work where a form can come in handy. Whether you need to gather volunteers’ dietary preferences for an event, ask donors for feedback, or survey your nonprofit’s staff about when they’d like to have your office Christmas party, form software can help you design the right form to gather crucial information.
Jotform
Platform overview: Jotform is a free online form builder that allows users to create forms from scratch or using a template.
Top feature: Jotform has a wide range of integrations with other software platforms, including CRMs, email platforms, payment processors, and storage apps. This enables nonprofits to seamlessly transfer data between platforms without having to fret about potential data losses.
Fees or limitations: The free plan has a five form limit and only enables 100 monthly submissions.
Cognito Forms
Platform overview: Cognito Forms empowers nonprofits to create forms for gathering donations, recruiting volunteers, and soliciting supporter or staff feedback.
Top feature: The no-code, template-based form builder offers a quick and easy way to get started while still allowing your nonprofit to customize forms with your unique branding.
Fees or limitations: The free plan is limited to one user and 500 entries per month.
Google Forms
Platform overview: Google Forms is another part of the Google Workspace ecosystem. This tool enables users to build forms in just minutes, collaborate with team members to add questions, and share the forms on a website or social media.
Top feature: Analyze your data using charts that are updated in real-time. Visualize trends and patterns to make data-driven decisions.
Fees or limitations: The Workspace personal plan is free, with a limit of 15 GB per user.
Best Free Nonprofit Software for Marketing
Nonprofits use all types of platforms to spread their messages—according to the 2023 M+R Benchmarks report, nonprofits sent an average of 60 email messages per subscriber in 2022. In addition, nonprofits sent 21 text messages per subscriber per year, representing a 28% increase in volume from 2021. Social media is as popular as ever, with 99% of nonprofits on Facebook and 95% on Instagram and X (Twitter).
Nonprofits need a way to promote their missions and fundraising opportunities to a wider audience, and marketing software provides the tools needed to get the word out.
Google Ads
Platform overview: Google Ads are digital advertisements that appear across the Google ecosystem, including Search, YouTube, and Discover. These ads can help drive traffic to your website by targeting users who research topics similar to your nonprofit’s mission.
Top feature: Your nonprofit can achieve optimum performance with Google’s AI, which helps create more relevant ads that appeal to your audience and drive conversions.
Fees or limitations: Nonprofits can access $10,000 per month in free Google Search advertising via the Google Ad Grant. To maintain access to the grant, organizations must comply with regulations such as maintaining at least a 5% click-through rate each month and maintaining a high keyword quality.
Constant Contact
Platform overview: Constant Contact is an email and digital marketing platform that meets users at their level, whether they’re just starting out or at an advanced level. In addition to support for email campaigns, nonprofits can also use the platform to launch social media and SMS marketing.
Top feature: Ensure timely messages are sent with marketing automation, which helps to maintain engagement and build stronger relationships over time.
Fees or limitations: Constant Contact offers a 20% discount off standard pricing when prepaying for 6 months or a 30% discount when prepaying for 12 months. The standard pricing is $35/month and includes three users and 10 GB of storage.
MailChimp
Platform overview: MailChimp is another email marketing solution that helps organizations optimize their email campaigns with segmentation, automation, and reporting features. The platform also offers tools for managing social media, SMS, and website campaigns.
Top feature: MailChimp’s reporting and analytics tools allow users to centralize data across platforms, such as Google Analytics and Shopify sales reporting. This way, you can analyze the results of multiple campaigns side-by-side.
Fees or limitations: The platform’s free plan is limited to one user, 1,000 monthly emails, and one primary marketing audience. MailChimp also offers a 15% nonprofit discount for certain features.
Hootsuite
Platform overview: Hootsuite is a social media marketing platform that integrates with multiple top social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Create and publish social media posts, track analytics, and monitor brand mentions.
Top feature: Take social media interactions a step further with engagement tools, which help you respond to messages from followers, comment on other posts when appropriate, and track engagement over time.
Fees or limitations: Hootsuite offers a discount of 75% with Hootsuite for nonprofits. The professional plan is $24.50/month.
Top Free Nonprofit Software for Events
81% of U.S. donors attend nonprofit fundraising events. Events are an effective way to bond with supporters, build stronger relationships, provide value to your community, and increase fundraising revenue. Explore top nonprofit solutions for virtual and in-person events.
Zoom
Platform overview: Zoom is a virtual meeting platform that allows teams to collaborate and gather even when working remotely. Nonprofits can also use Zoom to livestream events, making them available to broader audiences.
Top feature: Zoom’s event platform simplifies event management with hybrid ticketing options, a mobile companion app, a virtual expo floor, and more.
Fees or limitations: Zoom’s free plan is limited to 40-minute meetings and 100 attendees. Nonprofits can access a 50% discount via Techsoup.
Google Meet
Platform overview: Google Meet enables secure video conferencing across a variety of device types, including mobile, tablets, and desktops.
Top feature: Google Meet offers multiple ways to make video calls more accessible, such as live captions and noise-canceling features.
Fees or limitations: The free plan for nonprofits is limited to 100 participants for video meetings.
Eventbrite
Platform overview: Eventbrite provides online ticketing software to drive registrations. Create customizable event pages, multiple ticket types, social posts to promote events, and more.
Top feature: The Eventbrite organizer app helps event coordinators manage ticket sales, check-ins, and merchandise sales while on the go.
Fees or limitations: The free plan is limited to 25 tickets and 250 marketing emails. There are no fees for free events but a 3.7% + $1.79 service fee per ticket and a 2.9% payment processing fee per order.
Best Free Content Management Systems for Nonprofits
Content management systems (CMS) are tools that enable organizations to manage content on their websites. This includes creating pages and blog posts, managing forms, enabling e-commerce, and more.
WordPress is by far the most popular content management system for all organizations, with about 43% of all websites and 60% of nonprofits using the platform. But there are many other options available—explore a few free and affordable platforms here.
WordPress
Platform overview: WordPress is a free, open-source CMS, meaning anyone can view and change the software’s code to suit their needs. Nonprofits can start a website from scratch using available templates or work with a web designer (usually the preferred method) to build a custom website tailored to their needs.
Top feature: WordPress is generally considered to be highly user-friendly, with a simple editing experience that allows even inexperienced users to upload content with ease. The WordPress Block editor is very intuitive and beginner-friendly, with added features to support search engine optimization and enhanced content readability.
Fees or limitations: The WordPress free plan offers unlimited pages and users. However, you’ll have to pay for your domain name and website host (many hosts offer free domain names). A website host is a platform that houses your website and makes it publicly available on the internet. Prices vary based on the hosting provider you choose.
Drupal
Platform overview: Drupal is also an open-source CMS that many nonprofits use to build secure, scalable websites. Drupal is considered one of the most flexible CMS platforms, with modules that expand a website’s functionality.
Top feature: Drupal offers advanced security features to keep online data safe. These features include access controls, database encryption, and frequent security patches.
Fees or limitations: Drupal is free, but it is considered a more complex CMS, meaning your nonprofit would likely benefit from working with an experienced designer to make your site look and work great. The same caveats regarding domain and hosting fees also apply.
HubSpot
Platform overview: HubSpot offers not only CMS functionality, but also CRM software, a marketing hub, commerce tools, and more. Their marketing software helps track engagement from multiple angles—conversions, website traffic, leads, new contacts, and more.
Top feature: HubSpot’s CMS features a simple drag-and-drop page editor that doesn’t require any coding or advanced technical expertise.
Fees or limitations: The free plan for HubSpot’s CMS software offers basic features but lacks added functionality like live chat and email support and advanced SEO recommendations.
Additional free nonprofit software resources
Now that you’ve reviewed the pros and cons of no-cost fundraising tools, as well as a few top options, you can determine which solutions are worth it for your organization.
Looking for more information about nonprofit software? Learn more about how to make the most of the top nonprofit software solutions available to you with the help of these resources:
- Fundraising Apps: 25+ Tools To Help Your Org Raise More. Fundraising apps help you raise more for your nonprofit’s mission. Take a look at this comprehensive list of the best platforms available.
- 19 Incredibly Easy Online Fundraising Ideas and Expert Tips. Want to revamp your online fundraising strategy? Check out this complete guide to effective online fundraising tips and ideas.
- What is Donor Management Software? 9 Best Solutions. Ready to invest in a new donor database? Take a look at Bloomerang’s software buyer’s guide and ranking of the top donor management solutions.
Explore a donor database software that nonprofits love to use.
Comments