Donation Management Software

Donations are critical for nonprofit organizations and maintaining strong donor relationships is essential to sustain a nonprofit’s operations. To maintain lasting donor relationships, nonprofits need to track a variety of metrics such as donor interests and preferred modes of payment.

Additionally, nonprofits need to manage the back-end processes that support their fundraising events, marketing campaigns, and regulatory compliance.

Using a donation management software tool can not only help automate these tasks but also manage them centrally using a dashboard. We’ve prepared this guide to help you understand the key capabilities of donation management software. In this buyers guide we’ll cover:

• What is donation management software?

• What are the deployment options for donation management software?

• What are some common features of donation management software?

What is donation management software?

Donation management software is a tool that helps nonprofits manage donations, donor relationships, and associated tasks such as marketing and event management. The tool allows aligning donation objectives by identifying patterns in donor behavior such as donation frequency and donor interests.  

What are the deployment options for donation management software?

In order to select a software that meets your specific needs, you should check the deployment options available. Here are the two main types of deployments: 

Cloud-based deployment: Vendors host cloud-based software on their own or third-party servers. They also take care of maintenance and support for these solutions. Users can access these solutions through any computer or mobile device connected to the internet. Cloud-based solutions usually have a subscription-based pricing model, paid annually or monthly.

On-premise deployment: Businesses host on-premise software on their own servers and handle maintenance, support, updates, and data storage themselves. Users can access these solutions through applications installed on their computers. The pricing model of these solutions is usually a one-time per-user license fee.

Key question to ask cloud-based (SaaS) vendors: What security measures do you have in place to safeguard against cyberattacks?

Key question to ask on-premise solution vendors: What is the typical deployment time for the software? Are there any additional costs besides the licensing fee? 

What are some common features of donation management software?

Gaining an understanding of the common features of donation management software will help you shortlist products that meet your requirements.

Here are the common features of donation management software:

Donor management: Record donor name, donation amount, date, frequency, cause, and payment mode. Share receipts for donations and send notifications for recurring donations, refunds, and payment failures.

Individual donor dashboard in Bloomerang

Donation tracking: Keep a detailed record of donations received through different channels, such as partner websites and your online donation page. Integrate with payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe and sync donation data to your database.

Donation Tracking in Trail Blazer Non-Profit Manager

Fundraising management: Create fundraising goals and track the progress of each goal. Share fundraising event updates through social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

Fundraising page in Auctria

Campaign management: Run marketing campaigns to promote causes and increase their visibility. Segment donors in your database and maximize campaign success with donor targeting and scheduling communications based on donor profile.

Campaign management in EveryAction

Key question to ask a vendor before you buy: Does your software support integration with payment processing and accounting tools such as PayPal or QuickBooks?

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Note: The applications selected in this article are examples to show a feature in context, and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations, obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.