Technology

Almost everything written about nonprofit software is produced by nonprofit software companies, or by publishers earning a commission when you click. It is not usually false. It is just written to make one product look inevitable, and a recommendation that gets paid the same either way carries more information.

We take no affiliate money and no payment for coverage, which is the whole reason this section exists.

What you can get for nothing

Start here, because most organizations are paying for something they could have free.

Google Workspace gives qualifying 501(c)(3) organizations Business Starter free. Business Standard drops to about $3 per user per month and Business Plus to about $5, discounts in the region of 80% or more, for up to 2,000 users.

Microsoft 365 gives Business Basic free for up to 300 users to organizations with an annual operating budget of $20 million or less. Business Premium falls to roughly $5.50 per user per month against $22 at retail.

Both verify through TechSoup. Verification is often close to instant for a straightforward 501(c)(3) and can take one to three days otherwise. Google approval typically runs 2 to 14 business days after that.

Two organizations of ten people, one on the free tiers and one paying retail, differ by several thousand dollars a year for identical software. Registering with TechSoup is probably the highest-return hour a small nonprofit can spend.

Common exclusions apply almost everywhere: organizations that are primarily religious in purpose, political organizations, schools in some programmes, and anyone whose policies conflict with the vendor's non-discrimination terms. Read the restrictions before you build a plan around a donation.

The honest answer about a CRM

A spreadsheet is a perfectly good donor database for longer than vendors would like you to believe.

The point it stops working is not a number of records. It is when more than one person needs to update it, when you need history rather than current state, or when a lapsed donor goes unnoticed because nobody was watching dates.

Organizations tend to buy a CRM about a year after they needed one, then use perhaps a fifth of it. Both halves of that are worth avoiding, and the second half is the expensive one: you pay for the tier with the features you were sold, not the tier with the features you use.

What actually matters over three years

Processing cost is one input and rarely the deciding one. Over a realistic horizon, these matter more:

• Can you get your data out? Ask what export looks like before you sign. Vendors who make it straightforward tend to be confident you will not want to.
• Does reporting answer the questions your board actually asks? Not the questions the demo answered.
• Does it handle recurring gifts properly, including failed cards and expiry, without someone chasing manually?
• What happens when the person who set it up leaves? Institutional knowledge living in one head is a real cost.
• What does year two cost? Introductory pricing and per-record tiers have a way of moving.

Buying order for a small organization

If you are starting from nothing, roughly this sequence causes the least regret. Email and documents first, free through the programmes above. Accounting second, because the 990 depends on it. Payment processing third, chosen on your typical gift size. A CRM last, when the spreadsheet has actually broken rather than when someone suggests you look unprofessional without one.

What we are writing next

A verified directory of every vendor with a nonprofit programme and what qualifying requires, donor CRMs assessed on published pricing and real use, accounting options, and comparisons that name the plan examined and its price on the date checked.

What to buy, in what order

Starting from nothing, this sequence causes the least regret.

The free tiers worth claiming first

Most small organizations are paying for something they could have free.

Google Workspace gives qualifying 501(c)(3) organizations Business Starter free, with Business Standard at around $3 per user per month and Business Plus around $5, for up to 2,000 users.

Microsoft 365 gives Business Basic free for up to 300 users to organizations with an annual operating budget of $20 million or less, with Business Premium at roughly $5.50 per user per month against $22 at retail.

Both verify through TechSoup, which is often close to instant for a straightforward 501(c)(3). Google approval typically takes 2 to 14 business days after that.

Two organizations of ten people, one on free tiers and one paying retail, differ by several thousand dollars a year for identical software. Common exclusions apply: primarily religious purposes, political organizations, and anyone whose policies conflict with the vendor's non-discrimination terms.

Questions to ask before signing anything

1. Can we export our data, and in what format? Ask before you sign. Vendors who make it straightforward are usually confident you will not want to.
2. Does reporting answer what our board actually asks? Not what the demo answered.
3. How are failed and expiring cards on recurring gifts handled? Manually chasing these is a real job.
4. What does year two cost? Introductory pricing and per-record tiers have a way of moving.
5. What happens when the person who set this up leaves?

Where a page covers a specific product it states which plan was assessed and when. Pricing changes, and a review that does not say when it was written is not telling you enough.