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Top Free CRM for Nonprofits: Boost Fundraising & Engagement

Have you ever felt like your nonprofit is being held back? Managing donors, volunteers, and campaigns can become disorganized quickly. A streamlined solution is needed to boost your mission, and that is where a free CRM for nonprofits comes in.

What if you could improve those processes while making more of an impact, all completely free of charge? It may sound impossible, but with the right free crm for nonprofits, your organization can achieve these goals. It is time for you to improve relations with the people who want to work with your nonprofit.

By leveraging readily accessible and user-friendly technologies, you can coordinate campaigns and track engagements, while also using all-in-one fundraising platforms to drive your goals further.

Engage supporters, retain donors, and maximize your impact with automation. Start with GoHighLevel for nonprofits.

What is a Nonprofit CRM?

What is a Nonprofit CRM?

A nonprofit CRM, often referred to as donor management software, helps organizations build better donor relationships. According to the Nonprofit Tech for Good 2023 report, 67% of nonprofits use a CRM to manage communications and track donations. Investing in these software options can also significantly help grow donor retention.

With integrated nonprofit CRM systems, you can manage donor data, track interactions, and create targeted email campaigns, saving time and improving overall efficiency.

Why Does Your Nonprofit Need a CRM?

Think of a CRM as the central nervous system of your nonprofit. It keeps track of every interaction you have with donors. It provides detailed reports on fundraising efforts and ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

These nonprofit CRM platforms also offer customer support to assist with any issues, helping your organization to reach potential supporters and manage events more efficiently.

Improve Donor Relations

A CRM helps you personalize communications with your donors. You can acknowledge every gift and keep track of their interests, meaning supporters feel more valued, and CRM tools are designed to help with just that. Personalized outreach could lead to more meaningful and sustainable engagement, which will enable the goal of any nonprofit, growth.

With donor management and donor database capabilities, you can create donor segments and send automated emails that resonate with their interests, ultimately increasing engagement and fostering long-term relationships.

Streamline Communications

CRMs centralize all communications, creating an organized workflow. This way, the marketing department is in contact with everyone, leading to more funds. These nonprofit crms are helpful when there are board members to stay in touch with.

By consolidating email campaigns, direct mail efforts, and other communication channels into a single platform, you can maintain consistent messaging and track the effectiveness of your nonprofit marketing efforts.

Mobile Friendly Experience

Did you know that 52% of nonprofit website traffic in 2023 came from users on mobile devices? If that data doesn’t grab your attention, what will? Having donation pages optimized for mobile devices means that transactions can be performed effortlessly by the end user from any location.

Cloud-based software allows for access from any device, helping you manage your organization efficiently.

Key Features to Look for in a Free CRM for Nonprofits

With lots of CRM software options out there, here’s what matters most when evaluating options for nonprofits.

Donor Management and Engagement Tools

Find tools that will let you effectively manage your donor data. Ensure that there are segments for donor groups and tracking donation history. The features that support engagements, will help ensure consistent communication, features, such as email marketing and social media integration are vital. With donor info you can now tailor your content directly at that segment with what will entice them to do more and help support more for longer.

The CRM tools should offer features like custom fields and donation management to provide a comprehensive solution for your fundraising campaigns.

User-Friendly and Customizable Options

Make sure any potential software nonprofit options have interfaces that can be easily used. Consider systems with interfaces which work for the team. Extra points if any solution has customizability in order to match workflow or allow any specific user’s preferences. These factors make everything simple to use no matter what someone’s prior skill set may be.

A clean interface and customizable features reduce data entry time and make it easier for your team to adopt the CRM platform, regardless of their technical expertise.

Event Management and Fundraising Tools

Evaluate if any solution is designed to drive events to raise funds. Look for tools that manage online fundraising and provide proper resources in order to help you track all incoming donations. Your fundraising events can take more control to organize so they will achieve all of your objectives and bring revenue. This allows you to reach out on multiple channels on and offline to help capture the goals you set forth.

Features such as payment processing and event coordination are essential for planning successful fundraising events and managing donor interactions effectively.

Reporting and Dashboards

Dashboards that offer at-a-glance analytics, make things so much simpler. Track fundraising, donor acquisition, and gifts effortlessly with the insights gleaned from these reporting tools. The importance of quality donor acquisition insights cannot be overstated, it will help give directions where you will go with your messaging.

Robust reporting capabilities help you monitor the effectiveness of your fundraising efforts and identify areas for improvement, ensuring that your nonprofit stays on track to meet its goals.

Scalability

It is important that any CRM will be able to adapt with any size team. Having flexibility and tools you need in your moment is key to not slow the mission down. Your mission will be met efficiently when you decide to improve a free option. Then a paid one will open up to continue to achieve your results as your audience keeps on growing exponentially.

A scalable CRM solution grows with your nonprofit organization, providing the flexibility to add more users and features as your needs evolve.

Free CRM Options for Nonprofits

Free can be great, but is it sustainable for large Nonprofits? We are going to see which CRMs may work for you or be a cost-effective choice when deciding between options.

Great for Smaller Teams

Here are several solid CRM options for smaller nonprofit teams:

EngageBay

With a free crm for organizations managing up to 250 contacts, EngageBay gives social media engagements in order to help find new donors and sustain relationships. When deciding what direction to go with to target, always use social channels and tailor your ads to the right age group or demographics.

It is great for internal management as well as building donor relationships and sustaining relationships.

Keela

Keela is women-led and has a team of people from more than 17 countries. Also Keela has a free crm available for organizations managing less than 250 contacts. Women owned and supported from around the globe is where Keela focuses their resources to give you what you need from a non-profit standpoint to get things rolling.

The nonprofit crm platform offers comprehensive features like donation management, email marketing, and reporting, making it a strong contender for smaller nonprofits seeking efficient solutions.

Larger Teams or Enterprises

For nonprofits that are big or ready to become a bigger team. Here are a few CRM’s that may just suit your business.

Funraise

Even though Funraise’s free access is limited for under 1,000 supporters, Funraise offers exceptional donor software. These donor management tools, wealth screenings, email automation and fundraising will give your company what is necessary to create donor driven data.

With its user-friendly interface and focus on donor engagement features, Funraise is designed to help your organization grow.

What About SalesForce?

Through the Power of Us Program any eligible nonprofit receives 10 free Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud or Sales/Service Cloud licenses. Why not become part of the 70 plus group of nonprofits. Then also start sharing tips within nonprofits like yours that already use Salesforce, by joining a group or meetings nonprofit specific user groups and sharing all tips learned.

Salesforce also does subscription packages for Salesforce’™s Nonprofit Cloud CRM begin at $60 per user monthly. Salesforce, provides free access and substantially discounted licenses to registered 501(c)(3) organizations, that your software can scale. This solution, gives multiple avenues from sharing ideas in meetings, helping to scale or receiving discount to keep costs lower than ever, that makes this solution highly attractive.

Salesforce offers an extensive array of relationship management features, ideal for larger teams.

Low Cost CRM options to scale

What if free CRM does not fully encompass everything your growing non profit does? Well here is another CRM you should consider for the following factors:

Hubspot

Hubspot’s integrated marketing solutions make them the perfect option, not only can they grow with you, and the biggest companies rely on them every day. Now also be sure, they have solutions tailored just for nonprofits at 40% discounts.

The CRM stands as a robust customer relationship management solution, offering various marketing tools that apply to many aspects of the business.

Third party resources from industry leaders

Knowing how these products or third-party software rate will certainly impact your overall selection process. Look at the leaders from this field from sites, such as G2 or Capterra. As one would say, there is no way to replace these kind of solutions when the amount of info will never exist somewhere else.

To fully get immersed from ratings on software you will not find on regular media outlets or even regular rating scales.

There are multiple external sources that are known for expertise on third-party software:

  • Highly rated on third-party software review sites, with 4.7/5 stars on G2 and Capterra.
  • Reading referrals from trusted nonprofit resources and software reviewers like G2 or Capterra.

With sources coming in the forms above, ratings can only come with proper direction by experts. All this feedback will lead you down a path with which CRM solution is the overall winner.

These reviews can provide deeper insight than market today information.

10-in-1 platform solutions

When it comes to features and streamlining all operational responsibilities, the following provider makes all duties streamlined. You should read why some solutions all in one place makes some tasks better:

Giveffect

Giveffect brands themselves as “a 10-in-1 nonprofit software.” In which tools they give encompasses online giving. All these tools offer a plethora of actions your staff may need in a consolidated solution and volunteer action plans from a one stop place.

This will reduce data entry and makes tasks easier to accomplish.

Non-Profit needs a Fully-Integrated CRM Solution

To better show these options for a free crm for nonprofits here’s an analysis in a handy chart.

CRM Provider Free Version Available Paid Plans Starting At Key Features
EngageBay Yes, for up to 250 contacts $14.99/month Email marketing, marketing automation, social media engagement
Keela Yes, for up to 250 contacts $99/month Donor management, email marketing, reporting
Funraise Yes, for up to 1,000 supporters Contact for pricing Donor management, wealth screenings, donation forms
Salesforce 10 free licenses for eligible nonprofits $60/user/month Customizable CRM, extensive integrations
Hubspot Yes, limited free tools Contact for pricing Marketing automation, sales tools, CMS

Choosing the right free CRM for your nonprofit

Selecting what solution can be difficult when facing this decision, from enterprise or simple software will impact all factors within your organization.

Outline your goals and your challenges.

Is growing revenue the ultimate end point you look for? From scaling revenue you will create and maintain the support and messaging to reach everyone.

Your CRM selection should directly support your nonprofit’s mission and strategic objectives. Identify the challenges your organization faces, such as inefficient donor communication or poor tracking of fundraising efforts.

Budget restrictions or scaling costs?

Budgeting is key so what parts you give can then make you determine future action. If funding helps reduce costs across channels than make it scale.

Assess your budget limitations and explore free or low-cost options that align with your financial resources. Factor in potential scaling costs as your organization grows, including additional user licenses and feature upgrades.

How about ease of data import?

Some CRMs are very complex and will require dedicated team members in order to use, keep it up to date or work the new integration process and new processes with old habits creates an uncomfortable scenario.

Data migration is often a major hurdle when implementing a new CRM. Look for solutions with user-friendly interfaces and streamlined data import processes to minimize disruption and avoid the need for dedicated team members.

Reporting on your outcomes is key to determine actions.

Knowing how results turn out is necessary to all objectives. By tracking actions, can give insight what actions led to great results or lead to great mistakes.

Comprehensive reporting tools are essential for measuring the impact of your nonprofit’s activities and making data-driven decisions. Choose a CRM that offers customizable dashboards and robust reporting capabilities to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and monitor progress toward your goals.

From ratings on different softwares by G2, Capterra, you will become an expert in how your solution is used amongst others. This allows you to go down roads where other may fear because there’s simply a tried and tested methodology.

Does your small business need a CRM, even?

It is hard not to justify solutions in order to maintain a streamlined process, as for what any organization may need a solid approach helps them maintain consistency amongst people to improve engagement across donors and operations. And from this consistency that operations needs it makes sure tasks aren’t falling thru with volunteers and no gaps being open.

But finding out what that process involves starts by understanding the problems an organization looks to solve in what ways can one save money for marketing.

So you could look at free crm as more than just a database, it has other applications too, especially for sales oriented companies to generate leads.

But where else does free versions can come into play from third party reviews and insights, or just basic use case as non-profit? There may be a plethora to save cash.

Depending on which company or expert is being utilized here may drastically affect where they decide to allocate budget across resources across people in all processes. Now with that insight will a clear winner appear to show where one part should come to the top of the discussion. If data from mobile will matter when tracking communications.

That may need further integration that only your budget will influence. The ability that is readily visible and given to donors or what software they end up enjoying from ease to operate will dictate next choice, so long they are engaged.

You may want to see how it holds as free crm for Businesses since there’s some principles to follow that aligns with non profits’ objective. There could possibly even integration as marketing tool that applies in third party.

Where more resources you spend more results for third-party come along for marketing strategies or other aspects for leads.

Best free crm systems (2025)

Do you believe the features given will cover the requirements in place or more importantly grow amongst other CRMs for growth, that has to align to long objectives and create scale and save for the upcoming campaigns. These companies align a great vision when looking to what you plan for the year coming or near future to make and sustain long term, they keep with the changing landscape

You need the support team to rely on. Even on some you cannot change as well because only engineers have a hand it is about how fast those resources will operate.

Compare CRMs for Nonprofit Organizations

This table show’s the overall capabilities between some of the leaders of non-profits solutions you’ve always heard, to some extent their reputation says it all, to some the scale helps achieve objectives faster because there’s more data with all types non profits they help grow on a daily basis

CRM for nonprofits, but it’s too confusing still

Here at my company, we work everyday, with different companies just like you and us that have their own battles on customer communication in third party relationships across multi channel engagement. Which with everything available right now makes our experience very essential to share.

In fact that 67% of non-profits utilize and improve the interactions they create with external forces is only increasing across most organizations looking to implement third parties, however one expert puts in words how essential communications can impact:

Is that third party expert in the loop

An advantage may appear so clear across the board because a third-party support already in place in all operations of how a non-profit can engage, that from peer mentoring you find your own steps to take in decision.

A resource for insights by peer on third-party will allow better decisions to better what the expert said earlier about scaling.

Consider it with different peers, the integration process that’s required will take dedication from your key experts will operate so if there isn’t then you will seek some experts from salesforce peer. Take charge and ask if all data are already clean prior.

A lot will be from the expert on hand it will tell of time will matter because a clean-up of the data is one action a data professional in the organization might need to handle. Then time, you have already given from an additional resources.

So get experts, have data clean-ups as part to take steps as the organization is fully ready

What happens now since not all in some smaller set where a proper sales and engineer won’t ever need happen, but take resources if it will mean those actions needed on what has grown.

FAQs about free crm for nonprofits

What is the best free CRM for nonprofits?

For nonprofits looking for a free crm for nonprofits that meets different criteria, think about Givebutter, Salesforce, Bitrix24 and Hubspot which is all encompassing or Keela for nonprofits to organize and help meet goals. A perfect solution for anyone to improve team needs.

Is there a totally free CRM?

Givebutter is totally free which consists of donation systems. Hubspot offers restricted plan versions. When coming with limited prices.

Is Salesforce for nonprofits really free?

Registered 501(c)(3) Organizations who comply with requirements receive Ten cloud Salesforce Nonprofits for Salesforce. Which creates scalable environment

What is the 33% rule for nonprofits?

There may be situations that donors need more than 1/3 from the charity income in all income each period, it is referred from the IRS as foundations across general populace to see

Conclusion

Choosing the right software is an individual choice. You now see there are several factors that require your deep analysis. I would highly consider that your needs from operational duties to team efficiency all combine and make you realize one simple thing, can the free crm for nonprofits bring me towards all business needs and long term plans.

Grow donor retention, simplify communications, and automate outreach campaigns — empower your mission with smarter systems.