14 Reliable Fundraising Tools To Maximize Nonprofit Revenue

Whether you’re ramping up your virtual fundraising efforts or completely rehauling your fundraising strategy, you need robust online fundraising tools to succeed. Supporters expect to be able to learn more about their favorite nonprofits, submit donations, sign up for volunteer opportunities, and engage in other activities right from their phones or laptops.

According to the 2023 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report, 93% of nonprofits that conduct online fundraising collect donations via their websites, and 70% use a fundraising tool that sends automatic donation receipts via email. Online giving platforms are equipped with other essential features, such as customized donation pages, recurring giving options, peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, and more.

For your nonprofit to exceed its virtual fundraising goals, you don’t just need an online fundraising platform—you need to find the right platform that suits your organization’s unique needs.

To make the search easier, we’ve created a list of top online fundraising platforms that we think might be a good fit for your nonprofit. Here’s what to expect:

• Online fundraising platform basics
• 14 of the best online fundraising tools for nonprofits

Online fundraising platform basics

What are fundraising apps or tools?

Fundraising tools, also known as online fundraising platforms, are software solutions that help nonprofits easily manage their fundraising campaigns. These solutions bring all fundraising activities under one roof, making the giving process more convenient for donors and staff alike.

10 key features of online fundraising platforms

There are a few specific features and capabilities to look for when researching fundraising tools. These features will help you fulfill different nonprofit needs and maximize your fundraising efforts:

1. Donor database. Donor database solutions, also known as donor management software or a nonprofit CRM, help nonprofits track donor data and information about supporter relationships. This includes donors’ contact information, giving history, previous interactions with staff members, and other involvement information. You can use these details to build authentic relationships and personalize your donor outreach.

2. Branded donation pages. Your fundraising tool should enable you to create branded, customized donation pages, accept online gifts (including one-time and recurring donations), and transfer donor information into your CRM.

3. Peer-to-peer fundraising tools. These tools make it easier to manage peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns. Nonprofits can create a central campaign page and give supporters the tools they need to design personal fundraising pages. Leverage additional features such as fundraising leaderboards and thermometers to inspire friendly competition and keep campaign momentum high.

4. Text-to-give platform. Nonprofit revenue from text messages increased by 14% from 2022 to 2023. Using a text-to-give or text-to-donate platform, nonprofits can launch text fundraising campaigns to gather donations via SMS messaging.

5. Prospect research tools. These solutions include wealth screening tools that assess donors for wealth markers to determine their giving capacity. This makes it easier for nonprofits to identify potential major donors.
6. Marketing solutions. Email marketing platforms, graphic design tools, and social media scheduling tools can boost your online fundraising efforts as well. These tools help bring attention to online fundraising campaigns, ensuring they get the publicity they need to succeed.
7. Event management. Event management tools simplify event planning, scheduling, volunteer recruitment, and marketing. Some event tools can facilitate virtual and hybrid events as well as traditional in-person experiences.

8. Auction management. Auction events have unique needs compared to other nonprofit events. Many online fundraising platforms offer auction management solutions like mobile bidding, seating assignments, and streamlined check-out.

9. Integrations. Your online fundraising tools should integrate with one another. Search for solutions with robust direct integrations with other leading software platforms. If your nonprofit already uses certain platforms, like MailChimp for email marketing or QuickBooks for accounting, see if your fundraising solution will directly integrate with these tools for seamless data transfers.
10. Payment processing. A payment processor manages online transactions securely and quickly. Your nonprofit should leverage a payment processor that can handle multiple payment types, including credit/debit cards, digital wallet payments (Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo, etc.), and ACH payments. Also, ensure your payment processor has security credentials, like PCI-DSS. These regulations protect cardholder data through access control measures, malware protection, and other safeguards.

What are the benefits of online fundraising tools?

Online fundraising platforms help nonprofits facilitate one of the most important stages of the donor cultivation process—the decision phase. This is the stage of the journey when supporters decide whether to donate to your nonprofit. Knowing they can submit a donation in seconds with the help of your online fundraising platform can make all the difference in helping donors choose to give.

Here are a few additional benefits of online fundraising platforms:

• They allow you to expand your nonprofit’s potential donor pool. Online fundraising platforms let anyone in the world who has an internet connection engage with and donate to your organization. This can help you grow your donor base beyond just individuals in your local area.
• They allow donors to give from anywhere, at any time. Donors can pull out their phones, laptops, or tablets and give whenever they feel inspired. Plus, they can create donor profiles where they can take control of their involvement and update their payment method, track their giving history, and adjust their recurring donation amounts.
• They help you easily track donor, fundraising, and accounting data. When your online fundraising platform integrates with your CRM, you’ll benefit from seamless donor data transfers between platforms. Your team can save time by automating data tracking processes, such as transferring donors’ names and contact information to your CRM. Donors will benefit when you use their information to personalize your outreach and engagement opportunities that resonate with their interests. Plus, when your online fundraising platform integrates with your accounting software, you can easily keep track of your finances and the impact of your fundraising efforts on your financial situation.

What costs are involved with online fundraising solutions?

Before exploring our top providers list, it’s important to know exactly what goes into the cost of online fundraising software. Here are a few terms you might see and what they mean:

• The platform fee is the price you will pay to use the online fundraising platform or tool. This is also sometimes called the monthly or yearly fee.
• The transaction or processing fee is the price you pay each time your donors use a credit card to submit a donation to you or one of your fundraisers. This is usually calculated as a percentage of the transaction plus a small fixed fee.

Are there free online fundraising apps?

As a nonprofit professional, you’re probably always thinking about reducing costs at your organization to direct most of your funding toward mission-essential projects and programs.

However, even seemingly free platforms can often come with unexpected startup costs, such as having to hire a consultant to help set up the system.

Further, the largest issue most nonprofits face with free fundraising software is that they quickly outgrow the systems and have to migrate to a paid platform. Additionally, the transaction and processing fees are often higher with “free” software. You usually have the option to pass on these fees to donors, but they may decline to cover them in the cost of their donation, meaning your nonprofit will have to cover more of these fees.

On the other hand, investing in a paid solution designed for nonprofits ensures that your organization has access to all of the fundraising features you need right away. Review Bloomerang’s guide to free fundraising software for more information about why it’s recommended to seek out a paid fundraising platform.

14 best online fundraising platforms for nonprofits

Without further ado, here are 11 of the best online fundraising platforms to consider as you ramp up your virtual fundraising:

1. Bloomerang: Best All-in-One Donor Management and Fundraising Tool

Online fundraising platform overview: Bloomerang is a donor management system equipped with online giving tools for nonprofits, a robust donor database, marketing and engagement tools, and integrations with other popular software platforms.

Recommended for: Nonprofits looking to upgrade their CRM platform to a seamless, all-in-one system.

Favorite feature: With Bloomerang’s donor management software, your nonprofit has access to the following fundraising features:

• Generosity Scores that help identify prospective major donors based on giving capacity.
• An Engagement Meter to assess each donor’s or prospect’s relative engagement levels and identify your most engaged supporters to continue building strong relationships.
• A powerful suite of online fundraising tools to supplement your fundraising and marketing strategies with custom donation pages, recurring donations, and text-to-donate functionality.
• Bloomerang Payments, a best-in-class payment processing platform that keeps donor information secure with PCI compliance and industry-leading fraud detection.
• A marketing and engagement platform to build relationships through personalized communications.

Bloomerang’s platform prioritizes donor retention, and as a result, Bloomerang users retain 10% more recurring donors than the industry average.

Pricing: Bloomerang’s pricing starts at $99 per month.

Learn More About Bloomerang

2. Qgiv: Best Fundraising App for Flexible Giving

Online fundraising platform overview: Qgiv is an online fundraising platform equipped with a donation form builder, peer-to-peer capabilities, text-to-give, event registration, and auction tools.

Recommended for: Nonprofits that want a flexible, all-in-one online fundraising suite.

Favorite feature: Qgiv’s Giving Kiosks allow you to accept donations and registrations from your supporters wherever you are using a tablet. It’s a great way to accept donations on the go or at your events.

Pricing: $0 monthly fee and 3.95% + $0.30 transaction fee

Learn More About Qgiv

3. Fundraise Up: Best Fundraising Tool for Increasing Conversions

 

Online fundraising platform overview: Fundraise Up is a fundraising platform that uses AI-based technology to help nonprofits optimize their online donation processes. The platform’s features include recurring giving, peer-to-peer fundraising, donor portals, automated emails, cryptocurrency donations, and more.

Recommended for: Nonprofits looking for innovative online donation technology to boost online fundraising revenue.

Favorite feature: Fundraise Up’s state-of-the-art machine learning AI analyzes your website visitors and tailors the suggested giving amount for each person helping you achieve your goals faster.

Pricing: 4% transaction fee

Learn More About Fundraise Up

4. Classy: Best Fundraising Platform for Donation Websites

 

Online fundraising platform overview: Classy is an online fundraising platform that helps nonprofits create donation websites, set up recurring giving programs, sell fundraising event tickets, and more.

Recommended for: Nonprofits that are ready to invest in a robust and comprehensive online fundraising platform. With Classy, you get fundraising solutions for website donations, fundraising, events, peer-to-peer, crowdfunding, and more.

Favorite feature: Classy’s online donation pages are mobile-friendly and customizable.

Pricing: Transaction fee of 2.4% + $0.30 for credit cards and 2.5% + $0.30 for PayPal/Venmo

Learn More About Classy

5. PayPal: Best Fundraising App for Simple Payment Processing

Online fundraising platform overview: PayPal is an online payment processing system that also offers a fundraising platform for nonprofits. Their online fundraising tools allow nonprofits to create an online donation page with the ability to suggest donation amounts, process recurring donations, and accept multiple payment methods.

Recommended for: PayPal is the ideal fundraising solution for new and smaller nonprofits because you’ll get trust and affordability in one.

Favorite feature: With PayPal, you can create a customized online giving experience with your own branding, theme, and links.

Pricing: $0 monthly fee and 2.89% + $0.49 transaction fee for donations using USD

Learn More About PayPal for Nonprofits

6. Handbid: Best Fundraising Tool for Auctions

Online fundraising platform overview: Handbid offers auction software and mobile bidding apps to manage in-person, hybrid, and virtual events.

Recommended for: Nonprofits that need a robust solution for auctions, events, and crowdfunding.

Favorite feature: It’s rare that you can get the best of a crowdfunding platform and the best of an auction platform together, but Handbid offers both, plus other online fundraising features like donation campaigns and text-to-give.

Pricing: 3.5% + 0.30 transaction fee

Learn More About Handbid

7. RaiseDonors: Best Fundraising App for Optimized Donation Pages

 

Online fundraising platform overview: RaiseDonors is an affordable online fundraising platform that enables nonprofits to create and customize online donation pages, integrate with their CRM platform, and equip donors with an easy-to-use self-service portal.

Recommended for: Nonprofits looking for an online giving solution that’s simple and quick to get started.

Favorite feature: RaiseDonors makes it easy to identify online giving trends and optimize your donation pages to increase revenue with their giving dashboard.

Pricing: Contact for custom pricing,  1.5% platform fee

8. GivingFuel: Best Fundraising Tool for Customizable Campaigns

 

Online fundraising platform overview: GivingFuel is an online giving software that offers all the tools nonprofits need to manage their giving in one place. In addition to a user-friendly donation-page builder, GivingFuel also provides nonprofits with text-to-give features, employer gift-matching capabilities, and even volunteer management.

Recommended for: Nonprofits looking for an affordable, all-in-one solution with giving forms, text-to-give, peer-to-peer fundraising, and event registration features.

Favorite feature: With GivingFuel’s conditional logic feature, you can creatively adjust your donation page to provide different donor experiences, such as a free t-shirt with a donation above $100.

Pricing: $0 monthly fee and 4.99% transaction fee

9. Shopify: Best Fundraising App for eCommerce Fundraising

Online fundraising platform overview: Shopify is an eCommerce platform nonprofits can use for merchandise fundraising. Shopify can streamline your online sales whether you’re selling items created by your beneficiaries or selling branded merchandise to raise funds for your mission.

Recommended for: Nonprofits looking to expand their eCommerce fundraising.

Favorite feature: Nonprofits can customize their own online store with a user-friendly drag-and-drop store builder.

Pricing: $39 monthly fee and 2.9% + $0.30 online transaction fee

10. DonorBox: Best Fundraising Solution for Website Integration

Online fundraising platform overview: DonorBox is an online fundraising tool that integrates seamlessly with multiple popular content management systems. This platform provides nonprofits with tools such as streamlined donation forms, customizable donation buttons, and engaging crowdfunding campaigns.

Recommended for: Nonprofits looking to integrate online fundraising tools into their WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, or Webflow websites.

Favorite feature: DonorBox’s UltraSwift checkout feature allows donors to complete donations in just a few clicks without having to input any personal information.

Pricing: $0 monthly fee and 1.75% platform fee

11. GoFundMe Charity: Best Fundraising Platform for Crowdfunding

Online fundraising platform overview: GoFundMe is a well-known fundraising platform many individuals use to fundraise for specific needs or causes. Nonprofits can also use this platform to launch crowdfunding campaigns and raise funding and awareness for their missions.

Recommended for: Nonprofits looking for a free online fundraising platform with powerful solutions for events, peer-to-peer fundraising, online donations, and crowdfunding.

Favorite feature: DIY Fundraising empowers supporters to engage in grassroots fundraising initiatives for your nonprofit. Alongside their peer-to-peer and crowdfunding solutions, GoFundMe will give you the tools you need to power your supporters’ fundraising efforts.

Pricing: $0 monthly fee and 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee

12. Bonfire: Best Fundraising Tool for Merchandise Fundraising

Online fundraising platform overview: Bonfire is an online fundraising platform that helps nonprofits design, promote, and sell custom-branded T-shirts. Organizations can create a customized profile page to share mission information and spotlight your active campaigns.

Recommended for: Nonprofits that want to expand into online merchandise fundraising.

Favorite feature: User-friendly T-shirt design tool that makes it simple to develop custom merch with your nonprofit’s logo, colors, and fonts.

Pricing: Verified nonprofits can access a reduced processing fee of 3.5%.

13. OneCause: Best Fundraising Solution for Fundraising Events

Online fundraising platform overview: OneCause offers an online fundraising platform with helpful tools for all aspects of fundraising, from in-person and virtual events to peer-to-peer fundraising and text-to-give.

Recommended for: Nonprofits looking to optimize their online fundraising while taking on new opportunities like auction fundraising.

Favorite feature: OneCause not only offers tools needed to manage fundraising but also resources and educational materials to execute campaigns as strategically as possible. OneCause offers eBooks, webinars, studies, and podcasts, appealing to all types of learning styles.

Pricing: Contact for pricing.

14. Mightycause: Best Fundraising App for Relationship-Building

Online fundraising platform overview: Mightycause’s platform also covers the fundraising basics, with CRM software, data management features, marketing tools, and more. Mightycause simplifies administrative duties for your nonprofit’s staff while providing a positive donor experience that fosters retention.

Recommended for: Nonprofits that want to prioritize relationship-building and cost-effective fundraising investments.

Favorite feature: The intuitive fundraising dashboard offers customization capabilities, reporting views, supporter information, and campaign management tools in one user-friendly interface.

Pricing: $79 monthly fee and 0.95% and $0.29 processing fee

Additional Resources for Exploring Fundraising Apps

With the right solutions in your nonprofit’s toolkit, you can make online fundraising a smoother process for your team and supporters.

Interested in learning more about online fundraising and how to make the most of your fundraising platform? Review these additional resources:

• 19 Incredibly Easy Online Fundraising Ideas and Expert Tips. It’s helpful to create a comprehensive online fundraising strategy to ensure you’re making the most of your online giving platform. Check out Bloomerang’s guide to learn how to build powerful strategies.
• The 9 Best Nonprofit CRM Solutions. Your nonprofit’s CRM is an essential fundraising tool for tracking and managing donor relationships. Review the top solutions here to find the right platform for your nonprofit.
• 30 Best Practices to Optimize Your Nonprofit Donation Page. Your online donation page is a critical tool for gathering online donations. Make sure your page is effective and easy to use by following the tips in this guide.