Fully integrated CRM for non-profits?

July 3, 2019 8:50 AM

Fully integrated CRM for non-profits. Do they exist? Or are there one(s) that play nicely together?

This is for an arts organization. Like many nonprofits, they host regularly-occurring free events, along with fundraisers that have paid attendees, donated services, raffles and often a silent auction.

They have a paid membership, and a broader email list, which get regular emailed newsletters re upcoming events. The membership is predominately individuals, rather than organizations.

They like sending print mailouts -- art cards, thank yous -- so being able to generate labels to fit standard templates is important.

I've asked around my circles, and I am researching online. So far I'm only finding apps/solutions that do one piece of the puzzle, but nothing that seems to quite fit their needs. I'm curious which solutions you've found that work well together.

I'd say the priorities, in order, are:

- a robust contacts database, particularly with the ability to assign multiple roles (eg. donor, volunteer and member)
- easy import feature for existing data
- user friendly and somewhat easy to set up
- integration into email (for campaigns)
- integration to print (especially labels)
- digital payments for memberships, event tickets.
- digital silent auctions

Right now they don't care much about time tracking, integration into calendars, or volunteer management, so that's a very low priority. More robust CRM capabilities, like analytics or anything beyond what I listed above isn't a priority yet, either.

thanks in advance

posted by spandex to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

NEON does all of this except the silent auctions. The emailing/print mailing event registrants is not as nicely integrated as the emailing/print mailing members/donors/volunteers, but it's not difficult

Integrates with Constant Contact & Mailchimp and Paypal and Eventbrite.
posted by crush at 8:54 AM on July 3, 2019

Salesforce likely is not it. They have a funny way of saying that your small org will easily fit in their free tier, but then you just need to add one paid feature, and then this other paid thing comes along — before long, you're locked in and paying as much as everyone else.
posted by scruss at 9:07 AM on July 3, 2019

Many of the arts non-profits I've worked with use PatronManager for this.

I'm personally a fan of Artful.ly, which is managed by Fractured Atlas (a very cool arts service org out of NYC). If Artful.ly looks like it might work, you should just get in touch with them and talk with somewhere there about whether it's the right solution for you. I bet if it's not, they'll point you in the right direction.
posted by nosila at 9:07 AM on July 3, 2019

Just popping in to say that I used to work at PatronManager (in charge of training clients) and still know a bunch of people there - feel free to MeMail me if you want to talk in detail about it/ be put in touch with someone there.
posted by Ragged Richard at 9:31 AM on July 3, 2019

Best answer: How big is your organization? Neon works well enough for the small arts nonprofit I've worked with, and they have tiered pricing depending on number of accounts. We like it, don't love it, but can one ever truly love a CRM? It can do almost everything you asked for (there is a sales/merchant portal thingy--sorry, I don't have it in front of me right now and don't remember the details--for selling items, so it doesn't necessarily handle a silent auction interface but can be used to process sales). The affordability has made it worth dealing with a few less-than-ideal quirks. It certainly helps to have a seasoned CRM administrator on staff, and doing monthly maintenance tasks to keep things cleaned up and organized.

Feel free to message me with any specific questions!
posted by adastra at 10:26 AM on July 3, 2019

You might consider Raiser's Edge (made by Blackbaud), which is a very powerful, feature-packed CRM and fundraising application for non-profits. From what I understand, however, it's fairly expensive. But maybe that's changed since I last heard. I'm aware of a some people who use it regularly, and they like it very much.
posted by JD Sockinger at 11:54 AM on July 3, 2019

Best answer: This is my world (I'm a digital strategist for non-profits). The most popular full-service CRMs in my corner of this world are Blackbaud Luminate (do not recommend), NGP VAN's EveryAction, Neon, and ActionKit. None of these are cheap, so it'll depend on the size of your org.

Also, it can't hurt to get the CRMs to pitch you. Again, this will depend on the size of your org, but get them to try to woo you. You may get a better deal or at least better customer service out of it.
posted by lunasol at 12:58 PM on July 3, 2019

Response by poster: Very small org, but been around for ages so there is a good number of contacts.

I will be following all links suggested, and will circle back.
posted by spandex at 1:53 PM on July 3, 2019