How to Pick the Right Fundraising Platform for a Nonprofit

How to Pick the Right Fundraising Platform for a Nonprofit

Learn how the right fundraising platform for nonprofits will transform your communication with potential donors and key features to look for.

The generosity sector is rapidly changing, meaning the way nonprofits face fundraising—and the platforms they use—must also change. Choosing the right fundraising platform for nonprofits is one of the key factors in how effective their campaigns are.

The best fundraising platform for your nonprofit organization will offer cutting-edge technology to identify and engage with potential donors who share your core values. Look for platforms that offer highly intelligent and targeted campaigns to maximize donations and further your mission.

1. Understand How Fundraising Intelligence Will Support Your Nonprofit

The fundraising tools you use must reflect and adapt to changes in donor engagement. Online fundraising is so much more than simply launching another email campaign or handing out flyers. Instead, nonprofits must understand how donors interact with charitable campaigns and offer purpose-built tools to adapt to these changes.

This is only possible with a platform that offers technology powered by funding intelligence. Look for a platform that offers real-time donor data and leverages the latest technologies to help nonprofits target their campaigns effectively.

The most cutting-edge fundraising platforms for charitable organizations will offer a comprehensive solution that includes:

  • Donor intel and insights: Providing nonprofits with a deeper understanding of their donors and potential donors. This information goes beyond basic contact details and donation history by offering valuable insights that can inform fundraising strategies and improve donor engagement.  
  • Targeted donor outreach: An intelligent fundraising platform will use insights to pinpoint the strongest potential sources of donations and reach out using highly targeted content.
  • A highly effective CRM system to keep your donor information and campaign tracking in one place.

Understand What Generative AI Does for Nonprofit Fundraising

Generative AI is one of the top features to look for in a donor management system. Effective nonprofits in 2025 leverage the latest AI technology to pinpoint the right donors and inspire them with the right messaging at the right time. This approach leaves clunky and ineffective spreadsheet trawling that takes fundraisers away from creating personal relationships with donors.

Using streamlined AI-powered technology to generate actionable insights and create AI-generated first drafts of social media posts, website content, or fundraising appeals. These capabilities allow fundraisers to focus on the most important part of any fundraising campaign: building personal relationships with their donors and creating impact.

AI-driven fundraising efforts will continue to have a huge impact on fundraising success. For example, the Catholic Community Foundation leveraged the holistic AI-powered analytics and engagement tools offered by the fundraising platform Kindsight to increase giving by 40%. This underlines the transformative effect the right fundraising platform will have on your fundraising efforts.

2. Identify Other Features You Require

The fundraising platform you use must fit in with your nonprofit fundraising strategy. Look for features that will support your short- and long-term goals but avoid overpaying for services you won’t use. Must-have features in any fundraising platform include:

Flexible Fundraising

Look for platforms that offer tools to receive one-time, recurring, and offline donations. Look for features like anonymous giving and dedications that appeal to different donor profiles.

Multiple Payment Methods

The last thing your nonprofit wants is to lose a potential donor due to not being able to accept multiple payment methods. Your platform would ideally integrate with a payment processing solution that accepts all major cards, bank transfers, PayPal, digital wallets, and other payment methods like QR codes or pay by text, which is a payment option that interests 62% of customers under 35

Privacy and Security

Nonprofits must offer donors maximum data and payment security. Look for end-to-end encryption and SSL protection pages to give your donors peace of mind while making a donation.

Integration with Social Media

Fundraising platforms with AI-powered content creation mold your nonprofit’s online presence to each social network’s user profile. Research suggests that nonprofits perform best on social media when they select certain platforms that align with their content to target a specific audience. This makes it much easier to engage users with their content (see pages 136-7 of the PDF).

Fundraising platforms can offer various ways for your nonprofit to engage with social media users. These include:

  • Omnichannel campaign generation: Generate various content types, including social media posts, using just one prompt. This means you can quickly create engaging content tailored for different social media platforms.  
  • Brand voice and donor personas: The AI can generate content that aligns with your unique brand voice and tone. It also uses donor profiles to customize content based on each donor’s characteristics and motivations.
  • Direct posting and scheduling: Post directly to various social media platforms and even schedule posts in advance. This ensures consistent posting.
  • Analytics: Access to detailed analytics on your social media posts, allowing you to track performance and optimize your strategy

Ease of Use

Ease of use must be one of your priorities when searching for the right platform. Your platform must be intuitive to use both for your donors and your team members. Graphics will help users easily navigate the different features and tools on your chosen platform.

Customization Options

Customization options allow nonprofits to personalize fundraising campaigns. This creates a unique and branded experience for their community. Top customization options include personal branding and allowing members to create their own fundraising page and facilitate peer-to-peer fundraising. 

This allows donors within your community to share the causes they feel strongly about on the platforms they already use. For example, users can share the link with their loved ones or on their social media pages.

3. Research and Compare Platforms

Invest time into researching and comparing the different platforms out there. This will help you make a shortlist of the main contenders for your profit and will help you better understand how fundraising platforms will help your nonprofit smash its goals.

Take the following steps to comprehensively research fundraising platforms:

  • Read reviews: See what other nonprofits are saying about different platforms.
  • Request demos: Many platforms offer free demos or trials. This will allow you to test the features and user interface. It will also give you a sneak peek into how organized and supportive each platform is.
  • Compare pricing: Carefully compare pricing structures, including transaction fees, monthly fees, and any other costs.

4. Ask the Right Questions

No two nonprofits are the same. This means finding the right fundraising platform for you is a question of finding the one that best molds to your needs and goals. Once you have your shortlist of the online giving tools that might work for you, be prepared to ask insightful questions that will help you understand how each platform will help you maximize donations.

Questions to ask each platform include:

  • What are the transaction fees and who pays them?
  • Are there any monthly or annual platform fees?
  • What payment processors do you integrate with?
  • What security measures do you offer to protect donor data?
  • What kind of customer support do you offer?
  • Can the platform integrate with my existing CRM or other tools like social media?

Focused Campaigns Are Successful Campaigns

Choosing the right fundraising platform powered by the latest technology is a crucial decision that significantly impacts a nonprofit’s ability to achieve its mission. This is because the best platforms empower nonprofits to design their campaigns to target specific donors and maximize donations.

Unfocused nonprofit campaigns are unlikely to be effective as appealing to everyone essentially means appealing to no one. Choose a platform that offers the insights necessary to create highly focused and targeted campaigns that appeal to the donors most likely to share your mission.