There are majorly two very important things that any new or small non-profit needs – money and time. Running and managing a non-profit organization is very quite a challenging thing to achieve as they are established not just for earning money but to offer services and uphold a social cause.
Hence, in order to meet the challenges for setting up a non-profit organization, it would be unwise to not use a software for the organization of institutions. As the focus is not on earning a profit, non-profit organizations have to look for free options for managing their activities properly.
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Importance of an open source tool software for a non-profit
You might have noticed that in case of most of the new non-profit organization, there are some people working overtime in order to make up for the lack of resources in the first place. Though this move works pretty well in the initial phase, things start to get a little difficult as the organization scales up and the engagement increases.
The open source tools to run a non-profit should ideally have features like member registration, payment option and accounting. Since the minds working behind a non-profit are not professional accountants, the level of expertise is left uncompromised with an online tool.
Feature comparison
Here are some options that can help non-profit organizations meet their requirements, without stressing out financially. The features that these bring are pretty standard and comes handy to help the cause.
| Product Name | Payment Processing | Fund-raising | Application Management |
Financial Management |
| MemberPlanet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nonprofit Treasurer | No | No | No | Yes |
| ProcessDonation | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Bitrix24 | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Rhino NonProfit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| NGO Connect | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Coreware for NonProfit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
1. MemberPlanet
MemberPlanet is much like an all-in-one tool for non-profit organizations as it comes on many platforms, including SaaS, Android and iOS native. It is a browser-based free (though enterprise level tool is available for premium upgrade) and open source membership management software for nonprofit organizations comes integrated with QuickPay.
It allows the users to manage the entire organization with ist fund-raising feature and financial management. Hence, even people with less accounting knowledge will find it easy to do book-keeping. It also helps users in managing a diverse variety of group and includes an array of features to allow keeping a track of member applications easily.
2. Nonprofit Treasurer
Non-profit organizations might not have the best skills in doing the accounts at the very beginning. Hence, a free, open-source tool is what these non-profits need to keep a very correct book of accounts.
Nonprofit Treasurer is essentially an accounting tool and specialises in doing so. It helps in keeping an account of the money spent on raising money, maintaining the establishment and keep running the activities. It is an online nonprofit accounting software that is available free of cost. It is a simple but efficient tool that helps in tracking expenses and importing transactions. This software also has an option to allow accepting donations or charities online. Financial reporting and budgeting are possible with this tool.
3. ProcessDonation
The primary motto of a non-profit organization is not to earn profit but to gather donations and use the finances to offer charitable and social services. Hence, gathering donations and fund-raising the main task for such organizations.
Thus, ProcessDonation is complete donation management online tool that makes the life of the non-profit easier. ProcessDonation is free for the standard pack while upgrading to premium would incur a cost. It also an open-source tool that allows only one administrator to access the software features and just one campaign at a time (for the free version). It can help ensure proper fundraising event management, features custom donation pages, provides social media connectivity, supports peer-to-peer fundraising etc.
4. Bitrix24
Bitirx24 is a cloud-based CRM software for nonprofit organizations. It is basically an online tool, but installable software for MacOS, Windows, iOS and Android are also available. It is probably one of the most versatile tools for non-profit organizations and offers a plethora of features.
The Bitrix24 is available in both free as well as premium packs. However, the free version is quite good to go for new organizations since comes with up to 12 users and 5GB of cloud storage. This software helps in telemarketing and also email marketing. The free scheme also allows video conferencing, sales automation and team management, import/export facility, scheduling, booking etc.
5. Rhino NonProfit
Rhino NonProfit is another all-in-one online tool for non-profit organizations and has a very easy to use interface. It is considered to be a powerful donor management software that helps in streamlining the entire operation and also process payment, something that is extremely rare in for a single tool.
It offers unlimited donor management and fund-raising too. But not only this, but it also allows event, volunteer and membership management. But the users would feel the lack of a financial management setup, which could have eased off the pressure of having an expert accountant. However, the Rhino NonProfit isn’t a completely free tool as the user would need to upgrade to premium after the trial and demo versions.
Summing up
Non-profit organizations also have a similar setup as any small business and the operation and management start to get tougher once the scaling up is under progress. Hence, the presence of online tools for the management of the processes is more than just a blessing to the new organization.
And since these organizations are strictly no-profit-seeking ones, offering a free version of the bigger paid version is very important, just like these above-mentioned software and tools do. MemberPlanet and Rhino NonProfit are probably the best in the lot, though the latter does not have anything a free-for-life scheme.
On the other hand, ProcessDonation is the best tool for non-profit organizations who are seeking for something that would help them in acquiring donations from all platforms. It also helps in keeping a track of the received donations, both one-time and recurring ones.
