The right fundraising platform for nonprofits will be the one that aligns with your goals, scope, budget, and how you receive donations. Choosing the right platform is a crucial decision for your nonprofit as it will support your growth and how you interact with your donors in 2025 and beyond.
Many nonprofits have already seen the transformative effect a comprehensive fundraising platform has on connecting and engaging with donors. Look for an intelligent platform that offers diverse tools to grow your nonprofit’s influence and exceed its goals.
Kindsight
Kindsight distinguishes itself as a top fundraising platform due to its unique combination of features that address the evolving needs of nonprofits. Kindsight distinguishes itself by providing a comprehensive solution focused on fundraising intelligence, personalized engagement, and efficient relationship management. This makes it a powerful tool for nonprofits looking to expand in 2025.
Kindsight offers several features that support your nonprofit at every step of the process:
1. Fundraising Intelligence at its Core
- Data-driven insights: Kindsight provides nonprofits with insights into donors’ giving history, wealth indicators, philanthropic interests, and connections. This data goes beyond basic demographics, allowing for highly targeted prospect research and identification of major gift prospects.
- Kindsight score: Kindsight’s scoring system helps nonprofits prioritize prospects based on their capacity and inclination to give. This helps nonprofits ensure that their fundraising efforts are focused on the most promising leads.
- Largest real-time donor database: Kindsight offers the largest donor database on the market, giving nonprofits the greatest access to potential donors.
2. AI-Powered Personalization
- Personalized outreach: Kindsight’s AI-powered technology empowers nonprofits to create highly personalized communications including emails, proposals, and social media posts. This level of personalization is crucial for engaging donors in a meaningful way and building strong relationships.
- AI-powered content generation: Kindsight’s AI-powered content creation tool generates various content types including emails, social media posts, and website content. This life-changing tool allows nonprofits to produce content up to 16 times faster while ensuring consistent and effective messaging.
Research suggests AI technology is particularly important for nonprofits as it frees up nonprofit leaders and workers to focus on mission-critical work. In other words, automating repetitive or manual processes allows nonprofits to focus their energy on proactive, human-facing work that advances their mission. This makes it a pivotal feature to look for in a nonprofit fundraising platform for 2025.
3. Robust CRM for Effective Relationship Management
- Highly effective CRM: Kindsight’s CRM provides a centralized platform for managing donor information, tracking interactions, and stewarding relationships. This is essential for building long-term partnerships with donors, including corporations.
- Streamlined workflows: The CRM streamlines fundraising tasks, such as pledge commitments, bulk processing, and gift matching. This significantly improves efficiency and productivity.
4. Industry Leader in Corporate Fundraising
- Corporate data and insights: Kindsight provides data and insights on corporations, including their giving history, CSR initiatives, and connections to individuals within the nonprofit’s network. This helps nonprofits identify and engage potential corporate partners.
- Matching gift maximization: Integration with Double the Donation automates the identification of matching gift opportunities, maximizing corporate giving. Donations can be made using multiple payment methods.
Kindsight: A Summary
Kindsight excels in providing donor intelligence and AI-powered personalization. Its comprehensive online fundraising platform offers strong CRM for relationship management, making it ideal for major gifts and corporate fundraising.
Kindsight is a great option if you need in-depth donor insights, cutting-edge AI tools, and a robust CRM to drive major gifts and corporate fundraising. The wide range of features and industry-leading technology it offers makes Kindsight the number one choice for ambitious nonprofits that wish to significantly raise the number and value of donations they receive.
Classy
Classy has established itself as a top-tier nonprofit fundraising platform that’s particularly well-suited for mid-sized to large nonprofits with diverse fundraising needs. Classy is a comprehensive fundraising platform ideal for nonprofits seeking robust event management and strong peer-to-peer fundraising features.
Its emphasis on brand storytelling and customizable campaigns allows organizations to create engaging donor experiences across multiple channels. Classy empowers nonprofits to track progress, optimize strategies, and maximize their fundraising impact.
Classy’s main features are:
1. Comprehensive Online Fundraising Tools
- One-time and recurring donations
- Peer-to-peer fundraising
- Event ticketing and registration
- Crowdfunding
- Auctions
This versatility allows nonprofits to run various fundraising initiatives within a single platform.
2. Event Management Capabilities
- Ticketing and registration: Classy provides tools for managing event ticketing, registration, and attendee communication.
- Auction functionality: The platform offers features for online auctions, allowing nonprofits to raise funds through bidding events.
3. Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Features
- Customizable fundraising pages: Classy enables supporters to create personalized fundraising pages to raise money on behalf of the nonprofit.
- Social sharing tools: It provides tools for easy social sharing to expand the reach of peer-to-peer campaigns.
4. Focus on Brand Storytelling and Customization
- Customizable branding: Classy enables nonprofits to customize their fundraising pages and campaigns to match their branding and messaging.
- Storytelling features: Their platform provides tools for incorporating compelling stories and visuals to engage donors.
5. Data and Analytics
- Comprehensive Reporting: Classy offers robust reporting and analytics features to track fundraising progress, analyze donor behavior, and gain insights to improve strategies.
Classy: A Summary
Classy offers a comprehensive fundraising solution with robust features for various fundraising activities, including events and peer-to-peer campaigns. This makes it suitable for larger nonprofits with diverse needs.
Classy offers a great option if your nonprofit needs a comprehensive platform with strong event management and peer-to-peer fundraising features and has the budget for it. However, be aware that Classy doesn’t offer a free trial. Its donor outreach and content creation tools also aren’t as comprehensive as those offered by Kindsight.
Donorbox
Donorbox has carved a strong niche for itself in the nonprofit fundraising space, offering a solid option for small to medium-sized organizations. This platform doesn’t provide the host of features that other, more comprehensive solutions provide. However, it’s a cost-effective solution for nonprofits with more modest needs.
Donorbox offers three pricing models to suit different requirements. Their standard account may be enough for some small nonprofits, but most will benefit from one of the more comprehensive options.
Among Donorbox’s best features are:
1. Focus on Simplicity and Ease of Use
- Donorbox is known for its intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface, making it accessible even for those with limited technical skills. This is crucial for smaller nonprofits that may not have dedicated IT staff.
- Donation forms and campaigns can be quickly set up without requiring extensive technical knowledge or coding.
- Nonprofits can also embed donation forms on their website. This means donors can give directly without being redirected to a third-party site.
2. Affordability and Transparent Pricing
- Competitive transaction fees
- No monthly fees for basic donation processing
- Donorbox’s pricing is transparent and easy to understand, with no hidden fees.
3. Strong Focus on Online Donations and Recurring Giving
- Donorbox is designed to make online giving as easy and seamless as possible for donors.
- The platform offers robust recurring donation features, which are essential for building sustainable fundraising revenue.
- Donorbox supports various payment methods, including credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, and bank transfers, making it convenient for donors to give.
4. Essential Fundraising Tools
- Fundraising pages: Allows you to create dedicated fundraising pages for specific campaigns or projects.
- Peer-to-peer fundraising add-on: Offers a peer-to-peer fundraising add-on that enables supporters to create their own fundraising pages.
- Event ticketing and registration (through integrations): While not a core feature, Donorbox integrates with other platforms to offer event ticketing and registration capabilities. Note that these features will come at an added cost.
- Matching gift integration: Integrates with Double the Donation, making it easy to promote matching gifts.
Donorbox: A Summary
Donorbox is a user-friendly and affordable platform focused primarily on online donations and recurring giving. This platform is a good fit for smaller nonprofits with simpler fundraising needs. Donorbox is worth investigating if you need a simple, affordable, and easy-to-use platform primarily for online donations and recurring giving. However, this platform may struggle to meet your nonprofit’s needs if it expands or increases its scope over time.
Kindsight, Classy, and Donorbox Compared
| KINDSIGHT | CLASSY | DONORBOX | |
| Core Focus | Fundraising intelligence, AI-powered personalization, donor management | Online fundraising campaigns, event management, peer-to-peer fundraising | Online donation processing, recurring giving, simple fundraising tools |
| Donor Management (CRM) | Robust CRM (Ascend) with donor tracking, interaction history, and reporting | Offers donor management features, but primarily focused on campaign management | Basic donor management features; focuses on donation records and donor communication |
| Prospect Research/Donor Intel | Extensive data on donor giving history, wealth indicators, philanthropic interests; Kindsight Score | Limited built-in prospect research capabilities; relies more on integrations | Very limited prospect research capabilities |
| Personalized Outreach | AI-powered content creation for personalized emails, proposals, and other communications | Offers some personalization features but not AI-driven; relies on manual segmentation | Limited personalization features; focuses on automated receipts and basic email communication |
| Event Management | Event tracking capabilities within the CRM | Strong event management features, including ticketing, registration, and auction capabilities | Basic event ticketing and registration features through integrations |
| Peer-to-Peer Fundraising | Supported through the CRM and campaign features | Strong peer-to-peer fundraising features with customizable fundraising pages | Offers peer-to-peer fundraising add-on |
| Matching Gift Integration | Integrates with Double the Donation for automated matching gift identification | Requires integrations or manual processes for matching gift management | Integrates with Double the Donation |
| Pricing | Subscription-based, varies by features and organization size | Tiered pricing based on features and organization size; can be expensive for smaller nonprofits | Transaction fees based on donations received (with optional monthly fees for added features); more affordable for smaller nonprofits |
| Ideal For | Nonprofits focused on major gifts, corporate fundraising, and personalized outreach | Mid-sized to large nonprofits with diverse fundraising needs, including events and peer-to-peer fundraising | Small to medium-sized nonprofits focused on online donations and recurring giving |
Choose a Fundraising Platform that Aligns with Your Goals
Choosing the right fundraising platform is a pivotal decision for any nonprofit organization. The “best” platform isn’t a universal solution but rather the one that best meets your specific needs, budget, and fundraising strategies.
The key to choosing the right platform for your nonprofit is to carefully assess your organization’s requirements and match them with each platform’s features and pricing. The perfect platform for you will equip your nonprofit with the tools necessary to maximize your fundraising success and advance your mission.