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Seeking a software solution for your organization? Check out some other programs and companies that handle donations and fundraising, or other needs of charities and churches.

Lists of Products (Unless otherwise noted, these lists are American.)
Specific Products
Other Good Sites and Resources for Non-Profits
Canadian Web Sites (These sites process online donations or help non-profits.)

We do not endorse any of these other products, or (in most cases) offer opinions about them. (Naturally, we'd like you to use the DONATION program if it suits your needs. Check out Why Choose DONATION? before selecting a different program.)

If you know of other products that should be on these lists, please contact Cooperstock Software.

Some products that we do recommend to our users are on the Recommended Products and Services page.

Lists of Products

Charity Village Donor Management Software page and Fundraising Software page (Canadian). DONATION is listed on both pages.

NonProfitExpert.com Nonprofit Software page

Nuverb Systems's comparison chart of programs for churches, including DONATION. (Nuverb makes Donarius.)

Specific Products

Here are a few products specific to non-profits and churches. Many of these descriptions come from the product web sites.

ebase is a free database program for non-profits, with over 16,000 registered users (as of Jan/2002). It has a lot more features and capabilities than DONATION, and appears to be suitable for much larger organizations than DONATION is. Correspondingly, however, it is significantly more complex to use and to learn to use. It says that it works in Canada and the U.S.A.

Although it can record donations, as well as a lot of other things that DONATION does not record, it seems that it would be a bit of a struggle to get it to create numbered year-end charitable receipts including all of a donor's donations during the year, which many organizations like to use. (Numbered receipts are required in Canada.) It has no problem sending out thank-you letters for individual donations.

Donarius from Nuverb Systems Inc. is a system for churches and charities. As of 2007, it costs about $105 Canadian or $85 US. There is an evaluation copy available to download. It is a Canadian company.

Nuverb Systems has also created a comparison chart of a number of Donation Tracking Products, including their Donarius and my DONATION program. It's at www.donarius.com/comparison.html.

Advanced Solutions International, Inc. sells iMIS Fundraising and other iMIS products. It's a major fundraising package for large organizations and charities.

eTapestry is fundraising software that works on the web. It is free to use for up to 500 donors.

DonorPerfect sent the following information:

DonorPerfect is available as both an installed package and an online, browser-based application. Both versions are quite scalable and very flexible. DonorPerfect is a bilingual product and is available in both French and English. There is a Canadian version of the software that addresses Canadian charity law and forms and can track USD or CAD.

DonorPerfect has a general and a French-Canadian website. A free demo CD can be requested from the general site.

Pricing varies, but there is (or, as of April 2005, will shortly be) a subscription available for their online version for less than $100/month. Their installed version starts at $1,200.

Roll Call Church Software from By the Book is a church management system which tracks membership, contributions, groups, and classes, and also does child check-in. It works on both PCs and Macs. Pricing starts at $99 for up to 100 names, which includes support for the first 3 months. Support and upgrade contracts are available.

The Total Comms Database by Magimpact is a system for the United Kingdom, that runs on (and requires) Microsoft Access, and takes care of both mail and email communications for small and medium charities. It has add-on features for handling donations. The cost is £100 for the base package, and varying amounts for optional packages.

BasicFunder Premier from Jellyware Corporation is a powerful and affordable, full-featured fundraising database program that you can customize to meet the specific needs of your organization. It works for both Canada and the U.S.A., and costs $349US, with an annual support fee of $120US after the first year.

GiftWorks is quite powerful fundraising software, that starts at $399US for their Standard version, and goes up from there.

CiviCRM is an open source and freely downloadable constituent relationship management solution. CiviCRM is web-based, internationalized, and designed specifically to meet the needs of advocacy, non-profit and non-governmental groups. One component of CiviCRM is CiviContribute, for tracking contributions (including charitable donations). It does not currently have specific features for handling Canadian receipts, but it is quite likely sufficient for U.S. receipts, where the requirements are less strict.

Membership PLUS from ACS Technologies is apparently the most commonly used church management software system, according to Christian Computing Magazine's 2006 Church and Donor Management Software Overview (PDF). However, I have to admit that I have heard quite a lot of negative feedback about it from my users, and quite a few users have switched from earlier versions of it to DONATION. One of the problems seems to be that it has been sold from one company to another several times. You can read some customer reviews of it on Amazon.com.

Organizers DataBase (ODB) is a free open source Windows application to help non-profits with organizing, including tracking their donors and donations. There are paid support options available (for more than the basic cost of DONATION, mind you). Judging from the web site, it may be a bit complex to configure initially, though perhaps less complex than eBase.

Live and Silent Auction Software handles your charity auction needs including Auction Catalogs, Silent Auction Bid Sheets, Invoicing, Reporting and Attendee Management.

Other Good Sites and Services for Non-Profits

Tech Soup - "The Technology Place for Nonprofits"

The Chronicle of Philanthropy - The Newspaper of the Nonprofit World.

Idealware is a U.S. charity that provides candid Consumer-Reports-style reviews and articles about software of interest to nonprofits. Through product comparisons, recommendations, case studies, and software news, Idealware allows nonprofits to make the software decisions that will help them be more effective.

NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network, is a membership organization of nonprofit professionals who put technology to use for their causes. NTEN is a community of peers who share technology solutions across the sector and support each other's work. NTEN enables its members to embrace advances in technology through knowledge sharing, trainings, research and industry analysis.

In April, 2009, Idealware in conjunction with NTEN completed A Consumers Guide to Low Cost Donor Management Systems, a review and comparison of 33 "low cost" (meaning under $4,250 in the first year!) donor management systems. DONATION was reviewed in it, and although it had fewer features than they were looking for in general, it was still selected as one of three "Best Bets" recommendations for users who "Just need the basics". The other two were GiftWorks and BasicFunder Premier.

Christian Computing Magazine (CCMag) - A free, monthly emailed magazine with articles, reviews and advertisements related to computer software for churches, and other computer issues from a Christian standpoint. They reviewed DONATION in their August 2007 issue. Read that review as a PDF here.
CCMag also has a Church Management Software Feature Chart, which includes DONATION (under "Softare4Nonprofits"). However, I feel that DONATION comes off appearing somewhat unfairly lacking in features in this chart, because they don't happen to list a lot of features that DONATION has.

Solutions for Secretaries of Small NPO's is an interesting-looking book, together with a web site including a discussion forum, for the secretaries and administrators of small non-profit organizations (specifically in the USA). N.B. I haven't actually read the book, but I did look at the table of contents and a sample chapter. It includes a free Microsoft Access application (which requires Access) for tracking members and donations.

Canadian Web Sites

CanadaHelps.org accepts online donations for almost all Canadian charities, and issues electronic receipts Charities can register for free to receive better services and listings. A credit card transaction fee (3% as of July, 2006) is deducted from donations (it is paid directly to the credit card companies, not kept by CanadaHelps.org). CanadaHelps.org is itself a charity.

CharityVillage.com is a major general website for the Canadian nonprofit sector. It contains news, jobs, information and resources for executives, staffers, donors, and volunteers. They also published and article I wrote, "Why not to create a do-it-yourself donation tracking and receipting system".

Church Treasurers of Canada Inc. assists treasurers, bookkeepers and financial administrators of churches and ministries as they deal with the unique problems of their position. The website provides plenty of free information, while those who purchase a membership have additional benefits including access to the Member's Only page and receiving individual attention to their specific questions. They regularly recommend my DONATION program.

Canadian Council of Christian Charities is a membership-based organization that offers a lot of good resources and advice to charities, both through information on their web site, a phone support line, and a very helpful bi-monthly bulletin (that can be subscribed to without purchasing a membership).

WorkInNonProfits.ca aims to help build and strengthen Canada's non-profit sector by connecting non-profits across the country with job seekers as well as suppliers of services and products.

Also from Software4Nonprofits: ACCOUNTS, for easy bookkeeping, including simple and automatic fund accounting.