Deal or no deal? Why low-cost CRMs for nonprofits aren’t always the answer.

When you’re a small team working with a tight budget, using a low-cost (or free) CRM can feel like the smart choice. They promise quick setup, familiar interfaces, and the chance to get organised — all without making a big financial commitment.

If only it were that easy.

A free or low-cost, generic CRM might work well to begin with. But as your fundraising grows, limits on users, features and integrations can mean your team has to ...

• Create awkward workarounds:

Without specialist fields for donations, pledges, or Gift Aid, your team has to input key donor information into sales or marketing categories — logging gifts as “transactions” and losing important detail along the way.

• Process data manually:

If your CRM doesn’t integrate with applications like finance or your website, people can be left uploading Excel spreadsheets by hand. This is a time-consuming process that’s more than a little prone to human error.

• Make educated guesses:

Limited data and search options make it hard to generate the insights you rely on. Though you might be able to see headline trends, but finer details (think retention rates or campaign ROI) stay hidden beneath the surface.

More than a minor headache when it comes to fundraising, siloed systems that aren't designed for charities can end up costing more than you think. I experienced the frustrations for myself, while using the free edition of flagship CRM software to manage volunteers for a small charity. Was it generous of the provider to offer the software for free? Absolutely. Was it designed for what I was trying to achieve? Absolutely not.

There are always hidden costs, even if they aren't purely financial. First, there are the direct costs, such as:

• Lost Gift Aid claims:

No charity can afford to lose that extra 25%, but without dedicated income management systems in place, it’s easy for potential Gift Aid claims to slip through the net.

• Delayed “thank you” letters:

We all know that donors thanked within 48 hours are four times more likely to give again. But manual data entry and disconnected systems can make it almost impossible to get those personalised letters out on time.

• Wasted resources: 

Non-specialist systems can also lead to inefficiencies. Whether it’s time spent manually entering or cleaning data, or money wasted on duplicate mailings — it all adds up.

Other losses can be a little harder to see, but they’re just as real. For example:

• Underperforming campaigns: 

Detailed reports and insights help you understand where your fundraising is working and where you could unlock even better results. If they’re missing, opportunities to fine-tune campaign strategies are lost.

• Low conversion rates: 

Fundraising is all about relationships. If you can’t see your data clearly, it’s hard to create the donor profiles, segments, and journeys you need to move people up the giving pyramid.

• Missed opportunities: 

At the end of the day, it all comes down to potential. Information is power. Without it, you’re missing the chance to grow, evolve, and future-proof individual, trust, corporate, and other giving strategies.

This is also true of charities grappling with the CRM vs spreadsheets debate, and there's more on that here.

So, what are the benefits of investing in a specialist charity CRM?

In a nutshell, a specialist charity CRM is specifically designed to give you the clarity, insight and control you need to grow and scale your fundraising.

Where free or low-cost options are restrictive - and scream square peg, round hole - specialist solutions like Donorfy offer features, integrations, and reporting tools that bring a new level of clarity to your fundraising data. This gives you everything you need to:

1. Build and nurture lasting donor relationships
2. Create highly personal communications
3. Optimise fundraising activities and campaigns
4. Boost donor engagement and retention
5. Move supporters up the giving pyramid
6. Track, measure, and demonstrate your impact
7. Make data-driven decisions that unlock your fundraising potential.

Birmingham Dogs Home has been rescuing, rehoming, and providing a safe haven for furry friends across the West Midlands and South Staffordshire for over a hundred years.

In the days before Donorfy, the team were making do with a non-specialist CRM. It might have been great for storing doggy data and rehoming information, but as their fundraising needs grew, it began to fall short.

Their Head of Fundraising, Fi, knew they could do more.

Now at the heart of their fundraising system, Donorfy has given their work a new “leash” of life. Automated workflows and integrations with tools like Mailchimp, JustGiving and Facebook are saving precious time. The team also uses it to personalise their communications and make data-driven decisions that work for their team, supporters, and four-legged friends.

“You name any aspect of fundraising, and there’s been a huge improvement in each one. Things that weren’t possible with the limited system we had before are possible now. We’ve gone from zero to 100 in terms of functionality.”

Inspired? Read the full story behind Birmingham Dogs Home’s fundraising success.

On paper, it all sounds simple enough: a better CRM means better results. But when it comes to making the investment, the real challenge is often convincing the people who pay for it. For this, you need to turn your focus to long-term value and position your chosen CRM as a strategic, long-term investment that will pay for itself - and not just once, but several times over.

That’s why we recommend taking some time out with your team to:

• Quantify the cost of inaction: 

Find out what “making do” is really costing you. Highlight the limits of your current system — from staff hours lost to missed fundraising opportunities — and show how it impacts organisational income.

• Highlight the benefits of a new system: 

Encourage people to think big. Paint a picture of what’s possible and show how processes like audience profiling, segmentation, and automation will help you get there.

• Calculate the final return on investment: 

You might want to ask your finance team to help with this one, but if you can, back your case with hard numbers that show profitability over time.

Want to find out more? Read our guide on how to build a business case for your charity CRM.

How much should I expect to pay for a charity CRM?

And of course, when it comes to the issue of budget, it’s important to make sure you’ve thought about everything.

To really understand what it’s going to cost, you need to factor in everything you’ll need to get (and keep) it running - from training and technical support to maintenance and data migration.

Yes, these features will add to your final quote. But they’ll also remove the risk of any hidden costs, and the efficiencies you gain will be more than worth it in the long run.

“Fundraising can be challenging, and you need the right tools to stand a real chance of success. It can be daunting, moving to a new database. But we made the right choice for us in Donorfy, and we are going from strength to strength.”

– Fi Harrison, Head of Fundraising, Birmingham Dogs Home

Are you ready to look beyond low-cost CRMs for nonprofits?

Free marketing tools and low-cost CRMs for nonprofits can feel like an obvious choice, but limits on users, features and integrations soon turn quick wins into costly headaches. At Access, we’re here to help you find a practical solution with clear, transparent pricing that delivers lasting value and gives your team the freedom to do more.

Ready to explore your options? Check out our pricing models or contact a member of our team today.