Donor database buyer’s guide: Choosing the best solution

A good donor database doesn’t just store your nonprofit organization’s data — it also allows you to leverage that data to optimize your communication, engagement, and fundraising strategies so you can further your cause. This makes selecting a donor database for your organization an important project that deserves serious consideration and effort.

To help you get started, this donor database buyer’s guide will explore why it’s important to have a donor database, the essential features you need, and how to choose a donor database that can sustain your nonprofit long-term. 

What is a donor database?

A donor database, otherwise known as a nonprofit constituent relationship management (CRM) system, is software that allows organizations to track and utilize important data about their donors, volunteers, and other supporters. For nonprofits, this database is a centralized source of truth for everything from donor contact details to when a supporter is most likely to give. 

Why does your nonprofit need a donor database?

The information stored in your donor database can be used to personalize messages to supporters, identify potential major donors, evaluate the success of fundraising campaigns, and much more. A robust database makes it easy to collect and manage relevant data, allowing you to:

• Personalize communications: Basic personal information, such as name and email address, will allow you to communicate effectively with donors while personalizing bulk emails. Additionally, demographics and giving data help you group similar donors to target messaging appropriately. For example, you may send more formal written letters to older donors while sending casual text messages to younger donors.
• Build stronger relationships: The information in your donor database can be instrumental for your relationship-building efforts. Specifically, a donor's motivations for giving and charitable interests can be the most important information in building a meaningful, long-lasting relationship.

• Improve donation appeals: Data on donors’ past gift amounts, giving patterns, and the campaigns they donated to can all be used to personalize and improve fundraising appeals. For example, if a donor regularly gives in December, you might send an end-of-year appeal letter to recognize their previous donations and make it simple for them to give again.

In addition to all the benefits that come with unified data, some donor databases have even more features to benefit your nonprofit. Automation, bulk communication tools, and more can help you engage your donors successfully and surpass your fundraising goals.

Data to track in your nonprofit donor database

Donor databases don’t just house email addresses and giving data — there’s plenty of valuable donor data you can collect to better understand your supporters and ultimately improve their experience with your nonprofit. This includes:

• Contact details including phone numbers, mailing addresses, and email addresses.
• Demographic information like age, gender, socio-economic status, and education level.
• Communication preferences, such as whether they prefer receiving emails or text messages.
• Employment information so you identify potential corporate giving opportunities.
• Giving patterns such as their average donation size and the times of the year they tend to donate.
• Engagement history including the events they’ve attended, times they’ve volunteered, and other ways they engage with your organization.
• Charitable interests or specific cause areas they’re most passionate about.
• Motivations for giving, such as a loved one being impacted by your purpose.

Additionally, track custom information that is uniquely important to your nonprofit. For example, if you work at an animal shelter, it may be important for your donor database to track what pets your donors own. Custom data points like this will allow for richer, more personalized communications that strengthen your donor relationships.

Essential features of a robust donor database

In order to collect necessary data and access all the benefits of a good donor database, you need to choose one with the right features. Let’s explore the most essential features that a donor database for nonprofits should have.

Secure donor profiles

Since most of the benefits of a donor database lie in the information it stores, make sure to evaluate potential databases based on which data they can store and in what ways. Primarily, this means looking at the donor profile feature.

In each donor profile, you should be able to easily view and update all the information you need in a central location. For example, this donor profile within Bonterra Fundraising and Engagement shows the donor’s home address, volunteer information, employment data, relationships, and contact preferences:

A good donor database will have an intuitive user interface that allows your staff to efficiently enter a new supporter record, find specific information, and update existing data as needed. It will also ensure that all donor data is secure with security measures like user permissions and access restrictions.

Giving potential

Your donor database should do more than track your donors’ giving history and patterns — it should also be able to analyze that history and predict their future giving potential. 

These predictions help you target donors effectively and make appropriately-sized fundraising asks. Plus, giving scores and estimated financial capacity data allow you to easily identify potential major donors within your existing support base.

Engagement history

Beyond financial giving data, being able to track and view data about donors’ involvement is also essential. Your database should enable you to easily track data about the events a donor attends, their volunteering history, advocacy actions they take, communications they interact with, and any other ways your supporters engage with your nonprofit.

You should also be able to view engagement data in ways that support data-backed decision-making. As you evaluate donor database solutions, ask questions like:

• How is engagement history tracked?
• Is event attendance and volunteer data automatically recorded in donor profiles?
• Can you easily view a timeline of activity for a specific supporter?
• Is there a way to quantify supporter engagement within the platform?
• How easy is it to identify your most involved supporters?
• Are information fields configurable so you can track the most relevant information?

Think through the questions you need answers to every day and determine how easily those questions could be answered with the donor database software you are evaluating. 

Custom fields

To accommodate your nonprofit’s unique needs, you’ll want to be able to set up custom fields in your donor database so you can track additional data points that are important to your organization. Ideally, your donor database should offer unlimited custom fields that can store text, dates, and numbers.

Make sure that you have a good grasp of how custom fields work in each of the donor databases you consider. It should be easy for you to set up custom fields to track unique information without needing to involve a software expert or pay for additional services. 

Segmentation

Donor segmentation features allow you to divide your donors into groups based on relevant characteristics that they share. For instance, you could segment donors by giving level, communication preferences, or how recently they donated. This process enables you to tailor outreach and appeals, target donors more effectively, and streamline your marketing and fundraising efforts. 

Your donor database should let you create an unlimited number of donor segments and easily locate them using filters. If the database includes email tools, you should be able to send emails to certain segments while automatically personalizing email content to each individual within the segment.

Intuitive reporting and analytics

Reporting capabilities are vital for getting a holistic view of your donors and their actions. Choose a donor database that comes equipped with multiple out-of-the-box reports along with custom report creation options. Also, look for robust reporting dashboards that automatically analyze your data and visualize it in clear ways. 

For instance, this example of a report from Bonterra Fundraising and Engagement shows information about a nonprofit’s monthly donors, including a graph of their average contribution size and a table of historical program growth:

Integration capabilities

While having a donor database is crucial for your nonprofit, most nonprofits also need additional software to manage email campaigns, host events, launch advocacy campaigns, and more. Whether you use a marketing automation system or online auction software, ensure that your chosen donor database can easily integrate with all of your other fundraising tools to help streamline your processes.

Scalability

Finally, evaluate if the donor databases you consider have the potential to support your organization’s goals in the long run. For example, you may be a small nonprofit now, but your donor base could grow exponentially in a few years. Whenever the time for growth comes, you’ll be better prepared if your donor database can scale with you.

To determine a system’s scalability, explore the available software plans or tiers that the donor database offers. Are there tiers above the plan you’re currently interested in? How many contact records can you store at each level? Additionally, ensure that the system is still being actively supported and updated regularly by the provider.

How to choose the best donor database for your nonprofit

Now that you know what benefits, data types, and features to consider, we can walk through the steps of choosing a donor database that aligns with your organization’s needs and goals.

Be mindful that selecting and implementing new software takes time, especially if you are looking for something as central to your organization as a donor database. Follow these steps for a thorough selection process:

1. Evaluate your needs. Discuss your organization’s donor database needs with your executive director, board members, and other relevant team members. Identify the challenges you have with your current system and which needs are the most pressing.
2. Identify must-have features. These should include both unique requirements that other nonprofits may not have and the most important features that your donor database must have. Focus on the features that are critical for your nonprofit that not all donor database systems will have, such as certain integrations.
3. Determine your budget range. Meet with your board and relevant team members again to discuss your budget for the entire software adoption process. This can help to narrow down your list early in the process and save you time as you research prospective providers.
4. Research your options and schedule demos. Explore solutions recommended by peers, top provider lists, and other online resources to see which ones match up with your needs and budget. Then, choose a few providers to schedule demos with to see the software up close and ask any questions you have.
5. Make your decision. Based on the information you glean from research and demos, choose the donor database that’s the best fit for your nonprofit and start the implementation process.

Remember that your donor database will be an important part of your nonprofit’s operations for years to come, so make sure to create a thorough plan and have clear priorities to focus your search.

5 donor database options to consider

Keeping those steps in mind, start your search by exploring our list of the best software options available to nonprofits.

Bonterra Fundraising and Engagement

Bonterra Fundraising and Engagement is a comprehensive donor database that includes a full suite of fundraising tools. Our software was built on the best nonprofit solutions on the market to provide you with a unified platform that meets all your fundraising and donor engagement needs. Fundraising and Engagement comes with all the essential donor database features you need, including:

• Supporter biographies in addition to donor profiles so you can view biographic and demographic information side-by-side.
• Engagement points to quantify donors’ levels of engagement with your organization.
• Workflow automations for adding contacts, communicating with donors, and more.
• Moves management tools that help you identify, cultivate, and retain major donors.

The Bonterra network includes over 16,000 organizations, and our donor database software has helped nonprofits raise over $3.5 billion collectively. To learn more about why nonprofits love Fundraising and Engagement and how impactful it can be for your nonprofit, explore our case studies. 

Raiser’s Edge NXT

Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge NXT is another popular donor database option for nonprofits with a large number of supporters. It’s a complex solution that aims to provide fundraisers with end-to-end gift management tools that help nonprofits improve their donor relationships. This donor database includes essential features plus data health tools, AI-suggested fundraising ask amounts, and more.

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud

Salesforce is one of the most well-known CRM providers for for-profit companies, but it also offers a solution designed for nonprofits called Nonprofit Cloud. This donor database is built on the core Salesforce platform but comes with added fundraising, program management, and assessment tools. Some of the most appealing aspects of Salesforce are its large user community and extensive app options, but it’s also a complex system that takes plenty of time and resources to implement successfully.

Givebutter

For nonprofits on a tight budget, consider the free donor database, Givebutter. Givebutter advertises itself as a simple, free nonprofit CRM that’s quick to set up. The platform comes with basic features like donor profiles, segmentation, and custom reporting. It also includes integrated marketing tools to help you improve donor communications. However, while the system is free for nonprofits, it charges your donors fees.

Bloomerang

Bloomerang is another donor database that acts as a full-suite solution for nonprofits. The platform includes donor management, volunteer management, and fundraising tools to help growing nonprofits streamline their operations, but it has more limited customization options. You might consider this database if your organization is small to mid-size and customization isn’t your top priority.

Getting started with your chosen donor database

The right donor database will allow you to create targeted, personalized messages and fundraising appeals, resulting in stronger relationships and greater fundraising success. This is why it’s crucial for you to take your time and thoroughly research all your options to ensure your nonprofit’s success with using your new donor database.