The best CRM systems for 2025

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A charity Customer relationship management (CRM) system is the engine of many successful fundraising organisations. The CRM brings together all a charity’s relationships together into one place, with features for analysis, reporting, and automation, but it can prove far more than just a place to store and organise donor data.

 

The best CRM systems for charities offer myriad benefits, including:

• Donor segmentation for more targeted communications
• Effective fundraising campaign management
• Quick and accurate reporting on programme activities and impact

Many charities have discovered that plugging data intelligence into their fundraising strategy via a CRM system can help them perform better, save time, and drive donor retention and engagement.

 

 

What to look for in a charity CRM system

 

While built primarily for sales organisations, CRM systems can be customised and tailored to charities, with many vendors specialising in the charity sector.

 

We’ve picked out the providers in the list below because they are either specifically designed for non-profit organisations or have extensive experience working with charities and building systems to their needs.

 

There is a lot to consider when making the choice. Some questions to ask include:

• Do you need a solution that is cloud-based or on-premises?
• How many users will there be? Will this change over time and can the system scale?
• Can you use an out-of-the-box solution, or will you need something bespoke?
• Will you be able to configure the system over time and create new functionality when required?
• Can the system integrate with existing software, such as finance and email, and your website?

When calculating the cost of a new CRM system, along with upfront cost it’s important to factor in things like training your staff might need, hardware upgrades for on-premises deployment, help with data migration, ongoing support, maintenance and upgrades, as well as any additional customisation or tweaks to the system you might need over time.

 

 

Small-medium charities (Under £1m income)

• Beacon 
• Blackbaud eTapestry 
• Charitylog

 

Large charities (£1-10m)

• Donorfy
• Raiser’s Edge NXT
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 
• DonorPerfect 
• Access Charity CRM

 

Major charities (£10m+)

• Salesforce
• Blackbaud CRM
• CiviCRM