The Best Fundraising Automation Tools for Nonprofits in 2026

Fundraising automation is software that handles the repetitive parts of fundraising on its own, such as sending a receipt the moment a gift arrives, thanking first-time donors, reminding monthly donors before a card expires and flagging supporters who have stopped giving. The best fundraising automation tools for most nonprofits are a donor CRM with built-in workflows, such as Bloomerang, Neon CRM or Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, paired with a donation platform such as Givebutter, Zeffy, Donorbox or Fundraise Up, plus add-ons like Double the Donation for matching gifts and Zapier to connect the pieces. Below we compare what each tool automates and what it costs, using only each vendor’s own pricing page as we found it in November 2026.

What fundraising automation means

Every automation is a rule that says when something happens, do something else, so a new gift, an event registration, a date like a giving anniversary or a long gap since someone last gave becomes the trigger, and the action is an email, a text, a task for a staff member or an update to the donor’s record. Done well, it means the routine follow-up happens every time, on time, whether your development team is three people or one volunteer on weekends.

The reason this matters is retention. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project found that the overall donor retention rate in the US was 43.3% in 2025, up only slightly from 43.1%, while the number of donors fell 3.6% even as dollars raised grew about 5% (AFP, Fundraising Effectiveness Project). In plain terms, more than half of last year’s donors did not give again, and the follow-up that brings them back is exactly the kind of work that slips when people are busy. Keeping donors is one of the three pillars of nonprofit marketing, and automation is the most dependable way to cover it.

These are the automations we suggest setting up first, because they pay off for almost any organization:

• An instant receipt and thank-you after every gift, with the details donors need for their taxes.
• A short welcome series for first-time donors that shows what their gift paid for.
• A reminder to recurring donors when a card fails or is about to expire.
• A check-in to donors who have not given in 12 to 18 months, before they are fully lapsed.
• A prompt asking donors whether their employer matches gifts.
• A sync that sends every online gift into your CRM and accounting software without anyone retyping it.

The best fundraising automation tools compared

Prices change often and many depend on the size of your database, so treat these as starting points and confirm on the vendor’s page before you sign anything.

Donor CRMs with automation built in

A CRM is where your donor history lives, so it is the right home for most automations, because it knows who gave, how often and when they last gave.

1. Bloomerang

Bloomerang’s CRM lists automated supporter journeys, a built-in email builder, annual giving summaries and nightly data updates with duplicate matching, and its fundraising product adds donation forms, event management, text fundraising and reminder messages for pledged gifts. The CRM starts at $125 a month and the fundraising product at $40 a month, both billed annually, the fundraising product has to be bought as a bundle with the CRM, and pricing is based on how many records you keep (Bloomerang pricing).

2. Neon CRM

Neon CRM from Neon One starts at $99 a month and lists automated workflows, stewardship journeys, email marketing, text messaging, peer-to-peer fundraising, recurring gifts and payment processing on its pricing page, with support by chat, email and phone included (Neon One pricing). It suits small and mid-sized teams that want donor records, giving and communication in one place.

3. Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud

Through Salesforce’s Power of Us program, eligible nonprofits get 10 Nonprofit Cloud Core licenses at no cost, and additional Core licenses are listed at $70 per user a month, billed annually, with Advanced at $125 (Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud pricing). It can automate almost anything, but someone has to build and maintain those automations, so it fits larger organizations or teams with a Salesforce admin or partner.

Donation platforms that automate the giving side

These tools collect the money, and the good ones handle receipts, recurring gifts and follow-up without extra work.

4. Givebutter

Givebutter charges no platform fee when donors are offered the option to leave a tip, and a flat 3% when tips are turned off, and its free CRM has unlimited contacts. Automated workflows, task management and texting come with Givebutter Plus, which starts at $29 a month billed annually and is priced by contact count (Givebutter pricing).

5. Zeffy

Zeffy says its price is $0 and that it covers transaction and card fees, funding itself through optional contributions donors can add at checkout, and it includes donation forms, event ticketing, donor management and free emails to donors (Zeffy pricing). It is a strong fit for small organizations that want to keep every dollar.

6. Donorbox

Donorbox has a Standard plan with no monthly fee and a platform fee of 2.95% on donation forms and 3.95% on ticketing and memberships, and a Pro plan at $150 a month that lowers the platform fee to 1.75% to 2% and adds recurring donation upsell, analytics and Zapier and API access (Donorbox pricing). Payment processing fees are charged separately.

7. Fundraise Up

Fundraise Up has no upfront cost, setup fee or fixed subscription, and instead keeps a share of the donations it processes, with donors able to cover the transaction costs (Fundraise Up pricing). Its pricing page highlights personalized ask amounts and an upsell feature, which makes it a fit for organizations with enough online traffic that small gains in checkout conversion add up.

Add-on tools that fill specific gaps

8. Double the Donation

Double the Donation helps identify donors whose employers match gifts and sends them automated email streams about submitting the match. Its Essentials plan is free to start and priced by the dollars it identifies as match-eligible, with the first year free up to $2,000, and its Standard plan starts at $999 a year (Double the Donation pricing).

9. Mailchimp

If your CRM’s email is basic, Mailchimp’s automation flows can run welcome series and re-engagement emails. Its free plan covers up to 250 contacts, paid plans are priced by contact count (Mailchimp pricing), and verified nonprofits get 15% off (Mailchimp nonprofit discount).

10. Zapier

Zapier connects tools that do not talk to each other, for example sending each new gift from your donation form into your CRM, a spreadsheet and a Slack channel. The free plan includes 100 tasks a month, paid plans start at $19.99 a month (Zapier pricing), and nonprofits get 15% off any paid plan with proof of charitable status (Zapier Help Center). Zapier also features in our wider guide to growth hacking tools worth using, next to free analytics and CRM options.

How to choose and set up your first automations

Start with where your donor data lives today, because a costly mistake is buying a tool that does not connect to the CRM you already use, which leaves staff copying gifts between systems by hand.

1. List the follow-up your team does by hand each week, and count how often it gets missed.
2. Pick one system as the home for donor records, and make sure your donation platform syncs to it directly or through Zapier.
3. Turn on the instant receipt and first-gift welcome series first, then add recurring-gift recovery and lapsed-donor check-ins.
4. Write the messages in your own voice, signed by a real person, because an automated email still has to read like someone cared enough to write it.
5. Check the results every quarter, especially how many first-time donors give a second gift.

Automation also feeds your marketing. When every gift is recorded with the page or campaign it came from, you can see which emails, ads and search pages actually raise money, which is the same thinking behind our guide on how to promote a fundraiser. The same tracking works for event registrations, and our week-by-week plan to promote a charity event shows what to send and when.

Questions we get asked

What is the best free fundraising automation tool?

Zeffy and Givebutter are the two strongest free options, since Zeffy lists a $0 price and Givebutter charges no platform fee when donor tips are on. Givebutter’s automated workflows need the paid Plus plan, so compare which follow-up each one can run before you choose.

Do small nonprofits need a CRM to automate fundraising?

You can start with a donation platform’s own receipts and emails, but once you have a few hundred donors a CRM is usually worth it, because automations depend on knowing each donor’s history, and that history is scattered without one.

Will automated emails make our nonprofit feel impersonal?

They can if they read like a form letter, so the fix is in the writing. Automation handles timing, so a thank-you goes out within minutes instead of weeks, and the writing, the signature and the personal calls to your most loyal donors still come from your team.

What is the difference between a donor CRM and a donation platform?

A donor CRM is the database that stores every supporter’s history, including gifts, events, emails and notes, while a donation platform is the tool that collects the money through forms, pages and checkout. Most automations need both, because the platform creates the trigger, such as a new gift, and the CRM knows enough about the donor to decide what should happen next.

Some tools cover both jobs, such as Givebutter with its free CRM or Neon CRM with built-in payment processing, which can be enough for a small team.

Can AI help with fundraising automation?

AI can help with fundraising automation by drafting thank-you emails and appeals, summarizing donor notes and suggesting which supporters to contact next, and it works on top of the basic rules rather than replacing them. A receipt, a welcome series and a lapsed-donor check-in still need clean donor data and a person who reviews what goes out under your name.

We explain how we set up AI tools for charities, with staff review built in, on our AI for nonprofits page.

How do we connect our donation platform to our CRM?

The simplest way to connect a donation platform to a CRM is a native integration listed in either tool’s settings, because a built-in connection is usually quicker to set up and easier to maintain, and a connector such as Zapier is the fallback when no direct integration exists. Before you switch it on, decide which system holds the master record for each donor, so gifts do not create duplicate contacts.

Test the connection with a few real gifts, including a recurring gift and a refund, and check that each one lands on the right donor record with the right campaign attached.

How do we know if fundraising automation is working?

Fundraising automation is working when more first-time donors give a second gift, fewer failed recurring gifts go without a follow-up and staff spend less time on receipts and data entry. Measure your donor retention rate, the share of last year’s donors who gave again this year, before you turn anything on, then compare it every quarter.

Our overview of how nonprofits use marketing shows how keeping donors fits with the channels that bring new ones in.

If you want donors to find you in the first place, our free SEO audit checks how your site performs in search and AI answers in about a minute, and you can see how we set up donor workflows on our marketing automation page or how we help charities get found on our nonprofit SEO page.