Sections of this topic
As someone who works in the nonprofit sector, you probably already know that nonprofit organizations juggle a variety of responsibilities on a day-to-day basis in order to remain on track to achieving their goals. From attracting and engaging with donors to planning and running fundraising events, managing nonprofits is a complicated business.
By utilizing an effective project management tool, you can coordinate your nonprofit’s projects, create tasks and subtasks, manage deadlines, receive valuable performance insights on project progress, and even automate certain tasks. By doing so, you’ll be able to simplify processes and improve the efficiency of your organization, raising even more funds so that you can make even more changes for the better.
Top Project Management Software for Nonprofits
- monday.com – Best Overall
- ClickUp – Best for Collaboration
- Asana – Best Value
- Zoho – Best for Nonprofit Essentials
- Wrike – Best for Data Insights
Software
Pricing
Standout Features
Integrations
Support
- Up to 10 seats – $0
- $57.60 per additional seat
- Customizable forms
- CSV imports
- Whiteboards
- Live data dashboards
- Time tracking
- Gantt charts
200+
- Nonprofit community
- 24/7 live support
- Interactive courses
- Video tutorials
- Blog posts
- Free – $0
- Unlimited – $5 per user
- Business – $12 per user
- Business Plus – $19 per user
- Whiteboards
- In-app video recording
- Custom fields and formulas
- Time tracking
- Kanban boards
- Mind maps
1,000+
- 24/7 live support
- Demo videos
- Help docs
- ClickUp University
- Basic – $0
- Premium – $10 per user
- Business – $24.99 per user
- Adobe Creative Cloud in-app editing
- Gantt charts
- Time tracking
- Real time BI reporting
100+
- Personal consultations with Asana Advisors
- Nonprofit onboarding program
- Nonprofit learning center
- Community forum
- Nonprofit-specific training courses
- Free – $0
- Professional – $25
- Ultimate – $400
- Built-in database
- Event management dashboard
- Donor management
- Volunteer workload tracking
- Expense tracking
- Automated financial calculations
500+
- Help guides
- 24/7 live chat support
- Live and recorded webinars
- Free – $0
- Team – $9.80 per user
- Business – $24.80 per month
- Automated task prioritization
- Gantt charts
- Kanban boards
- Waterfall and timeline charts
- Built-in proofing
400+
- User guides
- Live and recorded webinars
- Blog posts
- Live demos
monday.com‘s nonprofit project management software is an end-to-end solution built to optimize your project management process every step of the way.
From customizable forms for streamlined data collection and document management to custom workflows and automations, monday.com provides the tools you need to maximize your nonprofit’s efficiency and improve decision making going forward.
Why we chose it:
In addition to its affordable pricing, monday.com provides an array of nonprofit-specific tools including automated fundraising communications, donation tracking, volunteer recruitment forms, time tracking, task prioritization, and financial dashboards so that you remain on track to achieving your nonprofit’s goals.
- First 10 seats free; 70% discount for each additional member
- Customizable volunteer management forms
- Nonprofits community forum
- Live business intelligence dashboards
- Live idea collaboration tools
- Grant application manager
- Work performance insights only available on Enterprise Plan
Pricing
monday.com’s Nonprofit plan is free for up to 10 seats per month, with each additional seat receiving a 70% discount on the regular price. This comes to $57.60 per seat per month for every additional seat.
It’s important to note, however, that monday.com does have several eligibility requirements, so make sure to contact the company first to ensure that your nonprofit organization is eligible to receive this discount.
Features
monday.com’s Gantt charts provide a detailed overview of the project including tasks, team members, and task deadlines. You can also import existing data from Excel spreadsheets, thereby seamlessly adding it to your project overview.
This project management software also provides several in-app communication mediums so that team members can collaborate in real time. These include chat as well as whiteboards, where team members can sketch and type fundraising ideas as well as import files.
Using monday.com’s now customizable forms feature, you can gather volunteer and sponsor information as well as pitches for fundraising events. Live data dashboards provide you with up to date information on your project progress, thereby helping to ensure that you remain on track to reaching your project milestones.
From tracking funding to donor management, volunteer schedules, and fundraiser calendars, ClickUp has a rich range of features to optimize your nonprofit’s projects as well as day-to-day tasks. With over 1,000 integrations, you’ll be able to both manage resources for your nonprofit and improve its efficiency on one, integrated platform.
Why we chose it:
In addition to providing a market-leading library of over 1,000 templates and multiple integrations throughout, ClickUp enables you to automate routine tasks, thereby allowing you to focus on your nonprofit’s larger goals.
This project management software also comes with communication and collaboration tools, such as chat and whiteboards, providing you and your team with a platform to collaborate on fundraising ideas in real-time.
- 1,000+ integrations
- 1,000+ templates
- Custom fields and formulas for budgeting
- Automation
- In-app video recording
- Whiteboard
- NGO discount
- Price of NGO discount undisclosed
Pricing
ClickUp’s Free Forever plan offers unlimited tasks, Kanban boards, chat, and whiteboard features, however, you’ll need to subscribe to the Unlimited plan if you want to utilize unlimited integrations, customizable dashboards, and column calculations so that you can track your funding. This plan costs $5 per member per month.
At $12 per member per month, the Business plan offers access to advanced automation to help make your nonprofit more efficient when it comes to its day-to-day activities. It also offers time tracking so that you can monitor your volunteers’ performance and delegate tasks more effectively.
The Business Plus plan enables more advanced features, such as the most complicated automations, custom permissions, and priority customer support, which you can get for $19 per user per month. Finally, there is the Enterprise plan which offers live onboarding training to large teams. For this plan, the organization will need to inquire about a quote.
It’s worthwhile knowing that this project management tool offers a discount for nonprofit organizations, however, those looking to benefit from this deal will need to receive a personalized quote in order to find out the exact size of their discount.
Features
With over 1,000 templates and integrations, more than most other project management tools on the market, ClickUp makes it easier to jumpstart any new or ongoing projects that you’re wishing to track.
This platform comes with an array of features aimed at optimizing project management for nonprofits, including custom fields and formulas to track budgets, as well as using one of its calendars to set up your nonprofit’s volunteer calendar.
This project and work management tool and software comes with time and task tracking features that you can use to track exactly how long each volunteer or staff member has been working on tasks. By doing so, you’ll be able to determine areas where fewer or more volunteers are needed, enabling you to delegate more effectively in the future.
ClickUp’s whiteboards enable you and your team to brainstorm, take notes, connect tasks, and upload files in one creative space so that you can come up with new and innovative fundraising ideas. There are also Mind Maps that enable you to transform your ideas into an organized, visual outline.
At the same time, this nonprofit project management software comes with automation tools that will take care of routine tasks on your behalf so that you can focus on achieving your nonprofit’s goals.
Offering a 50% discount for nonprofits as well as pro-bono consultations from Asana Advisors to help tailor Asana to meet your needs, Asana proves to be a user-friendly project management tool that is dedicated to advancing your nonprofit’s cause.
Why we chose it:
Aside from its discount and complimentary consultations, Asana offers a dedicated nonprofit onboarding program to help you unlock Asana’s potential.
In addition to a range of custom templates to help you manage fundraising events as stakeholder relations, this project management tool also provides real-time reporting so that you can remain on track to achieving your project milestones.
- 50% nonprofit discount
- Free consultations with Asana Advisors
- Dedicated nonprofit onboarding program
- Nonprofit and Education Learning Center
- Nonprofit community forum to share knowledge
- Only 100+ app integrations
Pricing
Asana’s Basic plan, which is free, comes with unlimited tasks as well as calendar view, board view projects, and time tracking. To access unlimited dashboards, timelines, and workflow builders with automation, you’ll need to get the Premium package for $10.99 per user per month.
The Business package, for $24.99 per user per month, gives you access to advanced reporting and integrations such as Adobe Creative Cloud and Power BI, in addition to a custom rules builder.
What’s important to remember is that Asana offers a 50% discount to nonprofits, meaning that your project management solution will be half-price!
Features
Asana’s Gantt chart timeline enables you to track grant applications and lifecycles, while its workflow builder enables you to clearly map out fundraising campaigns while automating routine tasks so that you can focus on the critical activities that require your full attention.
Real-time reporting features such as budget tracking will enable you to manage your nonprofit’s spending on fundraising events, while Asana’s time tracking feature will assess the workload and work duration of each volunteer, enabling you to delegate tasks more effectively.
While this project management software’s templates are not nonprofit-specific, Asana offers pro-bono consultations with Asana’s Advisors, who will help nonprofits to use Asana to reach their specific goals.
Asana also provides a nonprofit onboarding program for new users as well as a nonprofit learning center which offers both live training and on-demand courses.
From its online databases to calendars, event reminders, custom forms and invitations, and campaign dashboards, Zoho’s low-code application development platform provides all the tools you need to perform essential nonprofit operations, from event planning to donor management, volunteer registration, and expense tracking.
Why we chose it:
Zoho’s free project management software provides a range of built-in apps specifically designed to handle essential nonprofit activities, including volunteer engagement, donor management, and fundraising event management and budgeting.
- Built-in donor, sponsor, and volunteer database
- Donor and volunteer profiles
- Automated donor receipts
- Expense management with automated calculations
- Event management portal with personalized invitations
- Customization required before getting started
- Paid plans are costly
Pricing
Zoho’s free plan enables just one user to utilize one of its apps, meaning that if you’re looking to use Zoho’s nonprofit organization management software for your own project management, it could be worth considering.
If you want access for more users as well as all business intelligence and analytics tools, you’ll need to opt for a paid plan. The Professional plan, priced at $25 per user per month, provides access to automated notifications, time tracking, all BI and analytics dashboards and up to five separate apps and 10 separate BI and analytics workspaces, along with Zoho’s full project management suite.
While there is also the Ultimate plan at $400 per month, this is aimed at large enterprises, providing unlimited workspaces and apps. It is important to note that Zoho does offer discounts to nonprofit organizations. Simply send Zoho an email to receive more information.
Features
While Zoho provides a range of nonprofit-specific dashboards and apps, it is important to note that you will have to select the calendars, databases, analytics dashboards, and automations you want from the Zoho Creator platform before getting started.
This process is simple, however, as Zoho is a low-code platform with pre-built applications specifically aimed at nonprofits. These include volunteer management scheduling and tracking, a donor management portal, and a fundraising event management platform.
Zoho’s online database will allow you to keep track of donor, sponsor, and volunteer information while its event management app is largely automated, capable of providing automatic event confirmations and sending bulk SMS and email invitations.
This platform also provides an expense management app with automated tasks including revenue calculation.
With nonprofits such as HOPE International relying on Wrike for its data-driven and workflow automation tools, Wrike emerges as a project management tool that specializes in providing nonprofits with crucial performance insights, thereby enabling improved, team communication and collaboration, task management and delegation, and project workflows.
Why we chose it:
Wrike’s workflow management tools are geared to streamline nonprofits’ daily project tasks and keep you on track to achieving project milestones.
Workload management features such as custom request forms enable you to collect all the information you need to create volunteer applications and plan charity events from the right people without having to check back in for missing information, while analytics dashboards enable you to track budgets and set fundraising goals.
- Customizable task management views including Gantt, waterfall, and Kanban charts
- Automatic task prioritization
- Custom request forms
- In-app file and video editing
- Real-time content feedback
- No nonprofit discount
- No nonprofit-specific features
Pricing
Wrike’s free plan provides nonprofit organizations with basic project views and tasks. The Team plan, for $9.80 per user per month, provides users with Gantt charts, analytics views, personalized dashboards, custom fields, and customizable templates throughout.
At $24.80 per user per month, the Business plan grants users access to automations, file sharing and video proofing, and unlimited reports, dashboards, and integrations.
There is also the Enterprise plan, which provides custom access roles and additional security features, as well as the Pinnacle plan, which provides budgeting and billable hours. For pricing for the Enterprise and Pinnacle paid plans below, you’ll need to contact Wrike to receive a personalized quote.
Features
Wrike offers a range of features built to streamline project workflows, including its automated custom request forms which enable you to gather all of the information you need for a variety of tasks, including donor management and fundraising event checklists. Wrike also makes it easier for you to view projects and set workflow automations in a way that’s comfortable for you, offering timeline, waterfall, Gantt, and Kanban charts.
Task management tools such as task automation and drill-down to do lists that filter tasks by priority make it easier to set task schedules, while built-in proofing tools enable you to provide full-context feedback to team members on fundraising and public relations ideas. Absolute.org COO Ryan Wood claims that Wrike improved his workload management and task tracking by 75%.
Frequently Asked Questions about the Best Project Management Software for Nonprofits (FAQs)
Are you still unsure whether a project management tool is necessary for your nonprofit? Here are some answers to frequently asked questions to help you decide!
Conclusion
Nonprofit project management can prove challenging, especially when it comes to juggling several critical and complex projects at once all while attempting to create the societal impact that your organization is striving to achieve.
Project management software can go a long way to helping you not only simplify your daily work but also keeping your nonprofit on track to achieving key milestones. While automation helps to reduce the number of tasks on your plate, the various dashboards and views offered by project management tools make it easier to digest the scope of your project, thereby making planning easier.
The advantages of the best project management software for nonprofits go beyond simplifying project planning. Intuitive features such as time tracking, resource management, and BI dashboards enable you to track your project performance, enabling you to determine areas for improvement and enabling you to maximize the impact that your nonprofit leaves for the better.
No matter whether you’re a long-established NGO or a startup looking to make a difference, there’s a project management tool out there to maximize your nonprofit’s efficiency.
