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Working in the nonprofit world, you’re probably too familiar with how much to juggle daily. Nonprofits manage a wide range of tasks to stay focused on their goals. Whether connecting with donors, organizing impactful fundraising events, or handling everyday operations, running a nonprofit can get pretty complex.
That’s where effective project management tools come in handy. With the right tool, you can organize your nonprofit’s projects, break them into manageable tasks, track deadlines, and even access performance insights to see how things are progressing. Many tools also let you automate repetitive tasks, saving time and effort. Streamlining these processes makes your team more efficient and helps you raise more funds and maximize the positive change your organization creates.
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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
1. monday.com: Best Overall
monday.com’s nonprofit project management software is an end-to-end solution built to optimize your project management process at every step.
From customizable forms for streamlined data collection and document management to custom workflows and automation, monday.com provides the tools you need to maximize your nonprofit’s efficiency and improve decision-making in the future.
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.
Pros
- The first 10 seats are 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
Cons
- Work performance insights only available on the Enterprise Plan
Pricing
monday.com’s non-profit plan is free for up to 10 monthly seats, 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.
However, monday.com has several eligibility requirements for non-profits and others, so 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 project overview, including tasks, team members, and task deadlines. You can also import existing data from Excel spreadsheets, seamlessly adding it to your project overview.
This project management software also provides several in-app communication mediums so team members can collaborate in real-time. These include chat and whiteboards, where team members can sketch and type fundraising ideas and import files.
Using monday.com’s now customizable forms feature, you can gather volunteer and sponsor information and 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.
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2. ClickUp: Best for Collaboration
ClickUp has many features to optimize your nonprofit’s projects and day-to-day tasks, from tracking funding to donor management, volunteer schedules, and fundraiser calendars. With over 1,000 integrations, you can manage your nonprofit’s resources 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, ClickUp enables you to automate routine tasks and focus on your nonprofit’s larger goals.
This project management software also comes with communication and collaboration tools, such as chat and whiteboards, which allow you and your team to collaborate on fundraising ideas in real-time.
Pros
- 1,000+ integrations
- 1,000+ templates
- Custom fields and formulas for budgeting
- Automation
- In-app video recording
- Whiteboard
- NGO discount
Cons
- Price of the NGO discount undisclosed
Pricing
ClickUp’s Free Forever plan offers unlimited tasks, Kanban boards, chat, and whiteboard features. However, you must subscribe to the Unlimited plan to utilize unlimited integrations, customizable dashboards, and column calculations to 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 in 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 automation, custom permissions, and priority customer support, which you can get for $19 per user per month. Finally, the Enterprise plan offers live onboarding training to large teams. For this plan, the organization will need to inquire about a quote.
Nonprofit organizations can receive discounts on this project management tool but must request a personalized quote to determine their exact discount amount.
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 you wish to track.
This platform offers various features to optimize project management for nonprofits. These include custom fields and formulas to track budgets and the ability to use 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.
This nonprofit project management software comes with automation tools that will take care of routine tasks for you so that you can focus on achieving your nonprofit’s goals.
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3. Asana: Best for Customer Support
Offering a 50% discount for nonprofits and pro-bono consultations from Asana Advisors to help tailor Asana to meet your needs, Asana is a user-friendly project management tool 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.
Besides 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.
Pros
- 50% nonprofit discount
- Free consultations with Asana Advisors
- A dedicated nonprofit onboarding program
- Nonprofit and Education Learning Center
- Nonprofit community forum to share knowledge
Cons
- Only 100+ app integrations
Pricing
Asana’s free Basic plan includes unlimited tasks, calendar view, board view projects, and time tracking. The Premium package, which costs $10.99 per user per month, includes unlimited dashboards, timelines, and workflow builders with automation.
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, as well as 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. In contrast, 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. In contrast, Asana’s time tracking feature will assess each volunteer’s workload and work duration, enabling you to delegate tasks more effectively.
While this project management software’s templates aren’t nonprofit-specific, Asana offers pro-bono consultations with its Advisors, who can help nonprofits use Asana to reach their goals. Asana also provides a nonprofit onboarding program for new users and a nonprofit learning center offering live training and on-demand courses.
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4. Zoho: Best for Nonprofit Essentials
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 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, fundraising event management, and budgeting.
Pros
- 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
Cons
- Customization is required before getting started
- Paid plans are costly
Pricing
Zoho’s free plan enables just one user to use 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.
You must opt for a paid plan to access more users and all business intelligence and analytics tools. The Professional plan, priced at $25 per user per month, provides access to automated notifications, time tracking, all BI and analytics dashboards, up to five separate apps, 10 separate BI and analytics workspaces, and Zoho’s full project management suite.
While the Ultimate plan is $400 per month, it’s aimed at large enterprises and provides unlimited workspaces and apps. It’s important to note that Zoho offers discounts to nonprofit organizations. To receive more information, email Zoho.
Features
While Zoho provides a range of nonprofit-specific dashboards and apps, you must select the calendars, databases, analytics dashboards, and automation 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 aimed explicitly 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. Its event management app is largely automated, 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.
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5. Wrike: Best for Data Insights
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. This improves team communication, collaboration, task management, 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. In contrast, analytics dashboards enable you to track budgets and set fundraising goals.
Pros
- 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
Cons
- 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.
At $24.80 per user per month, the Business plan grants users access to automation, file sharing, video proofing, and unlimited reports, dashboards, and integrations.
There’s also the Enterprise plan, which provides custom access roles and additional security features, and the Pinnacle plan, which provides budgeting and billable hours. For pricing for the Enterprise and Pinnacle paid plans below, you must contact Wrike for a personalized quote.
Features
Wrike offers a range of features built to streamline project workflows. One such feature is its automated custom request forms, which enable you to gather all the information you need for various tasks, including donor management and fundraising event checklists. Wrike also makes it easier to view projects and set workflow automation comfortably, 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. In contrast, 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%.
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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!
Why Use Project Management Software for Nonprofits?
Much like commercial businesses, non-profit organizations must manage various tasks when executing large-scale projects. Whether managing donor information, recruiting volunteers, or setting a budget for fundraising events, project management software can help optimize the process.
Automation tools from monday.com allow you to automate repetitive, routine tasks so that you can focus on more important project components. At the same time, ClickUp Whiteboards enable teammates to collaborate visually on fundraising ideas in real-time.
Several project management tools, such as Zoho, also have time-tracking features, which enable you to monitor volunteer productivity and improve your task delegation in the future.
How Do You Plan a Nonprofit Project?
While there’s no best way to plan a nonprofit project, effective nonprofit project management tools and software can summarize your project in a way that makes sense. With Wrike offering timeline, waterfall, Gantt, and Kanban chart views, you can view all subtasks and team members in a way that makes sense to you.
Once you have planned your project, multiple project management tools, including monday.com, provide Kanban charts to help you prioritize tasks and set your schedule.
If you’re still unsure of how to use project management software to help effectively plan for your projects, software such as Asana offers extensive support to users to help you unlock the potential of their project management software.
This includes a dedicated nonprofit onboarding program and pro-bono consultations with an Asana Advisor who will help you use Asana to reach your goals.
What Is a Good Project Management Tool?
Although there’s an array of widely recommended project management tools on the market, the best project management tool for your nonprofit largely depends on the benefits you seek.
If you need project management software with stellar customer support and expert consultants to help you optimize your nonprofit’s operations, then Asana may be worth considering.
If you’re looking to enhance your team’s communication and optimize the daily running of your nonprofit, then ClickUp provides an array of integrations, automation, and team communication tools that can help you achieve this outcome.
Wrike is worth considering if you want to obtain data insights to improve future decision-making. At the same time, Zoho provides pre-built nonprofit dashboards that optimize specific nonprofit projects, such as volunteer engagement and fundraising event planning.
If you’re after value, monday.com provides a well-rounded nonprofit project management tool at a relatively affordable price.
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Conclusion
Managing nonprofit projects can feel overwhelming, especially when juggling multiple critical initiatives while striving to create meaningful change in the world.
This is where project management software comes in. It helps streamline your daily tasks and keeps your nonprofit on track to hit essential goals. By automating repetitive work and offering user-friendly dashboards, these tools give you a clearer view of your projects, making planning smoother and more manageable.
The benefits of top project management software for nonprofits go well beyond organizing tasks. Features like time tracking, resource allocation, and performance dashboards allow you to monitor progress, identify areas for growth, and amplify your organization’s positive impact.
Whether you’re an established nonprofit or a startup with big dreams, the right project management tool can be a game-changer. It can help you maximize efficiency and focus on what truly matters, making a difference.
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Noah is an American copywriter on a mission to help clarify the nuances of the business world through unique insights stemming from backgrounds in both engineering and the medical field. When not working, you’ll likely find him running or traveling.
