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Website & Technology

The Master List of Apps Your Nonprofit Needs

Author: Tatiana Morand
December 11, 2018
Contents
🕑 11 min read

Many of the top nonprofits I’ve worked with have one thing in common: they regularly use tech tools to help them in every department.

In today’s mobile-driven world, that means one thing: it’s time to start using apps.

But there are literally thousands of apps out there. Which ones will actually save you time in the long run?

To find the answer, I did a lot of research as well as asking nonprofit professionals which apps they use regularly.

Finally, I came up with this list, which includes apps on topics from self-care to time management to fundraising.

(And sorry — Candy Crush didn’t make the cut.)

Of course, the app market is always changing. A lot of formerly popular apps no longer exist, and new ones are coming on board every day.

But don’t worry: everything here is currently available to download.

(Note: I didn’t add text-to-give apps, but we have another post on the topic if you’re interested.)

I’ve also included a few lines on what you can use each app for, which platforms it’s available on, and which costs are associated with it.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

1. Bench

  • Use it to: Manage your books and monitor your financials.
  • Available: iOs and online.
  • Cost: Starts at $95/month if your expenses are under 1k, and goes up depending on your expenses.

Do you panic every time tax season rolls around? Although keeping your financial statements up to date is key to maintaining 501c3 status, it’s easy for it to slip to the bottom of your to-do list.

Enter Bench. They pair you with a team of bookkeepers so you don’t have to do any of the work of managing your financials yourself, and never have to worry that you’ll fall behind on filing form 990.

Read More: The Complete Nonprofit Compliance Checklist From an Expert

2. Buffer

  • Use it to: Schedule social media posts in advance.
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: They have a free plan that includes 3 accounts or less. Their lowest paid plan starts at $15/month and includes up to 8 accounts.

Given that 55% of people who engage with nonprofits on social media take some sort of action afterwards, maintaining a social media presence is a huge asset for your nonprofit. However, it can be difficult when there are 500 other things demanding your attention.

That’s where a social media management app such as Buffer can help. Buffer allows you to connect your social media accounts and create a queue of posts that it can auto-schedule or that you can send out at specific times — saving you from having to be constantly online.

3. Canva

Wondering how other organizations are able to consistently create great social media imagery? If you don’t have the budget to hire a full-time designer, or just want everyone on your team to have the ability to create simple graphics, Canva is a great option.

Their app works the same as the online version, allowing you to create images for any platform using their preconfigured sizes, templates and graphics. It’ll help you spruce up your Instagram feed in no time!

Read More: 10 Inexpensive (or Free) Nonprofit Marketing Tools That Create Stunning Visuals

4. Coin Up

  • Use it to: Get a few more donations every month.
  • Available: iOsand Android.
  • Cost: Free.

Every little bit helps, right? Coin Up allows its users to round up any debit or credit charge they make throughout the month, and then donate all of their spare change to the nonprofit of their choice within Coin Up’s platform. If you’d like to be included on their list of charities, you can register here.

5. Daily Feats

  • Use it to: Motivate yourself to complete self-care tasks.
  • Available: Android.
  • Cost: Free.

90% of nonprofit professionals need a spa day, stat.

…Okay, I made that up.

But jokes aside, a common theme I’ve heard from nonprofit professionals is that it can be tiring and difficult to manage both the work at your organization and take care of yourself.

That’s where self-care apps like Daily Feats can come in handy. By sharing reminders to complete simple tasks, it provides a little boost of motivation to accomplish anything from getting out of bed in the morning to working out. (After all, helping other people starts with helping yourself.)

6. DialMyCalls

  • Use it for: Donor and supporter outreach.
  • Available: iOS and Android
  • Cost: Free basic account with paid rates starting at 14 cents per call.

When you have thousands of donors or supporters in your database, contacting each of them with info about your latest fundraiser or nonprofit event quickly becomes an onerous task — especially when you rely on phone calls and SMS messages as a big part of your outreach strategy.

However, the DialMyCalls app automates this tedious process for you. Use the app to notify your support en masse and within seconds. You can also create customized voice messages and/or texts with fundraising details or event specifics, and DialMyCalls will deploy your info to up to 3,000 numbers per minute.

7. Fundly

  • Use it to: Raise money for your nonprofit.
  • Available: iOS and Android
  • Cost: Platform fee of 4.9% plus credit card processing fee of 2.9% and $.30 per transaction.

Social media has a growing impact on fundraising for nonprofits. The 2017 Global Trends in Giving Report showed that a quarter of donors said social media “inspired” them most often to give. And more than a fifth (21%) of peer-to-peer fundraising comes from direct click-throughs on social media.

Because of the importance of social sharing, Fundly makes it simple to create a campaign page and spread the word about your fundraiser via video and photo galleries, easy email templates to boost donations, and promoting your cause via social media.

E-book banner #2 (Event Fundraising)

8. Givelify

  • Use it to: Receive donations from new users.
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: 2.9% + $0.30 per donation.

If you’re struggling to get donations at your events, you might be wondering if there’s an alternative to handing out your contact information and hoping for the best?

That’s where Givelify comes in. Their software allows you to create an app that’s branded in your organization’s colours to ask supporters for donations. They also provide donation management so that you can track exactly who your donors are and what amount they gave.

9. Grammarly

  • Use it to: Check grammar and spelling on the fly.
  • Available: iOS and Android
  • Cost: Free.

If you’ve ever sent off an important email and then cringed a minute later because there was a glaring typo in the subject line… Grammarly might be for you.

Their app is a simple keyboard that you can toggle on or off to make sure your spelling and grammar is perfect whether you’re composing a Facebook status or an email to your entire board.

10. Google One Today

  • Use it to: Broaden your reach by tapping the expansive Google user base.
  • Available: iOS and Android
  • Cost: Free (but you have to register with Google for Nonprofits).

Every day, Google One Today features a new nonprofit or cause and prompts users to donate $1 or match donations from their peers.

Why put in the time to use this app? Getting featured can broaden awareness for your cause (part of the app’s mission is to expose users to nonprofits they’ve never heard of), which can add donors to your supporter base you never would’ve otherwise reached.

11. Humanity

  • Use it to: Create schedules for your nonprofit staff members and volunteers and process payroll.
  • Available: iOS and Android
  • Cost: Starts at $45/month.

When juggling the availability of employees and volunteers, it’s almost impossible to create the perfect staff schedule. Issues like double-booking employees and understaffing for particular periods crop up often, causing the task to be a major time suck.

However, using a scheduling app like Humanity can take the pain out of staff schedules. You can view employee and volunteer availability, schedule them for shifts, manage vacation requests, and process payroll — all in one platform.

12. My WhereAbouts

  • Use it to: Help supporters stay oriented during charity walks or fun runs.
  • Available:iOs.
  • Cost: Free.

Concerned your participants won’t know how to follow the route of your charity run? Check out the My WhereAbouts app for an easy way to help them along the way. This app shows the landmarks in their area and orients Google Maps in whatever direction they’re headed so they can stay on track (and beat their personal record!).

As an added bonus, they can record their screen to share their experiences with other potential participants and spread the word about their experiences.

13. Skype

  • Use it to: Schedule video and international calls.
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: Free.

Even though you might have used Skype in your personal life in the past, you might not have known it was also available as an app (or is that just me?).

If you have employees who work remotely or who are often on the road, using Skype as a video conferencing app can save you a lot of time trying to coordinate projects via email. Simply schedule a video call and you’re good to go!

14. Slack

  • Use it to: Communicate with your team and volunteers, wherever they are.
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: Free, or they have a paid plan starting at $6.67 per user with more extensive features.

Managing employees and keeping track of volunteers gets a lot easier when you have one central spot for communications — and considering that people nowadays are always on their phones, why not use an app to do it?

That’s where Slack comes in. With this popular messaging app, you can create channels for different groups of people or topics, host 1:1 video calls, and message people individually. The best part? If you don’t need to save your message history over long periods of time, you can even use their free plan indefinitely.

15. SnapDonate

  • Use it to: Turn your advertisements into donations.
  • Available:iOs.
  • Cost: Contact them.

If you’re looking to get more traction out of your signage, SnapDonate can help. Users of the app can simply snap a photo of your nonprofit’s logo to send a donation of their choice to your organization. If you’re not as big on signs, potential supporters can help simply by searching for your organization within the app. You can message them if you’d like to be added to their list of nonprofit partnerships.

(Be aware, though: it was created in the UK, so any donations made internationally will go to their UK branch.)

16. Trello

  • Use it to: Keep your team schedule
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: Free, or starting at $9,99 per user for more advanced features.

To-do lists everywhere. Conflicting deadlines. And not a calendar in sight.

Does this sound like your organization? If so, Trello might come in handy.

Using their boards, you can schedule and coordinate projects, add them to calendars, colour-code them, and include all the details your team needs to know. It also syncs across platforms, meaning the less mobile-friendly members of your team can use it on their desktop.

Read More: 9 Super Productivity Tools for Nonprofits

17. Toggl

  • Use it to: Track your time so you know how much time you’re spending per task.
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: Free.

Wondering where your nonprofit should be allocating more resources (or just want to know how much time you’re wasting on Facebook)? Some of the most efficient nonprofits we’ve worked with track how much time they’re spending per project (or per department) with Toggl.

This app is a free time tracker, which can help you figure out which projects are worth spending time on, and which are just a time suck — something that’s critical when you don’t have that much time to begin with.

18. VolunteerMatch

  • Use it to: Managing volunteers and event coordination.
  • Available: Cloud-based software accessible from any device
  • Cost: Free basic account, with paid accounts starting at $99 annually.

If you need more volunteers to take up your cause, then VolunteerMatch is an excellent tool to find new recruits. With around 1.3 million visitors, the platform helps connect stretched-thin nonprofits with eager volunteers.

Share the details of your volunteer opportunities on the platform, and VolunteerMatch ensures the info is searchable by geography, interest, and skill type to help you find the right fit. (Much faster than posting on a bulletin board, right?)

19. Wave

  • Use it to: Manage your accounting and invoicing.
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: Their accounting platform is free — you only pay if you need more advanced features.

Still figuring out how to manage your nonprofit’s financials?

Give Wave a try.

It can help you manage your income and expenses, as well as tracking your invoices and payroll — perfect for many small nonprofits I’ve spoken to who don’t have time to do it themselves. The majority of their software is cloud-based, but they offer apps for mobile invoicing and receipt scanning so it’s easy for you to keep tracking your expenses on the go.

20. WildApricot

  • Use it to: Manage your organization’s membership from your mobile device.
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: Free for any paid user of WildApricot.

If you’re working as a membership manager, you probably find it difficult to keep track of who’s paid or who’s been to which event — not to mention duplicated, erroneous, and out-of-date contact entries.

That’s where WildApricot’s mobile app comes in. Our app for admins allows you to register new members, accept online payments, communicate with members, and set up events — wherever you are.

We also have an app for members, which allows your members to register for events, contact other members, and edit their profile.

If you want to test out the system, you can access our free, 60-day trial here.

Read More: WildApricot Launches Mobile App for Members on Android and iOS

21. Wunderlist

  • Use it to: Create shareable, comprehensive to-do lists.
  • Available: iOs and Android.
  • Cost: Free.

Sometimes, the most simple apps can be the most useful. Wunderlist is a to-do list app, which allows you to create and share everything from grocery lists for your next big fundraiser to the steps you need to complete before it happens with your team. That way, you’ll always know when the most important items are crossed off your list — and which ones you need to follow up on.

22. uBack

  • Use it to: Connect with the wider fundraising community and find more donors.
  • Available: iOs.
  • Cost: 3.9% transaction fee per donation.

uBack makes it easy for new donors to find and donate to your organization. Their app contains a POS, event ticketing system, and more, helping you to streamline everything to do with fundraising in one place. It also integrates with social media so you can push out notifications about your latest fundraiser to all your accounts.

23. Unison

  • Use it to: Connect and organize your members and supporters
  • Available: Online.

  • Cost: Has a free plan for personal use; $15/month for up to 50 members

Ever gotten lost in an endless chain of reply-all emails? If so, you should consider Unison, a group communication app which allows you to cut through the chaos and simplifies bringing your people together.

Planning a get-together? Quickly collect RSVPs and have group members sign up to bring items — among many other possible action items — all from within Unison, even if they don’t have an account. All you need to do is add their email or phone number, and you can start sending them messages right away.

Now that you have a comprehensive list of apps to help you run your nonprofit, you can test them out to see which are right for your organization.

Share your thoughts in the comments — or email me at mtatiana [at] wildapricot.com if there’s one you’d like to add to this list!

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