Episode 006: We Ranked Nonprofit CRMs So You Don’t Have To

Is your nonprofit using the right tech stack… or just the most popular one?

In this episode of The Nonprofit Syndicate Podcast, we do something most people won’t: we rank nonprofit technology platforms as either “Solid” or “Trash Panda.” No middle ground.

From Salesforce and Virtuous to Classy, Fundraise Up, Bloomerang, GiveButter, and more — we break down what actually works, what’s overpriced, what’s overkill, and what’s just riding on brand reputation.

We cover:

When Salesforce actually makes sense (and when it doesn’t)
The truth about fundraising form conversion rates
Why most nonprofits are overbuying tech
The difference between “checkout optimization” and “donor relationship automation”
And how to evaluate platforms based on partnership, not just features

This one is spicy. We probably made some people mad. But if you’re responsible for growth, retention, or tech decisions at your organization, this episode will save you time, money, and frustration.

Let us know in the comments:
What tech platform do you swear by? And which one burned you?

00:08 – Setting the Rules: “Solid” or “Trash Panda” Only

02:50 – Why Tech Strategy Matters More Than Features

07:05 – Salesforce: Overkill or Necessary Power Tool?

10:09 – The Revenue Threshold Debate (When Is Salesforce Worth It?)

12:36 – The Only Real CRM Option Under $10M?

17:36 – Classy: Enterprise Standard or Conversion Killer?

19:57 – Fundraise Up: Best Form on the Market?

24:50 – Qgiv Debate: Are There Better Free Options?

29:50 – WeGive: Checkout Tool or Relationship Platform?

34:41 – The Real Test of a Tech Company: Do They Actually Listen?

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:07

All right, we're back again for another episode of the Nonprofit Syndicate podcast, uh, joined by the standard crew today. I think we're gonna have uh for the next episodes coming up, we're gonna have uh some some fill-in guests, uh, which we're gonna start doing from time to time. We'll probably swap some of us in and out when we're not available, or if we just want, you know, someone slightly more interesting in the conversation so you don't have to hear us every single time. Uh but this is gonna be a fun one. This is gonna be a little bit shorter episode, a little bit more of like a blitzkrieg of we're gonna go through some tech stack and we're gonna either label things, so just set some ground rules. Things are either going to be labeled as solid, that means like we like it, we think it's good for some stuff, recommended thumbs up, maybe not two thumbs up, but at least a solid thumbs up, or trash panda. No in between. It's just either a complete trash panda of a product or it's solid. Uh there's obviously gonna be some nuance in that, but we're just gonna go through, I'm we're gonna kind of categorize these in a few different ways. So we'll start with uh what maybe is let's start softer on the marketing side, because we probably don't know anyone who actually runs these sort of companies, so we won't offend friends uh ideally, or friendemies, or just industry acquaintances. So we're gonna start with the marketing side of things, right? So let's talk marketing tech products. So first I'm gonna go mail question.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Before you even jump in on before you jump in, ground rules on this. I'm assuming that we need to try to remove our personal bias. No, not not obviously totally personal bias. But but but the uh like theology of tech stack view is um ten years ago, nonprofits were all like and you know, the only option is uh is like nonprofit specific CRM and then a bunch of point solutions for everything else. Now there's like holistic layered platforms across different like departments, right? Um and by departments I mean I'm also mean like function. Um right, like the difference between a fundraiser every action or a we give being like a platform experience that's like verticalized for the nonprofit versus while like using a horizontal CRM, very like that's obviously I think that that's way better setup than having a bunch of point solutions. So just as far as how that tool works for the features it has, and staying away from like strategic vision, assuming that's fair.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Let's let's stay out of that lane of like how should you be thinking about all kind of thing. Right, right, right. Yeah. All right. So we're gonna go marketing stuff first. These are all gonna be mostly around email. So we're gonna talk email marketing platforms first. So mail chip, are we solid or trash band? Solid. Of course. Solid. It's industry standard, right, in a lot of ways. Mail or light.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

I think all of the the horizontal email platforms you're gonna mention are gonna be solid. Okay. Anything like you're gonna rip, you you could rip through a lot, and they're all gonna be good. I disagree.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

I think mail or light is a trash panda, just to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

I haven't used it, so yeah, I have never heard of the scene.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

Yeah, mail or light I've I've used. I think it's trash panda. Uh active campaign. Trash. Trash?

SPEAKER_02 3:43

For the nonprofit sector.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

I'm sorry. I'm coming with the difficult. That's why we're doing it. It's gonna be fun. All right, marketing cloud. Trash. Trash. Sure. Trash. Trash panda. Trash panda, trash. Campaign monitor.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

There's a asterisk of what CRM you're using in connection with it.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Okay. Yes, but could be good. Could be good. Trash panda. Trash, trash adjacent. Trash adjacent. Uh anytime a client's like, can you talk to me about tech stack? I'm just gonna send them a recording of this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Everything they're considering is gonna be trash.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Yeah. Uh okay. Now we'll go to more broadly, uh, just another sector, HubSpot. Are we still talking marketing automatically? So solid. Yeah, so solid. I'm gonna give it two thumbs up. I would say two outside of the price point.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, I was just gonna say that's it's close to trash panda. You basically have to spend$50,000 a year to get HubSpot Enterprise Marketing to work.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

With their nonprofit discount, it costs basically any other. I mean, we're not talking about HubSpot or MailChimp. We're talking about HubSpot and a Pardot or Mail Marketing Cloud, and those are all the same cost, basically.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Okay, cool. Right? These are gonna be some some a little bit different ones. These are now we're talking more a little bit about, I don't know what you call these. I'll just kind of bucket them in the same one. Uh customer to IO and Intercom. So like customers.

SPEAKER_04 5:15

Really solid.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

It's kind of like that. Those would be those would be more like uh like a support. The intercom started as support, but it's and it's leans well there from uh like where they get most of their revenue. But as far as like a a communication orchestration platform that's omni-channel and trigger-based, and kind of like really kind of stuff, right? Solid.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Intercom intercom's.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Yeah, I love intercom. Yeah, big fan of intercom. Okay, I'm gonna go through a few here um that we have on the list. Uh Braze. Have you guys used Braze at all? I've never Yeah. Yeah, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah. Braze is Brah Braze, Clavio, all the texting platforms. Uh from those, Braze is really solid. Expensive though.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Yeah, I was gonna say Clavio was the next one.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Uh like K Love uses Braze. Yeah. For example. Yeah. So enterprise level only, probably.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Clavio, we like. I mean it's behemoth. I would say, yeah, probably feature rich. Not too expensive either. Simple texting. Have you guys used simple texting? I'm not either. I have no opinion on it. Uh powered by text. I like my friends over powered by text.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

I give them a thumbs up. I'd say solid. Uh that's a good example of one that I I there's no there's no other option than saying it is a good solid platform. That's a great example of I'm not going to say trash pand. It's impossible. Right, right, right. This is too difficult. I can't do this. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Let's go uh let's go CRM. We'll go in the spicy stuff. Uh Salesforce NPSP.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Uh see, I say it's it's solid for what it's for, but I would say for a chunk of the nonprofits, it can be a trash panda. Like it's unnecessary.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

If you're a nonprofit that needs a free CRM, you should not be on Salesforce. End of story.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Jonathan, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

I think if you're a nonprofit that needs a free CRM, then you shouldn't exist as a nonprofit. Fair.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah. I think that of all the nonprofits that exist, probably, you know. I mean, Salesforce is 65,000 nonprofits using their platform.

unknown 7:37

Aaron Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

And I think it's because they have to, though, because every other nonprofit started to use it and they're like, we should do it. It's a very powerful ecosystem, but it's legacy.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I think it's the best data model. That's fair.

unknown 7:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

If you know how to use it though.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

If you know how to use it. It's set up. I mean, you've got to be I mean, how how how dumb do you have to be to not know how to use Salesforce? This dumb, right here. There's contacts, households, recurring gifts, and donations.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

I have been in probably 20 different instances of Salesforce. Yeah. Yeah. And they're all different CRMs.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Because every single person sets it at a different. That's a problem. That's a problem. They shouldn't do it like that. And that's the one that's a good point. It's customizable.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

That unless you need something that is super powerful and super customizable, you're just going to get something that is bloat and unusable.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

I think the the ability for Salesforce NPSP to integrate with other tools, I like that because of the flexibility of it. Get yourself a wife who brings you espresso in the middle of a podcast just because she's so shout out to my wife. But in PSP, the the ability to have a flexible point to integrate, I love. I think it's probably going to be overkill for a lot of organizations unless you've got someone dedicated on the team or a really great consultant to work with you.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Where is your overkill line? Well, I think the overkill is if if you're we all agree if you're doing 25 million a year, you're on Salesforce, right? Yes. Are we all agreement on that?

SPEAKER_03 9:25

I'd say if you're sub-10 million a year, I'd be like, you may not. That's too high. You think that's too high? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Well, and I think it also just depends on your staff model because there are a lot of people not even using Salesforce. They're using other CRMs that are when I say legacy, I mean built in 2010, 2015. But they didn't they didn't think, oh, we're gonna have to dedicate a person to this. They just thought we're gonna drop it in on our IT department and hope everybody else on the staff just sort of like learns by trial by fire. If that's how you're adopting software, Salesforce is not for you at all.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Software is not for you.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Software is not for you. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Okay, so we're on Salesforce. Let's go. Salesforce NPC.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Oh, I say trash panda right now. I know. You think it's gonna get better? Yeah, I think it's gonna become the standard word. I think, yeah, I we'll see. We'll see. We'll see if the CRM 3.0 wave kills them.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

If you're if you are I mean, we have what the threshold is. I would say I agree with Matt. If you're above 20 to 25 million a year in revenue, Salesforce is a great option for you. You probably need something that robust.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

20 to 25 is the line for you.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

We also need to break down revenue, guys. Remember, like we all work in selling to nonprofits. Revenue is not actually indicative of capacity, right? Because of the way they're modeled. I think of it towards heads head count.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

If you've got less than like, let's say like less than 30 employees, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

You probably don't need something like a Salesforce. Once you get above that, that means you probably will have capacity within your actual budget yearly to actually dedicate someone even part-time to being your Salesforce expert. Great. It's it's great as your sc once you get to that scale.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

So unless you can afford at least$150,000 a year investment in addition to the platform cost, you're not ready for Salesforce.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

For SI, as you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Account or consultant.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Yeah. All right. So to flip it a little bit, so I'm gonna go HubSpot again, but HubSpot using it as a donor CRM, like customizing it to be a true donor CRM.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

I think it's trash too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Because I've heard of people trying to do that, and I usually am like that, terrible, terrible idea. Don't it's just not built for it. All right. So we're gonna go a few uh PCI compliant. So that's a problem too. Uh so now we're gonna go to a few that are actually nonprofit specific CRMs. Like they, well, obviously NPSP and NPC are, but they're behemoths, they're part of Salesforce. But we're gonna go with the ones that people may know. They see them at all the conferences, right? So Neon. Trash. Trash.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't be a part of this podcast. All right, uh trash. Verge trash panda. I'm not I actually I'm not gonna answer that. Do not answer that.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

I will say if you're if remember how we said once you get above certain range, Salesforce? If you're below that, Verge was held out. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Agreed.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

The only viable option underneath what I think 10 million line that you said, I would put Salesforce line at seven for digital contributions specifically. Which could be any size above that. 7 million digital contributions, you may be at a$50 million organization. If you're doing$5 million a year,$10 million a year, but it's from like a handful of major donors and some government grants, then you don't need Salesforce, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

I think the difference, Jonathan, we're talking about is we're talking about total revenue. Total. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

But I probably, yeah. I I would put the digital one because I've got I see people with like seven million digital that Salesforce is perfect for.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

If you're if you're three to five million a year in digital revenue, yeah, I would say you're you're you would qualify for Salesforce, right? Digital revenue, about 12%, 10 to 20% of your total revenue. So 5x, whatever your digital revenue is. That gives us spot.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Agreed. All right, so we got some under that under that virtuous all day long. Yeah, love us here.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Um donor direct studio enterprise. Trash.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Absolute insane level trash panda. The trash panda king. Trash panda king.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

Is this a ministry brand product? This is, isn't it? Still? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Use it. It's it is comprehensively just collective garbage.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Bloomerang. Great people over there.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Great people. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Bloomerang. So Bloomerang is gonna be my only non-profit, probably non-trash panda, and that's below virtuous. Yes. So if you're if you're doing under a million in total revenue, or and you're more like 200 to 500k digital, then bloomerang. And then you gotta up, then it's virtuous or Salesforce.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Only the CRM. If you use if you add in any other tools, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

I actually like QGIV.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

I hate it.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Well, we'll talk about that in the next one. We'll talk about that that's that's coming up. Okay. Yeah, that is that is uh, but this is probably a good break in that conversation to say a lot of these CRMs as they try to expand their offerings, right? They will now say that they are your all-in-one platform. We are talking about them as a donor-specific CRM right now, just as a CRM. All their other features, because I could make some comments about Virtuous, I love those guys, but like I'm not necessarily going to recommend them for like email marketing, even though it does email, right? But like for what they their core offering is as a CRM, great. Um, all right, donor perfect. Oh, a CRM?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah. Oh they they say that they offer as a CRM. Donor Perfect is a CRM. That's what they are primarily. 25,000 users on Donor Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's it's and it's bad. Um gosh, there's so many hot takes I can give that I'm acting that I'm actually not gonna give. I'm I'll call it trash panda.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

But but I don't have enough experience to call it trash panda. Yeah. I'm gonna I'll withhold.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

We're gonna go. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

Is it like zombie trash panda now?

SPEAKER_03 15:49

I think so. But yeah, Razor's Edge officially gets uh zombie trash panda status. Uh okay, and then one that zombie trash panda. Dead trash panda thoughts on this. Uh but it's I don't know that it is technically CRM. I don't know. You can tell us how how you categorize it. Fun raise.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

So I put fun raise in the same category as Bloomerang as a CRM. It's if you're ready to get off of Excel and you need some sort of system, fundraise, Bloomerang, I would put Neon in that category. Same, same way. Like it's it's good enough that it's going to give you a tool and a platform to use to get you to be ready for something like virtuous and grow into something bigger.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Yeah, yeah. Okay. We're gonna go to fundraising and giving tools now. This is gonna be probably all live the most. And Jonathan's gonna have to bite his tongue. So Jonathan is gonna be talking about competitors here.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Uh so I just not talk. What I'll do is I won't say I won't say a negative thing, I'll just say the stuff that I think is good about each other.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Whether or not you agree with me, because I have both.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

So uh okay, classy. Trash panda.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Trash.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

There's there's a level of of great, good, trash panda. Just think all the first one. I would rather use classy than how bad this thing is. And that's like I would classy sits in that bottom category of it's so bad I would rather use classy.

unknown 17:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

That's that's that's I'm gonna say good.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Okay. I mean, you can technically build good looking, nice forms and that convert well with classy, right? Uh minus the last part of converting well.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Well, yeah, maybe not converting that.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

U well well what what I can say is that their their performance is as good as fundraise ups, but with more consistency. And they're the most stable and safe platform. And they I mean they have a low growth rate, but the biggest nonprofits in the world are on Classy. And that's just what the data says. That's not my uh opinion.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Totally agree.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Totally agree nice things about your editors, David. I'm I'm gonna just give data back stuff here, because I have like actual data on stuff. So I'll say that's an enterprise anchor platform.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Okay, enterprise anchor platform.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

I like that cat. Here's another data point, though. For every organization I've got to be.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

We all know David Schwab hates hates them. No, go, go, I do want to hear this. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Any other any any organization I've used off of Classy to another platform has nearly doubled conversion rate within the first six weeks.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Data point.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Let's not believe that. From Classy to everyone I put on the same platform. I've that's from Classy to at least five different fundraising platforms.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

But I don't believe that. I don't believe it. Because I I think the way that they track conversion rate is actually really fair. And they're typically hosted pages, whereas other conversion rate platforms, once you are are like they're treating conversion on interaction because it's a a pop-up or an implementation.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

I'm talking page visits to donations made, conversion rate, not like not like marketing visits? Yeah, no, like like page page visits, whether it's a hosted page or an embedded form, page visits to transactions converted. Yeah. So whether or not like that's the definition of conversion rate, right? Using cross-cells. It's the same data point. I'm not using a classy reported versus another platform reported conversion rate. It's how many visits to the page, how many gifts were made through the form on the page is conversion rate. All right. And that number.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

I think they're solid-ish. I think they've got some improvements, but they're good.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

It's the best donation form on the market.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Oh well, um, so I actually have a hot take on that. I don't think I don't think so, because uh I actually I've I've been able to talk to some of some of the team. They're great. They're they're and even their percentage platform rate is isn't terrible. Everybody else kind of has the same thing. But the the thing that they lack, which another tool has and we'll which we'll get to, is that whole um like uh what do you call it? It's the what everybody's looking for right now. They're they're trying to track like not just conversion, but it's like impact tracking. They don't have impact tracking. And so anyway, when I it's very robust.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Donation form. I mean, they have said their business model is getting people to open a form and convert, and they do that as good or better than every other form on the market.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

For what their stated goal is, yes. That they do they do a very, very good job.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

I think that it's they're perfectly like track with every like average metric.

unknown 21:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Like all the nonprofits that use them are perfectly average as far as performance. Um I would say if you're just doing a donation form, so if you're a nonprofit that has a small amount of your volume is digital, then it's then it's the the tool I would push you towards.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

I don't love their fee structure. I've seen that get pretty insane high platform fees sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

I hate their fee structure.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

It's outrageously expensive.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Yeah, I it's at point like bordering on the term predatory at times.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Uh so I believe that it I I would agree with that. Five to six percent on top of your top line revenue is absolutely outrageous when nonprofit interchange rates are sub one and a half percent. Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Right. So that's my only caveat is it's very expensive for what you're getting. When you're really just paying for good forms. Uh okay, we're gonna keep moving. I donate.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

I like I donate. Solid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

I think solid, I think I get I got to meet their CEO last year at an event, and I think uh legacy needs a lot of work, but going the right direction. I would say solid and has the right direction that they're headed for. So I would say I like how customizable it is. Sorry, Schwab. They aren't solid yet, but they want to be. Right. They they have the right intent. They're moving the right direction, they have the right leadership and vision to get to being a really solid platform. I wouldn't, if a if a customer told me we're thinking of moving to iDonate, I wouldn't, I would not like advise them against it at this point, right? Like whereas some of these other ones I would advise against. Uh Anadot. What?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

The best out of all the ones we've mentioned.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Have you guys no one's working with that? It's it's uh a little bit more common in the political space. Really common in the political space.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Anodot has more customers than FundraiseUp does. Yeah. They're they're pretty big. They have a lot of churches as well. They they they have uh the widest range in the the data set of customers, right? So they have some that some orgs that explode and others that that that barely do any. So like the risk score on them, the variance is is extremely high. But like as far as cost of the platform, it performs as good as fundraise up, but the cost is way less.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Yeah, it's solid. I would give Anadot solid. The other thing I think Anadot, that one of the reasons you may not hear it, they don't seem as big on like going to conferences and selling as direct to customers. They're really quiet and they're really good at building partnerships with agencies. They have a good set of features to work well with agencies within those. I think they've kind of captured a lot of the agency market to make them a recommended platform throughout. But I would say solid. Overall, Anadot is a is a solid tool. Okay, QGiv. Trash. Trash. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

I like QGIV. You like it? What do you like about it? I like how simple it is. Okay. And I like the the um I like how I like how simple it is and how straightforward it is. Okay. Right. The fees are high, but they're not six percent. It's like three or four percent, right? And it's just always that. Um ACH is is like locked in at two, which is insanely high, but it's again not six percent. Um they and the checkouts aren't beautiful, but they work. I I think it's but it's it's borderline. If you're a really small nonprofit, I'm I don't think it's a trash panel. But but then again, like I'd rather put you on Anna Dot or Fundraise Up or Here's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

You have to pay to use QGiv, and then you have to pay higher conversion rate or higher transaction rates with qgiv. There are better free versions of everything it does on the market, there are better paid versions of everything it does on the market, and then the back end reporting and analytics. That's trash.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah. Schwab flipped me, trash panda. Yeah, okay, trash panda. Okay, I flipped. Yeah. Give butter. He flipped me.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Solid. I'm giving Give Butter solid. They're they're easy, they're just easy to use.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

My number one issue with GiveButter, though, in the checkout experience, it doesn't ask you to cover fees for to help more of your gift go to the organization. It says will you give a give will you give a tip to our fundraising platform, GiveButter?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah. I think I say trash. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:28

I will say I think Give Butter, while I I agree, I'm gonna give them like trash adjacent only because of that tip functionality. But yeah, they ship new features. So there's only one other company I know in the space that I think ships new features and tries new things as well as they do, and their founder is on this call. Um, kind, kind, kind. I give GiveButter a lot of credit for constantly pushing, like when it's very easy for some of these platforms just to build the basics and be like, all right, cool, we're good. I think GiveButter is constantly trying to add new stuff, give new functionality. Like, I I think for for what it offers, if they would just do a stink and tipping model, I would say they'd be solid with me.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Can I put two cents in on GiveButter to add to qualify my trash pan of response?

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

They have uh an open roadmap that's really awesome. Their product's incredible. And the amount of speed that they move at is insane. Their priorities are so messed up. They'll like have 2,000 requests from customers on like a simple change and will like launch something no one's asking for. Give butters all over their checkouts. It's like you know it's give butter. Like the the the the like a uh a take rate for a transaction, if you look end-to-end on payouts to like tip to everything, could be 30 or 40 percent. Yeah, it's insane. I was talking with one of the heads of product there this week because we were comparing notes on some stuff. And like I I'm thankful I don't have to compete against them. Really thankful, because they're scary. The if you're there's two million nonprofits, 1.6 million of them are basically like side projects that people have. So there's really only like 200,000, 300,000 real nonprofits. The 200,000 real nonprofits, none of them should use give butter. Yep. But for the 1.6. Everyone's side project should be on give butter.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Is that a fair is that fair?

SPEAKER_03 27:28

Yeah. Yep. Uh okay. Donor box. It's a it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

It's vanilla. Yeah. Like it works, but nothing exciting about it. If you have it, you probably are fine, but there's better options.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

Cool. Uh giving fuel. I've seen a few people on this. I think for smaller ones, I think it's fine for smaller ones, yet again, would not recommend it for anyone doing significant revenue. Uh give cloud.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Same as giving fuel in my mind.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Okay. Uh donor direct S E.

unknown 28:12

Trash.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, trash. Okay. Uh I love my people at Virtuous so much, and I love their product in a lot of ways. So I don't want this to be.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

I don't like raised donors. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

I like virtuous, I don't like raised donors. I know. I know. And I'm sorry. I've been in enough that I don't love it as a product. I know they're always trying to make it better, and I really hope they get it right. I just don't think it's quite there yet where I'd ever like I'm not actively telling someone to move off of it, but if someone's asking me, hey, what would you recommend raised donors? I'm not going to push them towards it at all.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

If you if you are a virtuous, fully integrated user, it's a good platform for you to use because it's part of the package you're already paying for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Well, but you have to pay extra. Well, yeah, I guess if you're full, if you're paying for everything.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

If we're talking like your CRM, marketing automation, we all like then it makes sense, but I actually disagree.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

I disagree with that because I'll just give you a small example. When you edit your recurring plan in raised donors, it cancels your existing recurring plan and virtues and creates a brand new recurring plan. The platforms don't even fully integrate. So like it's it's uh I have a problem with raised donors, and the data suggests that like raised donors has the worst performance.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

It's not great. Not great. Uh okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:33

Uh Jonathan.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

I wish that was a different answer. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

You can't speak to this one. I would challenge all of us to be very honest about this. Since he's on the give. Yep. What do you give? Give? What's that? So here's my hot take on it. And Jonathan, me, I've told Jonathan this before, so it's it's and I think it's part of you guys as salesman. My my honest take is if you are not organizationally fully aligned with a move to we give, it's not a good fit. Agreed. Right? Like if you haven't decided as an organization we're all in on like if you if you just want like you're like, we just want better checkouts, don't do we give. If you're not all in on like donor relationship building, and what I mean is like aligned with like finance being cool with that, IT, everyone moving a whole different direction around retention and storytelling. Like if you're not there, which a lot of organizations are not, I I frankly probably would say no, because it's it's gonna be a lot of stuff that's in there that you're not gonna get the value out of. Um, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't get there. I think that's like the dream state. Um, but that's kind of my my my hot take on it. Is like I think it's super solid, um, but you have to be an organization that's actually committed to doing some of the stuff we talked about in last episode, which is retention, storytelling, communication with donors. If you're not, then there's probably other options that'll fill just a piece of the puzzle for you that you need.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

And I think I would agree with that is that you know, and that's more of an organizational standpoint than it is anything on WeGive, as much as um basically saying like if you're not if you're not already telling good stories, or if you're not already trying to um communicate impact to your donors and do it well and do it through your system, then you know, WeGive does that. We give helps you do that. We give kind of force I don't want to say forces you, but it's like it makes it really easy for you to do it. And if but if you don't if you're not already thinking along those lines, then it's just it's extra overkill for that person or that donation team to try and you know they've got to change their ethos. And to back that up, I think they should change their ethos. They're they're saying words like impact and we want to communicate impact, but the way they're doing it isn't actually communicating impact, they're communicating you know, reporting. And we give you actually have measurements in there. This one dollar equals this, or you know, you can show impact.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

But that's not checkout fully, so that's not quite fair, right? Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

But I would say if we're looking at checkout only, again, we give is probably not the solution, but that's also not what it's meant for, right? Like exactly we were in our pre-call, we were talking, and I said we give is it's not a fundraising platform, it's a donor relationship automation platform. Yeah, and that's I think that's the difference, and that's the direction nonprofit technology needs to go, is it needs to be relationship-building automation, yeah, not I convert one percent higher than any other platform, right? That's transnational. It's a there's important parts to that, but if you can convert as good as anyone else, but then you can retain 50% more donors because you have a system that allows you to do that automated at scale, you're night and day.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Um, I think we want JavaScript in bed, so that's all I'm saying. Just right here on the phone.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got you got them. Honestly, you actually do.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Here's right around the corner. My my perspective when it comes to nonprofit technology, there are platforms who are in it because they want to see the sector made do better and do more good. There are platforms that are in it because they want to make money. Yeah. And the ones that want to make money don't change, don't iterate, and don't take feedback. The ones that are in it because they want to serve the sector and see the sector do better because they know there's better available, do iterate, do take feedback. And that's my biggest difference that I see and we give is, and I I work with at any given time at least 40 or 50 different platforms between all of my clients. There are platforms where I go, you don't do this, and this is what you're sacrificing, and this is what it's hurting your end user. And they go, Okay, well, we'll talk to our product team, and it may make it on the roadmap in three to five years. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 33:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Or there are platforms where you don't do this, this is what it's costing your end user, and this is the value that it would bring to them. And they go, Okay, here it is, two days later. And that's a that's an actual case of what happened with WeGive is like we had a I have a client that uses it, and I and it's one of their bigger ones. And I said, You may not have run into this anymore in the past because you're the organizations you work with just don't do this, but when we do this, we're we have this entire black box because we can't see this data point that 90% of platforms can show us when we do this. The next week, it was it was available in the platform because feedback was heard, feedback was internalized, feedback was understood as valuable, and it was pushed. And yeah, not all or like there's the other side is not all technology companies are small enough anymore to iterate at that level. Yeah, but it's big. That's that's a big component of tech evaluation.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

Yeah, I think that's a great great place to land the plane, David, is like find a whatever tech tool you use, find one that's actually true partner with you as a nonprofit, not one that's there just to break in as much cash from you as possible. So, all right. Well, this will conclude it. I'm sure we just made a lot of people mad. Uh, but we also made a ton of help for a lot of people in the nonprofit space. So thank you. That's okay. It's just for us. So, all right, thanks so much for listening to another episode of the Nonprofit Syndicate podcast. We'll see you back here next week.