Nonprofit Software Guide

The fundraising stack report

What your shop should spend, by the size of your shop.

Every other guide starts with a CRM and works outward. That's backwards. The stack that fits a $400k shop and the stack that fits a $6M shop share almost no line items, and the CRM is the last decision, not the first.

This is the whole stack, costed: grant research, prospect and wealth screening, donation processing, forms, events, and the database. Pick your revenue tier and read the line-by-line, including the one question nobody answers: what to cut first when the budget gets trimmed.

6
software categories in a real fundraising stack
4
shop sizes, each with its own recommended stack
$0
what donation processing should cost you, at any size
15+
years the author has spent in fundraising and grant work

Recommended stacks

01 Grassroots under $250k raised / yr · the (nearly) all-free stack $0-$600/yr verified Jul 2026 Open the grassroots stack → 02 Growing $250k – $1M raised / yr · the first paid tools ~$2,700/yr verified Jul 2026 Open the growing stack → 03 Established $1M – $5M raised / yr · research + wealth screening ~$11,000-$14,000/yr verified Jul 2026 Open the established stack → 04 Institutional $5M+ raised / yr · the full stack ~$18,000-$28,000/yr verified Jul 2026 Open the institutional stack →
Every figure carries a “last verified” date and a source. See the annual spending benchmark. 4 stacks

Why organize by shop size?

The stack that fits a $400k shop and the stack that fits a $6M shop share almost no line items. A grassroots shop can run a completely credible operation for close to nothing; a $5M shop that skips prospect research is leaving major gifts on the table. Product-by-product “best CRM” lists can't tell you which of those you are. Your revenue can.

What's in a stack

Six categories, in rough order of return on the dollar for most shops: grant research, prospect and wealth screening, donation processing, donor CRM, forms and operations, and events. The pages under each stack walk the line items one at a time: what it costs, why it's on the list, and when you've outgrown it.