Category guide
Forms & other operations
The operational layer: program applications, volunteer intake, event registrations, and the lists and projects that hold a shop together. It's the cheapest category in the stack, and often the first one a grassroots shop actually pays for.
How to choose
Buy a real form builder the day a program application outgrows email. Jotform is the default: a capable free tier, paid plans from about $34/mo, and a permanent 50% nonprofit discount that brings Bronze to roughly $17/mo. For the work behind the forms, pick by shape: Airtable for data-shaped work (rosters, inventories, trackers) and monday.com for project-shaped work (owners, due dates, program plans). Both start free, and monday.com runs a nonprofit program with discounted plans.
One discipline keeps this category from becoming a liability: anything you learn about a donor belongs in the donor CRM, and donations belong on a giving platform. Forms and boards are for operations.
The tools, at a glance
Free plan; paid from ~$20/seat/mo (billed annually)
Structured lists that aren't donor data: rosters, inventories, grant trackers
Free tier; paid from ~$17/mo with the nonprofit discount
Program applications, volunteer intake, and every form that outgrows email
50% nonprofit discount
Free plan (2 seats); paid from $9/seat/mo (billed annually)
Program tracking, campaign planning, and the operational work that isn't donor data
Related reading
Ops tooling appears in every tier, starting free in the grassroots stack.