Grassroots · under $250k raised / yr
The under-$250k fundraising stack
- Annual revenue
- under $250k
- Staff size
- 0-1 development staff (often the ED)
- Line items
- 4
The stack, line by line
| Category | Tool | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Donation processing | Zeffy 100% free processing; no platform or processing fees at all | $0 |
| Events & auctions | Givebutter Free events, campaigns, and basic donor tracking | $0 |
| Grant research | Grantable AI grant writing; free to start, $50/mo when application volume grows | $0-$600/yr |
| Forms & other operations | Airtable Free tier covers rosters, trackers, and the lists that aren't donor data | $0 |
| Total | $0-$600/yr |
At under $250k raised, your fundraising stack should cost almost nothing: free processing, free events, free operations tools, and one smart spend on grant writing help. Budget $0 to about $600 a year. What a grassroots shop is short on is hours, and the one paid line here buys hours back.
Why these picks
Processing: Zeffy ($0). No platform fee and no processing fee, so a $100 gift deposits $100. Zeffy funds itself with an optional donor tip at checkout and runs on Stripe. Look at the checkout flow, plan around its scheduled payout dates before a cash-critical event, and keep every dollar.
Events and light CRM: Givebutter ($0). Ticketing, campaign pages, and enough donor tracking to carry a small shop for years. Givebutter’s donor-facing pages are more modern than what many paid tools show supporters. Keep tips on and the platform fee is zero.
Grant writing: Grantable ($0 to start, $50/mo as you grow). The honest problem at this size isn’t finding grant lists; it’s the writing. Federal portals are a poor fit for grassroots shops (federal grants demand compliance capacity small organizations don’t have yet), and foundation prospects are findable free at a Candid partner library. The bottleneck is drafting, and Grantable’s AI drafts from your past applications turn a two-hour proposal into a forty-minute edit. Start on the free plan; nonprofits under $500k get half off the first paid year.
Operations: Airtable ($0). Program rosters, volunteer lists, a grant-deadline tracker. Airtable’s free tier covers a small shop, and monday.com is the alternative if your work is more projects than lists. Many grassroots shops pay for one of these before anything donor-facing, which is a sane order of operations.
What to cut first when the budget gets cut
Grantable’s paid tier is the only line that can be cut, and dropping back to its free plan costs you drafting speed, not data. Everything else is already free. If a board member pushes for “real software,” the better first spend is almost always a few hours of grant-writing help or a spring mailing.
When you’ve outgrown this stack
Move up to the Growing stack when donor history starts slipping through Givebutter’s tracking, when you’re hand-searching for funders every month, or when you hire your first dedicated fundraiser. That’s when a real CRM and a research platform with funder matching start paying for themselves.