Nonprofits are under constant pressure to increase their impact while cutting costs. Bidding for grants, recruiting staff, managing volunteers, reporting on projects, and handling donations – it all has to happen on a shoestring.
One thing that can help is software. Nonprofits can use tech to cut inefficiencies and automate regular tasks. And, with all-in-one management software, you only have to pay once for access to all the tools you need. Let’s take a closer look at what nonprofit software can offer, and why it’s worth the investment!
All-in-one software aims to solve all those problems at once. Its pricing tends to be more cost-effective than disparate specialized software (one tool for payroll, one for scheduling, one for donor management, etc.) because you only pay for one piece of tech that does everything. The best all-in-one solutions are designed for easy setup and can be custom-built to match nonprofit needs.
All-in-one platforms like Archarina have three key benefits that are especially important for nonprofits:
Reducing complexity
Streamlining fundraising campaigns
Improving productivity
Anyone who's worked in a nonprofit knows that the work is already complex enough. You're juggling multiple grant allocations, volunteers, employees, and donors. That's before we even get into supporting service users and handling personal information.
The first way that all-in-one software can help is by putting all those functions in one place. Instead of spending time switching between different apps, you can run volunteer management, donor relationship management, outreach campaigns, and more in a single program. And, as well as speeding up day-to-day operations, the software also makes it easy to onboard new employees and volunteers when you start new projects.
All-in-one software for nonprofits includes fundraising tools that can make you even more effective. Once again, you'll save time by handling everything from online donation pages to donor information, payment processing, and financial reporting in one place.
"When agencies work with us, they can expect to see a 20-40% improvement in their fundraising efforts, helping them bring in a lot more money," explains Raj D., Archarina CEO. "It's about cutting costs, but also helping them better serve their community, while maintaining clear accountability for how funds are used."
Some platforms even offer data insights as part of their CRM for nonprofits, allowing users to analyze donor profiles and determine which fundraising campaigns are most effective.
The result? You grow your revenue and reduce administration costs at the same time.
All-in-one software can also help improve productivity across your organization. For example, employees and volunteers can use it to handle shift scheduling and time tracking. As that real-time data feeds back into the platform, you can link it to specific funds or grants, keeping track of exactly how many resources are left for each project.
Key components of all-in-one nonprofit software and their use cases
There’s no arguing the benefits of smoother operations, greater productivity, and smarter fundraising! But for a deeper understanding of how all-in-one nonprofit software can pay off in practice, let’s take a look at how its value applies across some key areas of nonprofit operations: donor management, volunteer coordination, grant tracking, event planning, and project management.
Volunteer coordination
Nonprofits are continually working on volunteer recruitment and retention, and they also need a way to manage and monitor volunteer work.
All-in-one software for nonprofits can include HRM tools for onboarding volunteers, training them, scheduling shifts, and tracking volunteer hours. It can also help automate many of those tasks, or empower team members to handle their own paperwork.
For example, you can use tools like ArcHRM (part of the Archarina suite for nonprofits) to collect volunteer sign-ups. Once you have contact details and availability for each volunteer, you can use the same platform to schedule their shifts and track their hours. You can even use information about volunteers' skills to automatically match them to specific tasks and projects.
Understanding how to work with volunteers is a key piece of nonprofit HR best practices. Since volunteers aren't compensated like employees, you have to find other ways to recruit and motivate them — from onboarding them to showing your appreciation for their efforts.
Volunteers are also legally different from employees. The rules covering their work are different, so it's particularly important to find HR software for nonprofits that can differentiate between types of worker and track their hours accurately. Linking shifts to specific projects and offering accessible ways to record hours are essential features for time-tracking software — especially if you manage volunteers remotely rather than in person.
Grant tracking
Grant tracking generates a lot of paperwork, which can take valuable time away from HR team members and project managers. Look for software that can automate regular tasks, such as electronic signature software that automatically follows up with stakeholders on your behalf.
But you could streamline grant management with software.
You can collect a list of funding opportunities in one place, and track the status of each grant application at a glance. Once the money comes in, you can use the same software to allocate funds and monitor the progress of each funded project. When it’s time to report back to the grant provider, you already have the finances, timelines, and results at your fingertips.
Another benefit of an all-in-one platform is that it keeps a centralized record of your grant bids and fundraising efforts. That makes it easier to be transparent and accountable, since you don't have to chase information down across multiple spreadsheets and software dashboards.
Event planning
Events are an opportunity for nonprofits to fundraise, reward donors, and recruit volunteers. You can supercharge your recruitment and fundraising efforts by using all-in-one software to manage them.
If your software includes event management features, you can use it for messaging possible attendees, ticketing, and even setting up donation forms. Later, you can use feedback from the event to evaluate which events are most valuable.
For example, some audiences will respond well to online webinars, while others are more likely to sign up for in-person events, such as auctions. Monitoring RSVPs, responses, and donations can show you which of the two types of events resonates more with your target audience so you can plan more of them in the future.
You can also use the software to plan an event budget, allot volunteer and employee hours, reconcile receipts, and follow up with attendees: thanking them for donations, encouraging them to join volunteer initiatives, or simply staying in touch about your work and impact.
Project management
One of the things that makes nonprofits distinctive is that their work is often project-based. Instead of planning in the long term, grants, donations, resources, and even volunteers might be linked to specific projects.
That makes project management tools especially important. All-in-one tools can help you cover every aspect, from tracking timelines to resource management and volunteer allocation. They also give you an overview of how different projects are performing and which ones need more or less support.
Using project management software also steers your team toward standardizing processes — which can make your work quality more consistent. Let’s say that everyone knows that there's an established process for designing a project schedule. If that’s the case, then they can follow it reliably instead of deadlines being added to the calendar at random.
Justifying the investment in all-in-one nonprofit software to key stakeholders and donors
While it may be easy to convince your staff and team members that all-in-one software is the way to go, nonprofits have another unique hurdle: persuading board members, donors, and other stakeholders to invest in software.
Here are three ways to make your case:
We've rounded up eight of the best companies that cater to the needs of nonprofits and small businesses — but they can still handle the big leagues as your nonprofit grows.
Comparing costs: All-in-one vs. standalone solutions
Let's start with the obvious: investing in one, all-in-one software solution is cheaper than buying multiple stand-alone applications.
What's more, it also avoids the hidden costs of using multiple programs, such as slower set-up and time spent chasing information. When you have limited staff and volunteer hours, every second counts, and every software hold-up results in wasted time and resources.
Although we know those hidden costs exist, it's almost impossible to measure them. The only way to show the impact of a fragmented software approach is to compare it with all-in-one software.
Assess what tasks your nonprofit, specifically, spends the most time on. Is it donor management? Recruiting? Payroll? Peruse some of the most popular standalone software solutions for each, noting the pricing for each and the total cost of using them all together.
Then, compare that with the cost of an all-in-one solution that addresses all of your needs. More often than not, you’ll find that investing in an all-in-one solution is much more cost-effective than disparate solutions!
Building trust through transparency
All-in-one software makes it easier to show and justify expenditures. When a major donation comes in, you can use the platform to record the money, track when it was allocated out, which projects it went to, and what impact it had on your organization.
That's important for compliance, but it can also affect your organization's revenue. When stakeholders can see exactly what’s coming in and going out, they can feel more confident in the decisions being made in daily operations — which may make them more likely to agree to invest in a tool that streamlines those daily ops even more.
"When nonprofits make initial investments, they can use this system to easily show stakeholders and donors exactly where their money is going. For example, if a donor gives $1,000 to fund computer programming classes for kids, it's often hard to track and report back on how that money was spent and who it helped," Raj explains. "This system makes it much easier to provide that transparency, which can make donors feel more confident and even more likely to give again.
Driving sustainable impact with more efficient operations
All-in-one software can help accelerate a digital transformation that makes your organization more effective and sustainable in the long term.
Seemingly small details like automating routine tasks or tracking volunteer data can make a huge difference to how much you can achieve. Instead of focusing on everyday admin, your team can get through their workload faster. Instead of allocating volunteers to projects that don't suit their schedules or skills, you can improve engagement and impact by matching them to the perfect task.
Without software, many nonprofits are left to keep track of physical documents and records. Not only is this less environmentally friendly, but it also takes up a ton of storage space. Nonprofits, particularly those focused on sustainability, are well-served by encouraging environmental friendliness throughout the organization — not just in its community initiatives.
This can appeal to stakeholders, who recognize the importance of maintaining a solid reputation by committing to sustainability practices that the community truly cares about.
Using tools to simplify and centralize operations that once largely took place on paper or in efficient spreadsheets also has sustainability benefits that go far beyond environmental friendliness. All-in-one solutions that streamline internal processes and automate tedious administrative tasks can free up your team for more important work, like building strong community and donor relationships. These are the tasks that truly contribute to the organization's future, which stakeholders are usually happy to invest in.
How Archarina can help your nonprofit soar
Archarina is an all-in-one platform with tools purpose-built for nonprofit HR, CRM, time-tracking, and analytics needs. Here’s how we support busy nonprofit teams:
Simplified setup and long-term usability
Nonprofits often scale up and down quickly, so they need software that’s easy to set up. Archarina has an intuitive set-up process and interface — so whether you're condensing your tech stack from multiple systems to one, or are simply onboarding a new staff member, you can move quickly.
The platform can be customized to fit your organization's procedures and compliance requirements. But you don't need technical expertise to make that happen. Archarina has a customer support team with a hands-on approach to share best practices and help you tailor the software to your needs.
Hands-on customer success support
Switching to a new software platform can be daunting, but Archarina has a dedicated customer success team to support you through the transition. This support extends beyond the initial set-up — especially if you don't have a technical team in-house.
Our support team can help you explore the platform and offer insights into best practices and use cases for your specific operations to help you become even more efficient. You'll learn how to set up automations, configure workflows, and clean up donor data to make sure that your records are accurate.
"We'll help you run your operations much more efficiently, as that's what our system is built to do," explains Raj. "Other companies might give you the product and leave you to figure out how to make it work best. But with us, our customer success team will be there to help you optimize everything. For example, if you're dealing with 100 agencies, we'll help you match them to the right grants and handle all the details for you."
Data to future-proof the nonprofit’s operations
It's easy for nonprofits to focus on the short term, moving from grant to grant and project to project. But you also need a long-term strategy to keep the organization running and amplify your impact.
All-in-one software can scale with you over time, so you don't have to worry about switching software in the future. Even if your donor list, data, and operational needs increase, Archarina has the capacity to handle it.
Flexibility is just as important as size. It's likely that your procedures and workflows will change over time, so you'll need to continuously customize the software you use. Archarina's platform is built for resilience — so that when you make changes, it remains as fast and secure as ever. You can modify everything from dashboard layouts to data collection, donation forms, volunteer schedules, and workflows.
Takeaway: Archarina is the optimal solution for your nonprofit
All-in-one software makes nonprofits more effective by streamlining their operations, increasing productivity, and leveling up your fundraising efforts. It can also be a money-saver, since you can rely on one platform instead of a patchwork of different apps.
Archarina is a software suite that's built for nonprofits with big plans. It can scale with you and adapt to unique workflows. You'll even benefit from a hands-on customer success team who can handle the technical details.
Request a demo to see how Archarina can boost your nonprofit’s efficiency and impact!.
