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Top Donor Management Software for Advancement Teams (2026)
In any competent fundraising environment today, a donor management software is often the backbone of this process, allowing organizations to streamline operations, personalize communications, and ultimately, increase donor retention.
Donation management tools allow teams to facilitate the development of more sincere connections with supporters. Finding the best donation management software for your company is therefore essential. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the top 10 donor management software solutions that can help your institution or nonprofit thrive.
What Is Donor Management Software?
Donor Management Software (DMS) is a system that helps advancement teams keep track of supporters, their giving history, the events they attend, and the interactions your staff has with them. In a university setting, it becomes a place where alumni records, donor information, volunteer roles, and engagement activities live together, rather than being scattered across different tools.
Higher-ed data is complicated, as alumni stay connected for decades and often play several roles over time. Advancement-focused systems are built to handle that mix. They support features such as multi-decade records, college- or department-level designations, pledge schedules, soft credits, and others, which matter when teams across campus rely on the same information.
Most general CRMs aren’t designed for this kind of long-term, multi-role engagement. They usually fall short when you need to run reunion participation reports, manage major-gift portfolios, or connect across schools and student programs. That gap is why many institutions eventually look for software made specifically for advancement; it fits the realities of alumni relationships and the way higher-ed fundraising actually works.
Why Advancement teams need more than generic donor tools
Advancement work runs on long-term relationships, not short campaign cycles. Alumni stay connected for decades, and their roles shift as their lives do. That kind of relationship needs a system that understands how higher-ed engagement actually works.
Here are the areas where generic tools usually fall short:
- Alumni and donor lifecycles don’t follow a simple path- People move from student to alum to volunteer to parent donor to reunion chair, and a system needs to hold all of that without breaking.
- Engagement and giving must sit in one ecosystem- Advancement teams rely on seeing event attendance, volunteer work, digital engagement, and giving decisions together—not in separate tabs or tools.
- Reliable, real-time syncing with systems like RE NXT is a must- Without a two-way sync, records drift, stewardship misses updates, and teams end up managing spreadsheets on the side.
- Segmentation in higher ed is deeper than basic demographics- Class year, degree, academic affiliation, athletic history, parent relationships, and household links all shape how you communicate.
- Stewardship and data maintenance follow education-specific patterns- Think fund-based acknowledgements, pledge reminders, scholarship reporting, and alumni employment updates that happen continuously.
- Events and giving have to talk to each other- Reunions, regional meetups, and Homecoming often lead to gifts, but only if attendance and giving data flow together.
- Campaigns require reporting at many layers- Colleges, departments, athletics, and regional programs all expect accurate dashboards that reflect their part in the bigger picture.
- Volunteer roles evolve- Class agents, reunion committees, student ambassadors, and advisory-board members all need clear tracking and communication tools.
Best donor management software for universities & advancement teams (2026)
Here’s a look at the donor management platforms most advancement teams should be considering in 2026, and what each one brings to the table-
1. Almabase
Almabase is built for institutions that want to modernize alumni engagement with a platform that feels intuitive for staff and alumni alike. It brings events, online giving pages, class-year groups, directories, and engagement tools into one ecosystem, giving advancement teams a clearer picture of how alumni stay connected over time.
Works best for:
Institutions that want a single place to run alumni engagement, manage event workflows, track participation, and gather updated alumni data without adding more manual processes. It works especially well for teams that want to deepen engagement across different alumni segments, recent grads, reunion clusters, volunteers, and mentors while keeping donor data organized and current.
Pros
- Engagement tools (events, communities, mentorship, directories) are built specifically around how alumni interact with institutions, making it easier to track meaningful touchpoints.
- Alumni data updates flow back into the CRM, helping institutions maintain cleaner records with far less staff effort.
- Event registration, attendance, and giving activity are connected in one system, giving teams insight into patterns that influence fundraising readiness.
- Segmenting alumni by class year, program, location, or affinity is straightforward, supporting more targeted communication strategies.
Cons
- Customizing public-facing pages may require occasional technical support, depending on the institution’s needs.
- Almabase doesn't offer a free tier or trial subsription, opting instead for personalized demos.
Price range: Custom / quote-based. Not published as a fixed package; cost depends on alumni/constituent volume and modules selected.
2. Bloomerang
Works best for:
Smaller advancement teams or institutions establishing foundational fundraising practices and wanting a straightforward donor database with minimal training requirements.
Pros
- Easy onboarding and a clean interface that non-technical staff can manage confidently.
- Clear reporting and dashboards that support basic donor analysis and stewardship.
- Streamlined acknowledgement and email workflows help teams communicate consistently.
- A budget-friendly entry point for institutions building their development capacity.
Cons
- Not designed for higher-ed–specific scenarios like multi-role alumni relationships, academic affiliations, or long-term engagement tracking.
- Major-gift management and campaign reporting capabilities are more limited than enterprise systems.
- Integration options are simpler, which may matter as advancement needs expand.
Price range: Entry plans typically start around US $125/month for small databases. The cost scales up as the contact count and features increase.
3. Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT
Works best for:
Mid-sized and large advancement teams managing major gift pipelines, multiple gift types, stewardship programs, and unit-based fundraising. Institutions that need detailed reporting and coordinated advancement operations benefit most from its capabilities.
Pros
- Extensive tools for portfolio and prospect management, stewardship, and donor pipeline tracking.
- Advanced segmentation options support sophisticated annual giving and campaign strategies.
- Dashboards and analytics help leadership monitor progress across units, funds, or campaigns.
- Integrates with a wide ecosystem of tools commonly used in higher education.
Cons
- Implementation and data migration require thoughtful planning and dedicated staff time.
- Licensing and add-on modules can represent a significant investment, especially as databases grow.
- Teams may need ongoing training to leverage the platform’s more advanced features fully.
Price range: Quote-based; licensing and cost vary depending on database size, modules chosen, and institution complexity (no publicly advertised “starting plan”).
4. Light Green Light
Works best for:
Institutions that want to strengthen annual giving performance with more consistent, automated, and targeted outreach. It works well for teams that don’t have the capacity to manually manage segmented campaigns but still want communication that feels personal and intentional.
Pros
- Automated, behavior-based journeys help institutions stay in touch with donors and non-donors throughout the year without heavy staff input.
- Strong focus on converting first-time donors and improving retention rates through tailored messaging.
- Easy to build multi-channel campaigns (email, video, digital touchpoints) that adapt to donor engagement patterns.
- Useful dashboards that help annual giving teams measure momentum, gaps, and opportunities.
Cons
- Best suited for annual giving, not for broader alumni engagement or multi-role relationship tracking.
- Fundraising tools are somewhat basic and best suited to smaller organizations just moving away from spreadsheets for the first time.
Price range: Billing starts at $486. Custom / quote-based. Public pricing isn’t available, so institutions need to request a tailored quote.
5. Graduway
Works best for:
Institutions that want a strong mentorship and networking platform to support career services, young alumni engagement, and community-building initiatives. It’s valuable for campuses prioritizing alumni-to-student support and long-term professional pathways.
Pros
- Built-in mentoring programs make matching alumni and students easier and more scalable.
- Career networking tools encourage meaningful interaction between alumni across industries and graduation years.
- Offers community groups, event pages, and volunteer opportunities that foster a sense of belonging.
- Integrations help institutions tie engagement back to advancement efforts when needed.
Cons
- Institutions may need to invest time in onboarding users to fully activate the community.
- Reporting is solid for engagement, but may require additional tools when institutions want deeper fundraising analytics.
Price range: Custom / quote-based. Like many alumni-engagement platforms, the cost depends on required modules, the number of alumni, and integration needs.
6. Hivebrite
Works best for
Institutions that want a highly customizable online community with strong social features, group structures, and networking tools. It supports advancement, alumni relations, and career services teams that want a modern, branded digital hub.
Pros
- Offers extensive customization options, enabling institutions to design a community that fits their culture and branding.
- Strong support for sub-groups—class years, regional chapters, affinity groups, professional networks.
- Built-in job boards, messaging, event management, and content features help institutions foster ongoing engagement.
- Works for both alumni engagement and broader community-building beyond advancement.
Cons
- Customization flexibility can mean more configuration time and decisions upfront.
- Fundraising tools exist, but are not as specialized as those in donor-focused platforms.
Price range: Custom / quote-based. Final pricing depends on institution size, customization level, and modules activated.
7. GiveButter
Works best for
Small to mid-sized institutions or alumni groups that need an easy-to-launch giving experience for campaigns, events, and peer fundraising, especially teams that want low friction for donors and fast setup.
Pros
- Robust, easy-to-build donation and event pages with peer-to-peer and ticketing support.
- Generous pricing model and fee approach public docs emphasize no platform fees on many plans and options for donors to cover processing.
- Fast deployment and simple user experience for both staff and donors; good for time-limited campaigns (e.g., Giving Days).
Cons
- Best suited to fundraising and events rather than deep alumni lifecycle management; you may need an additional CRM to manage long-term alumni records.
- Advanced customization or enterprise integrations can require vendor support or paid plans.
Price range: Free tier / standard plan widely promoted; paid/plus features and service options are quoted per account or use case.
8. Neon CRM
Works best for
Organizations and small-to-mid advancement teams that want an all-in-one CRM with growing automation and event/volunteer features a middle ground between entry CRMs and enterprise systems.
Pros
- Clear tiering of features (Essentials → Impact → Empower), so teams can pick a plan that matches current needs and grow into more automation and integrations.
- Strong event and volunteer modules alongside donor management, reducing the need for multiple point solutions.
- Active support and an ecosystem of integrations for payments, accounting, and email.
Cons
- As needs become more complex (advanced analytics, highly customized workflows), teams sometimes outgrow the out-of-the-box functionality and require custom work.
- Some reviewers note plan limits (workflow counts, API usage) that make comparing total cost and capability important during procurement.
Price range: Public starting tiers cited around US$99/month (Essentials) up to the $400s for higher tiers; exact cost depends on features and contact volume.
9. Keela
Works best for
Small advancement teams that want a user-friendly CRM with built-in automation and donor insight tools, and who prefer minimal external tool stitching.
Pros
- Strong focus on automation and donor journeys; built-in email and forms reduce the need for separate marketing tools.
- Good support reputation and straightforward contact/donor management for teams with limited technical resources.
- Tools for data hygiene (duplicate detection, merge suggestions) that help keep records clean as databases grow.
Cons
- Some users report gaps in niche integrations (e.g., certain payment processors or campus systems), so check your key integration needs during evaluation.
- Event ticketing and some advanced features may not be as mature as in specialized event or enterprise platforms.
Price range: entry pricing starts from roughly US$99/month for small contact bands, with step-ups as contact counts increase.
10. Virtuous
Works best for
Mid-sized advancement teams that want a modern fundraising platform with tight marketing automation and a focus on donor experience teams that want donor journeys and responsive communications built into the CRM.
Pros
- Integrated marketing and fundraising workflows that reduce the need for separate marketing platforms.
- Emphasis on automated donor journeys and data-driven stewardship which can improve retention and recurring gifts.
- Positive industry recognition and user sentiment around usability and customer support.
Cons
- Pricing and packaging can vary; teams should confirm what’s included (email volume, contact bands, users) because costs can rise with scale.
- Organizations with highly specialized prospect research or wealth-screening needs may pair Virtuous with a dedicated intelligence tool.
Price range: Public and partner-site references show entry plans and per-contact pricing; typical starting points in market scans land in the low hundreds per month, with higher tiers for expanded contact counts and features.
How advancement teams can evaluate the right donor management system
Choosing a donor management system starts with getting clear about where your team struggles today and what actually moves your advancement work forward. A good evaluation process makes those gaps visible to you, and here’s a practical way to approach it-
- Map your current data pain points- List where information breaks: duplicate alumni records, missing event history, unreliable volunteer data, or gifts that don’t sync cleanly. This gives you a baseline for what the new system must fix.
- Understand your RE NXT integration needs- If your teams depend on RE NXT, outline what a seamless, two-way sync should look like. Identify the fields, gift types, and activities that must be updated in real time.
- Consider engagement-first platforms- Look for systems that bring events, digital engagement, volunteer roles, and giving activity into one place. Advancement decisions rely on the full picture, not just donation history.
- Calculate manual workload savings- Estimate hours spent today on data cleanup, spreadsheet merging, reporting, and stewardship tasks. A good system should significantly reduce that load.
- Align the choice with advancement KPIs- Match features to the metrics you report on participation, donor retention, pipeline development, reunion performance, volunteers, and campaign progress. The right DMS should make these easier to track and act on.
How Almabase serves as a modern donor management solution for advancement
Advancement work often ends up spread across too many systems, giving here, events there, engagement somewhere in between. Almabase pulls those pieces into one workflow, which is why Thomas Aquinas College found it easier to steady their digital outreach once everything lived in the same place.
A lot of the lift comes from TrueSync, the native RE NXT integration that keeps profiles, gifts, and event activity aligned without connectors. Illinois Tech leaned on this when they wanted their CRM to reflect real alumni behavior, not a version of it that needed constant cleanup.
With the data stitched together, segmentation becomes less of a project and more of a natural part of the work—class years, programs, regions, affinities, volunteer roles. It’s the kind of setup that makes targeted outreach feel less like a campaign and more like a conversation.
On the fundraising side, teams get a donor pipeline view that surfaces who’s warming up or re-engaging. It’s simple enough to use every day, and the Engagement Tile in RE NXT keeps that context right where fundraisers already spend their time.
Campaigns get the benefit of custom giving pages shaped around each audience. Loma Linda University used that flexibility during a campaign that eventually crossed $1.5M, helped by pages that matched how different groups preferred to give.
Altogether, Almabase gives advancement teams a cleaner path forward. When all these pieces sit inside one rhythm, advancement work feels less like managing systems and more like guiding relationships, which is the part of the job that matters most.
Conclusion
Advancement teams are operating in a very different landscape than they were even a few years ago. The systems we choose either add weight to that reality or make the work lighter.
The thread running through all the platforms you explored is simple: the right system should help people work smarter, not harder. It should reduce the friction around data, make segmentation feel natural, support fundraising strategy, and give teams a clearer sense of who’s ready for a conversation or a nudge.
As you evaluate donor management software, the real test isn’t the feature list. It’s whether the tool helps your team build relationships with more intention and less administrative drag.
Thinking about how a modern DMS could fit into your institution's needs? Let’s talk through how Almabase can make the most difference for your team.
About the author
Sharada is a freelance blogger and communication trainer who loves exploring the intersection of education and training. When not working, she enjoys reading and dabbling in calligraphy.
In any competent fundraising environment today, a donor management software is often the backbone of this process, allowing organizations to streamline operations, personalize communications, and ultimately, increase donor retention.
Donation management tools allow teams to facilitate the development of more sincere connections with supporters. Finding the best donation management software for your company is therefore essential. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the top 10 donor management software solutions that can help your institution or nonprofit thrive.
What Is Donor Management Software?
Donor Management Software (DMS) is a system that helps advancement teams keep track of supporters, their giving history, the events they attend, and the interactions your staff has with them. In a university setting, it becomes a place where alumni records, donor information, volunteer roles, and engagement activities live together, rather than being scattered across different tools.
Higher-ed data is complicated, as alumni stay connected for decades and often play several roles over time. Advancement-focused systems are built to handle that mix. They support features such as multi-decade records, college- or department-level designations, pledge schedules, soft credits, and others, which matter when teams across campus rely on the same information.
Most general CRMs aren’t designed for this kind of long-term, multi-role engagement. They usually fall short when you need to run reunion participation reports, manage major-gift portfolios, or connect across schools and student programs. That gap is why many institutions eventually look for software made specifically for advancement; it fits the realities of alumni relationships and the way higher-ed fundraising actually works.
Why Advancement teams need more than generic donor tools
Advancement work runs on long-term relationships, not short campaign cycles. Alumni stay connected for decades, and their roles shift as their lives do. That kind of relationship needs a system that understands how higher-ed engagement actually works.
Here are the areas where generic tools usually fall short:
- Alumni and donor lifecycles don’t follow a simple path- People move from student to alum to volunteer to parent donor to reunion chair, and a system needs to hold all of that without breaking.
- Engagement and giving must sit in one ecosystem- Advancement teams rely on seeing event attendance, volunteer work, digital engagement, and giving decisions together—not in separate tabs or tools.
- Reliable, real-time syncing with systems like RE NXT is a must- Without a two-way sync, records drift, stewardship misses updates, and teams end up managing spreadsheets on the side.
- Segmentation in higher ed is deeper than basic demographics- Class year, degree, academic affiliation, athletic history, parent relationships, and household links all shape how you communicate.
- Stewardship and data maintenance follow education-specific patterns- Think fund-based acknowledgements, pledge reminders, scholarship reporting, and alumni employment updates that happen continuously.
- Events and giving have to talk to each other- Reunions, regional meetups, and Homecoming often lead to gifts, but only if attendance and giving data flow together.
- Campaigns require reporting at many layers- Colleges, departments, athletics, and regional programs all expect accurate dashboards that reflect their part in the bigger picture.
- Volunteer roles evolve- Class agents, reunion committees, student ambassadors, and advisory-board members all need clear tracking and communication tools.
Best donor management software for universities & advancement teams (2026)
Here’s a look at the donor management platforms most advancement teams should be considering in 2026, and what each one brings to the table-
1. Almabase
Almabase is built for institutions that want to modernize alumni engagement with a platform that feels intuitive for staff and alumni alike. It brings events, online giving pages, class-year groups, directories, and engagement tools into one ecosystem, giving advancement teams a clearer picture of how alumni stay connected over time.
Works best for:
Institutions that want a single place to run alumni engagement, manage event workflows, track participation, and gather updated alumni data without adding more manual processes. It works especially well for teams that want to deepen engagement across different alumni segments, recent grads, reunion clusters, volunteers, and mentors while keeping donor data organized and current.
Pros
- Engagement tools (events, communities, mentorship, directories) are built specifically around how alumni interact with institutions, making it easier to track meaningful touchpoints.
- Alumni data updates flow back into the CRM, helping institutions maintain cleaner records with far less staff effort.
- Event registration, attendance, and giving activity are connected in one system, giving teams insight into patterns that influence fundraising readiness.
- Segmenting alumni by class year, program, location, or affinity is straightforward, supporting more targeted communication strategies.
Cons
- Customizing public-facing pages may require occasional technical support, depending on the institution’s needs.
- Almabase doesn't offer a free tier or trial subsription, opting instead for personalized demos.
Price range: Custom / quote-based. Not published as a fixed package; cost depends on alumni/constituent volume and modules selected.
2. Bloomerang
Works best for:
Smaller advancement teams or institutions establishing foundational fundraising practices and wanting a straightforward donor database with minimal training requirements.
Pros
- Easy onboarding and a clean interface that non-technical staff can manage confidently.
- Clear reporting and dashboards that support basic donor analysis and stewardship.
- Streamlined acknowledgement and email workflows help teams communicate consistently.
- A budget-friendly entry point for institutions building their development capacity.
Cons
- Not designed for higher-ed–specific scenarios like multi-role alumni relationships, academic affiliations, or long-term engagement tracking.
- Major-gift management and campaign reporting capabilities are more limited than enterprise systems.
- Integration options are simpler, which may matter as advancement needs expand.
Price range: Entry plans typically start around US $125/month for small databases. The cost scales up as the contact count and features increase.
3. Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT
Works best for:
Mid-sized and large advancement teams managing major gift pipelines, multiple gift types, stewardship programs, and unit-based fundraising. Institutions that need detailed reporting and coordinated advancement operations benefit most from its capabilities.
Pros
- Extensive tools for portfolio and prospect management, stewardship, and donor pipeline tracking.
- Advanced segmentation options support sophisticated annual giving and campaign strategies.
- Dashboards and analytics help leadership monitor progress across units, funds, or campaigns.
- Integrates with a wide ecosystem of tools commonly used in higher education.
Cons
- Implementation and data migration require thoughtful planning and dedicated staff time.
- Licensing and add-on modules can represent a significant investment, especially as databases grow.
- Teams may need ongoing training to leverage the platform’s more advanced features fully.
Price range: Quote-based; licensing and cost vary depending on database size, modules chosen, and institution complexity (no publicly advertised “starting plan”).
4. Light Green Light
Works best for:
Institutions that want to strengthen annual giving performance with more consistent, automated, and targeted outreach. It works well for teams that don’t have the capacity to manually manage segmented campaigns but still want communication that feels personal and intentional.
Pros
- Automated, behavior-based journeys help institutions stay in touch with donors and non-donors throughout the year without heavy staff input.
- Strong focus on converting first-time donors and improving retention rates through tailored messaging.
- Easy to build multi-channel campaigns (email, video, digital touchpoints) that adapt to donor engagement patterns.
- Useful dashboards that help annual giving teams measure momentum, gaps, and opportunities.
Cons
- Best suited for annual giving, not for broader alumni engagement or multi-role relationship tracking.
- Fundraising tools are somewhat basic and best suited to smaller organizations just moving away from spreadsheets for the first time.
Price range: Billing starts at $486. Custom / quote-based. Public pricing isn’t available, so institutions need to request a tailored quote.
5. Graduway
Works best for:
Institutions that want a strong mentorship and networking platform to support career services, young alumni engagement, and community-building initiatives. It’s valuable for campuses prioritizing alumni-to-student support and long-term professional pathways.
Pros
- Built-in mentoring programs make matching alumni and students easier and more scalable.
- Career networking tools encourage meaningful interaction between alumni across industries and graduation years.
- Offers community groups, event pages, and volunteer opportunities that foster a sense of belonging.
- Integrations help institutions tie engagement back to advancement efforts when needed.
Cons
- Institutions may need to invest time in onboarding users to fully activate the community.
- Reporting is solid for engagement, but may require additional tools when institutions want deeper fundraising analytics.
Price range: Custom / quote-based. Like many alumni-engagement platforms, the cost depends on required modules, the number of alumni, and integration needs.
6. Hivebrite
Works best for
Institutions that want a highly customizable online community with strong social features, group structures, and networking tools. It supports advancement, alumni relations, and career services teams that want a modern, branded digital hub.
Pros
- Offers extensive customization options, enabling institutions to design a community that fits their culture and branding.
- Strong support for sub-groups—class years, regional chapters, affinity groups, professional networks.
- Built-in job boards, messaging, event management, and content features help institutions foster ongoing engagement.
- Works for both alumni engagement and broader community-building beyond advancement.
Cons
- Customization flexibility can mean more configuration time and decisions upfront.
- Fundraising tools exist, but are not as specialized as those in donor-focused platforms.
Price range: Custom / quote-based. Final pricing depends on institution size, customization level, and modules activated.
7. GiveButter
Works best for
Small to mid-sized institutions or alumni groups that need an easy-to-launch giving experience for campaigns, events, and peer fundraising, especially teams that want low friction for donors and fast setup.
Pros
- Robust, easy-to-build donation and event pages with peer-to-peer and ticketing support.
- Generous pricing model and fee approach public docs emphasize no platform fees on many plans and options for donors to cover processing.
- Fast deployment and simple user experience for both staff and donors; good for time-limited campaigns (e.g., Giving Days).
Cons
- Best suited to fundraising and events rather than deep alumni lifecycle management; you may need an additional CRM to manage long-term alumni records.
- Advanced customization or enterprise integrations can require vendor support or paid plans.
Price range: Free tier / standard plan widely promoted; paid/plus features and service options are quoted per account or use case.
8. Neon CRM
Works best for
Organizations and small-to-mid advancement teams that want an all-in-one CRM with growing automation and event/volunteer features a middle ground between entry CRMs and enterprise systems.
Pros
- Clear tiering of features (Essentials → Impact → Empower), so teams can pick a plan that matches current needs and grow into more automation and integrations.
- Strong event and volunteer modules alongside donor management, reducing the need for multiple point solutions.
- Active support and an ecosystem of integrations for payments, accounting, and email.
Cons
- As needs become more complex (advanced analytics, highly customized workflows), teams sometimes outgrow the out-of-the-box functionality and require custom work.
- Some reviewers note plan limits (workflow counts, API usage) that make comparing total cost and capability important during procurement.
Price range: Public starting tiers cited around US$99/month (Essentials) up to the $400s for higher tiers; exact cost depends on features and contact volume.
9. Keela
Works best for
Small advancement teams that want a user-friendly CRM with built-in automation and donor insight tools, and who prefer minimal external tool stitching.
Pros
- Strong focus on automation and donor journeys; built-in email and forms reduce the need for separate marketing tools.
- Good support reputation and straightforward contact/donor management for teams with limited technical resources.
- Tools for data hygiene (duplicate detection, merge suggestions) that help keep records clean as databases grow.
Cons
- Some users report gaps in niche integrations (e.g., certain payment processors or campus systems), so check your key integration needs during evaluation.
- Event ticketing and some advanced features may not be as mature as in specialized event or enterprise platforms.
Price range: entry pricing starts from roughly US$99/month for small contact bands, with step-ups as contact counts increase.
10. Virtuous
Works best for
Mid-sized advancement teams that want a modern fundraising platform with tight marketing automation and a focus on donor experience teams that want donor journeys and responsive communications built into the CRM.
Pros
- Integrated marketing and fundraising workflows that reduce the need for separate marketing platforms.
- Emphasis on automated donor journeys and data-driven stewardship which can improve retention and recurring gifts.
- Positive industry recognition and user sentiment around usability and customer support.
Cons
- Pricing and packaging can vary; teams should confirm what’s included (email volume, contact bands, users) because costs can rise with scale.
- Organizations with highly specialized prospect research or wealth-screening needs may pair Virtuous with a dedicated intelligence tool.
Price range: Public and partner-site references show entry plans and per-contact pricing; typical starting points in market scans land in the low hundreds per month, with higher tiers for expanded contact counts and features.
How advancement teams can evaluate the right donor management system
Choosing a donor management system starts with getting clear about where your team struggles today and what actually moves your advancement work forward. A good evaluation process makes those gaps visible to you, and here’s a practical way to approach it-
- Map your current data pain points- List where information breaks: duplicate alumni records, missing event history, unreliable volunteer data, or gifts that don’t sync cleanly. This gives you a baseline for what the new system must fix.
- Understand your RE NXT integration needs- If your teams depend on RE NXT, outline what a seamless, two-way sync should look like. Identify the fields, gift types, and activities that must be updated in real time.
- Consider engagement-first platforms- Look for systems that bring events, digital engagement, volunteer roles, and giving activity into one place. Advancement decisions rely on the full picture, not just donation history.
- Calculate manual workload savings- Estimate hours spent today on data cleanup, spreadsheet merging, reporting, and stewardship tasks. A good system should significantly reduce that load.
- Align the choice with advancement KPIs- Match features to the metrics you report on participation, donor retention, pipeline development, reunion performance, volunteers, and campaign progress. The right DMS should make these easier to track and act on.
How Almabase serves as a modern donor management solution for advancement
Advancement work often ends up spread across too many systems, giving here, events there, engagement somewhere in between. Almabase pulls those pieces into one workflow, which is why Thomas Aquinas College found it easier to steady their digital outreach once everything lived in the same place.
A lot of the lift comes from TrueSync, the native RE NXT integration that keeps profiles, gifts, and event activity aligned without connectors. Illinois Tech leaned on this when they wanted their CRM to reflect real alumni behavior, not a version of it that needed constant cleanup.
With the data stitched together, segmentation becomes less of a project and more of a natural part of the work—class years, programs, regions, affinities, volunteer roles. It’s the kind of setup that makes targeted outreach feel less like a campaign and more like a conversation.
On the fundraising side, teams get a donor pipeline view that surfaces who’s warming up or re-engaging. It’s simple enough to use every day, and the Engagement Tile in RE NXT keeps that context right where fundraisers already spend their time.
Campaigns get the benefit of custom giving pages shaped around each audience. Loma Linda University used that flexibility during a campaign that eventually crossed $1.5M, helped by pages that matched how different groups preferred to give.
Altogether, Almabase gives advancement teams a cleaner path forward. When all these pieces sit inside one rhythm, advancement work feels less like managing systems and more like guiding relationships, which is the part of the job that matters most.
Conclusion
Advancement teams are operating in a very different landscape than they were even a few years ago. The systems we choose either add weight to that reality or make the work lighter.
The thread running through all the platforms you explored is simple: the right system should help people work smarter, not harder. It should reduce the friction around data, make segmentation feel natural, support fundraising strategy, and give teams a clearer sense of who’s ready for a conversation or a nudge.
As you evaluate donor management software, the real test isn’t the feature list. It’s whether the tool helps your team build relationships with more intention and less administrative drag.
Thinking about how a modern DMS could fit into your institution's needs? Let’s talk through how Almabase can make the most difference for your team.
About the author
Sharada is a freelance blogger and communication trainer who loves exploring the intersection of education and training. When not working, she enjoys reading and dabbling in calligraphy.
Blackbaud, the leading provider of software for powering social impact, and Almabase, the digital-first alumni engagement solution, have announced the expansion of their partnership to the education sectors of Canada and the United Kingdom. The partnership will provide institutions with a modern, digital-first solution to improve constituent data, drive self-serve engagement, and boost event participation.
A Unified Vision
The partnership aligns with Blackbaud’s commitment to customer-centric innovation across digital engagement, Advancement CRM, and financials.
“Partners bring integrated capabilities that extend capabilities and outcomes for Blackbaud customers. We are thrilled that Almabase’s offering, integrated with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® and leveraging Blackbaud’s best-in-class payment solution, Blackbaud Merchant Services™, is now available to even more of our customers around the world.”
- Liz Price, Sr. Director of Global Partners at Blackbaud
