What started in 2012 as a small social media campaign has grown into a global giving phenomenon that now inspires millions across 90+ countries to support the causes they love, all in just 24 hours. This brings us to the point of this blog. The fundraising platform you choose to build your Giving Tuesday events and fundraisers on can make or break your annual experience drastically.

We’ve curated a handful of platforms designed for education-focused teams to do more with less, so you can spend time building relationships, not battling technology.

6 Giving Tuesday Platforms for 2025

Here’s a closer look at some platforms that can help your institution raise more and engage better for this year’s Giving Tuesday and beyond. Let’s get started:

1. Almabase

Almabase often comes up first when education teams want a platform that balances rich tools with actual ease. It is purpose-built for advancement, blending fundraising, alumni engagement, and events into one modular platform. It shines when teams want depth, data, and scalability with the support of a dedicated team. Here’s how it stacks up-

Key Features

• A holistic approach: Almabase comes with a wide range of tools to get the most out of your Giving Tuesday, whether that’s through communication tools or detailed segmentation and insights.
• Seamless integrations: Almabase’s Truesync offers an unmatched two-way sync with Raiser's Edge NXT and Blackbaud CRM.
• Hyper-personalized communication: The platform offers a smarter way to personalize communication through "no-fuss emails" with real-time reporting and automation
• Seamless campaign and event management: No-code features for registration, ticketing, promotion, and follow-up, combined with p2p, matching gifts, crowdfunding, etc. make for a complete donor experience.
• Automated workflows & analytics: real-time dashboards to measure campaign success

Best for

Advancement teams that want a long-term, comprehensive platform to integrate fundraising with a strategic alumni engagement and community-building effort.

Pricing model

Almabase offers pricing based on your needs and the size of your alumni and donor base that you want to engage with. You can book a personalized demo and get a quote here.

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2. Givebutter

Givebutter is known for its modern, donor-friendly design and transparent pricing. It combines crowdfunding, peer-to-peer fundraising, and event ticketing in one platform. Here’s how it stacks up –

Key Features

• "Free" core platform: Givebutter's primary marketing message is that its core fundraising tools are free to use. The platform operates on an optional donor tips model, which means that instead of a platform fee, it relies on donors to voluntarily contribute to support the service.
• Modern & flexible payment options: It supports a wide range of popular payment methods, including Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Cash App.
• Team fundraising tools: supporters can launch their own mini-campaigns under your umbrella.
• Strong peer-to-peer capabilities: Givebutter is well-suited for a Giving Tuesday strategy that leverages social networks. It includes features for peer-to-peer fundraising, team fundraising, and live leaderboards.

Best for

Schools, nonprofits, and small teams wanting an easy-to-launch Giving Tuesday campaign platform with built-in social tools and no upfront software cost.

Pricing model

It operates on a 100% transparent tip-or-fee model, meaning it's free to use with a voluntary tipping system. Organizations can choose to cover the platform fee themselves or let donors cover it with an optional tip.

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3. Donorbox

Donorbox is a platform known for its focus on providing a secure, reliable, and conversion-optimized donation experience through its simple, yet powerful, features. It is designed for nonprofits of all sizes, including schools and universities with diverse fundraising needs.

Key Features

• No-code donation forms: easily embed mobile-optimized, branded forms, pop-ups, or donation pages, even in multiple currencies and languages.
• Robust recurring giving: Donorbox offers an intuitive recurring giving pipeline with automated payment processing and a donor self-service portal, which helps institutions build a sustainable revenue stream beyond a single event.
• Quick checkouts & global reach: fast checkout with digital wallets (UltraSwift™), accepts 45 currencies in 96 countries.
• Ease of use & integration: The platform is praised for its quick setup, with a campaign creation process that takes only a few minutes and requires no coding to embed on an existing website.

Best for

Mid-sized to large schools and universities that need a reliable, cost-effective, and conversion-optimized tool to run a Giving Tuesday campaign, especially for direct online appeals and recurring giving.

Pricing model

Donorbox offers a free standard plan, a pro plan at $150/month, and a premium plan with custom pricing.

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4. GiveCampus

Givecampus is a fundraising platform for educational institutions, empowering fundraisers at every stage of the fundraising lifecycle. Its core value proposition is its deep understanding of and specialization in the unique needs of schools and universities, from online giving days to volunteer management.

Key Features

• Modular fundraising tools: Givecampus has a choice of solutions such as Online Giving, Events, Volunteer Management, or Gift Officer workflows, to build what fits your team's needs.
• Robust volunteer & advocacy tools: The platform provides them with a system to manage their prospects and track their outreach efforts, allowing institutions to tap into a network of supporters to drive peer-to-peer giving
• Focus on education: Apart from Almabase, Givecampus is the other option that is geared more towards helping educational institutions in this list.
• Rich outreach & AI tools: integrated email/text campaigns, generative AI for content, advanced segmentation, personalization links, and detailed year-end reporting.

Best for

Large, established colleges and universities with a strategic focus on alumni engagement and a dedicated advancement team that can leverage its enterprise-grade features for a high-impact Giving Tuesday.

Pricing Model

GIveCampus has three platform plans: Essentials, Professional and Enterprise. On top of this, your price will vary depending on the modules you need.

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5. Bonterra

Bonterra, formerly a suite of tools including EveryAction, is a comprehensive, enterprise-grade solution that has garnered a reputation as a robust fundraising platform for larger nonprofit organizations with complex needs. It aims to provide a single, unified solution for fundraising and donor engagement.

Key Features

• Comprehensive all-in-one enterprise solution: Bonterra offers a full suite of tools, encompassing a powerful CRM, grants management, and robust data analytics.
• Powerful data & reporting: Bonterra comes with its own CRM to allow your team to make informative reports, analyze comprehensive donor insights, and make data-driven decisions.
• Enterprise experience: As a long-time and major player in the advancement space, it comes with quite a few integrations and a dedicated customer onboarding and support team.

Best for

Large universities and institutions that need a long-term, comprehensive CRM and fundraising solution, and for whom Giving Tuesday is a part of a larger, integrated annual giving strategy.

Pricing Model

Tailored to the organization's unique needs, with pricing based on size, complexity, and features.

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6. OneCause

Onecause is a fundraising platform with a particular focus on events, auctions and peer-to-peer campaigns. It is designed to help organizations streamline the guest experience and run successful events.

Key Features

• Event & auction specialization: Onecause is known as a robust platform for fundraising events, offering a broad range of tools for organizing, managing, and optimizing initiatives. Its software is designed to streamline the guest experience from start to finish for live, hybrid, and virtual events and auctions.
• Seamless guest experience: The platform provides a user-friendly interface that streamlines the guest experience with features like mobile bidding, integrated ticketing, and QR code check-in.
• Strong peer-to-peer & text-to-give: The platform is highly effective at empowering supporters to fundraise for their cause. It supports the "Text2Give" feature, a powerful tool for modern Giving Tuesdays.

Best For

Educational institutions with a Giving Tuesday strategy built around a live or virtual event, auction, or other high-energy initiative.

Pricing Model

Onecause has different pricing plans based on which features you need to use between fundraising and text-to-give, auction and events, and peer-to-peer fundraising.

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Bonus suggestions: Simple crowdfunding platforms

Maybe you just need a simple crowdfunding platform this year to complement an event you are already planning with another tool, or you just want to use an easy-to-set-up fundraising page with names that have become synonymous with raising money for causes. If that’s what you’re looking for, here are some of the popular ones to choose from:

• GoFundMe
• Kickstarter
• Indiegogo
• Mightycause
• Fundly

…and more depending on your institution’s geographic location.

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How to Choose the Right Giving Tuesday Platform for Your Institution

Not every platform is built with education teams in mind, and choosing wrong can cost you both time and momentum. With so many options, the right fit depends on what your team actually needs, not just flashy features. So, while deciding, keep these factors in mind:

• Ease of setup: If your campaign timeline is tight, you need something that goes live in days, not weeks, without burning staff hours on configuration.
• Customization: Branded giving pages boost donor trust and credibility; the right tool should let you control design without calling in a developer.
• Integrated data: A great Giving Tuesday is only the start. Choose a platform that syncs donor and gift data directly into your CRM to fuel year-round engagement.
• Support and training: When things break on Giving Tuesday, they need fixing fast. A platform with responsive support keeps your team focused on donors, not troubleshooting.
• Cost transparency: Fees can eat into your impact. Understand exactly what you’ll pay in platform and processing costs so there are no surprises after the campaign.

Want a deeper breakdown of these essentials? Take a look at our guide on giving day platform features every institution should consider.

Conclusion

The right Giving Tuesday platform should lighten your team’s load while helping you hit ambitious goals. The platforms we’ve covered are built with education teams in mind; it’s just a matter of matching your goals, team size, and budget to the right solution. Once done, you’ll set yourself up for more than just a one-day win.

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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.