Donor management software built around your funds and Gift Aid
Donorfy and Beacon suit plenty of UK charities, and Zeffy charges nothing. Below you can see which jobs each one covers, where a system shaped around your funds and appeals would go further, and the sums against your current fee. A first release with the four core features typically costs £3,500–£4,500 and goes live within a month.
£495 for a working prototype in 5 days. It comes off the build.
Next First Gear slot: w/c 19 Oct · 2 of 3 builds booked this month
Is custom worth it for you?
Three questions, and a straight answer.
What non-profit donor management software does, and who offers it
Here are the jobs a charity's donor system handles, set against four products UK charities shortlist. Press “Need it” on each one your charity relies on. If your current system ticks every row you pick, stay with it; if not, the estimate builds from your choices.
| Feature | Donorfy | Beacon | Raiser's Edge NXT | Zeffy | Your charity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First release | |||||
| Supporter records and consentPeople and organisations, giving history, and consent for email, phone, text and post kept apart | Yes | Records | Yes | Records | |
| Gifts and regular givingOne-off gifts, card subscriptions and Direct Debit, each against a fund and an appeal | Yes | Add-on | Yes | Yes | |
| Gift Aid declarations and claimsDeclaration wording, date and source stored; eligible gifts flagged for the next claim | Yes | Add-on | Not listed | Declarations | |
| Income reportsTotals by fund, appeal and channel, and the supporters who gave last year but not this | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not listed | |
| Online donation formsYour branding, a Gift Aid tick box and consent questions on the form | Yes | Add-on | Yes | Yes | |
| Thank-you emails and receiptsSent on the day, worded by appeal and gift size | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Yes | |
| Fund-coded income to your ledgerRestricted funds and appeal codes posted, payouts matched to the bank, fees on their own code | Professional | Add-on | Partner | QuickBooks | |
| Phase two | |||||
| Appeals and campaignsTargets, source codes and progress while the appeal is live | Professional | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | |
| Events and sponsorshipTickets, capacity, participant sponsorship and the gifts that follow | Yes | Add-on | Yes | Yes | |
| Pledges and major giftsMulti-year pledges with schedules, and a pipeline of prospects for a named lead | Professional | Add-on | Yes | Not listed | |
| Membership and renewalsTiers, renewal reminders and lapsed members | Professional | Add-on | Yes | Yes | |
| Legacies and in-memory givingPledgers, notified estates, expected amounts and tribute funds | Professional | Add-on | Yes | Not listed | |
| VolunteersRoles, availability and hours alongside the person's giving | Yes | Add-on | Not listed | Not listed | |
From each product's own site, checked Oct 2026: Donorfy, Beacon, Raiser's Edge NXT, Zeffy. Professional means Donorfy's Professional plan and up. Add-on means one of Beacon's paid elements (Fundraising, Membership, Events, Finance or Volunteering). Records means the vendor lists supporter records but not consent by channel. Partner means a separate product. A dash means the vendor's pages don't mention it.
Next: the tools it connects to ↓What goes in the first release
I start with the path a gift follows: the supporter and their consent, the gift and the fund it belongs to, the Gift Aid it earns, and the income reports finance and trustees read. Those four are ticked already.
Donation forms, thank-you emails and fund-coded postings to your ledger can join them when they’re where your staff lose time today. Appeals, events, pledges, membership, legacies and volunteers come in phase two, priced on its own.
Appeals, campaigns and events on one record
Someone who buys a gala ticket, sponsors a runner and answers the Christmas appeal is one supporter. Many charities hold those three gifts in three places. In the system they sit on one record:
- Appeals carry a target, the channels used and a source code for each gift, so you see progress while the appeal is live and know what each mailing raised.
- Events hold tickets, capacity and participants, and each participant’s sponsorship lands as gifts on the sponsor’s record and the event’s total.
- Lapsed supporters come from the gift history: LYBUNT and SYBUNT lists (gave last year, or some year, but not this one), so the next ask goes to people who’ve given before.
- Follow-up rules you set, such as a gift over £1,000 creating a call for your major gifts lead, or an unpaid sponsor getting a reminder a fortnight after the event.
What AI can do here
- Draft the thank-you. It writes a first draft from the gift, the appeal and the supporter’s history, and a fundraiser edits it before it goes.
- Find the duplicates. It suggests which records are the same person, say “Mrs J Patel” at an old address and “Jaya Patel” with a new email, for staff to merge.
- Read the post. It reads a cheque, a returned Gift Aid form or a solicitor’s legacy letter, and fills the record for someone to check.
Supporter notes about health or belief stay out of any AI service. I add these after the core has carried one busy appeal, and each costs between £1.5k and £5k.
Where the money and the messages go
Tick the payment providers, accounts package and giving platforms your gifts pass through. Each one is priced into the first release.
Payment reconciliation that finance can sign off
Stripe, PayPal and GoCardless each pay out on their own timetable, take their own fees and report in their own format. When only the gross figure reaches the accounts package, finance matches each payout by hand.
The system records each gift gross, with the provider’s fee and the net amount, then matches every payout to the bank deposit it arrived in. Income posts to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage against the right fund and appeal codes, with fees on a nominal code of their own. Failed card payments retry and the donor gets an email before their card expires. At month end the fundraising total and the bank agree, and any gap shows as a named exception.
Moving your supporters across
What moves. Supporters and organisations, every gift with its fund and appeal, Gift Aid declarations with their dates and wording, consent by channel with its history, pledges, memberships and attachments. None of that is extra: it’s in the import price.
How I check it. The import runs into a practice copy first. Total income by fund for the last three years must match your old system and your accounts, and each declaration must still point at the gifts it covers, because that link is what HMRC looks for. Your fundraiser spot-checks twenty supporters they know well before go-live.
Timing. I plan the switch just after a Gift Aid claim and between two Direct Debit collection dates, and keep the old system readable for a month.
What your current system lets you take
Taken from each vendor's own help pages and terms in Oct 2026. Where they're silent, I've written the question I'd put to their support.
I'm on Donorfy
- Any list downloads as CSV at no cost, but not every field is available and attachments are left out.
- The full export is an Excel workbook with a sheet per data type, priced at £800 + VAT the first time and £245 after. Attachments come as a separate zip.
- Their terms let you download your data for 60 days after the contract ends, then delete it. Notice is 30 days before the end of your term, so order the export before you serve it.
I'm on Beacon
- Records export as CSV, one record type at a time, and an export template can pull fields from linked records into one file.
- Notice is 30 days and takes effect at the end of the subscription period, with no refund. Beacon processes your data for up to 60 days after the term, then deletes or returns it, as you choose.
- The guide doesn't say whether Gift Aid declarations and consent history export with their dates. I'd ask support for both before you give notice.
I'm on Raiser's Edge NXT
- Blackbaud's product page mentions one-click exports from reports and lists.
- Exit terms depend on your contract, which is quoted. I'd ask Blackbaud in writing for a full database export: constituents, gifts, pledges, Gift Aid declarations, consent and attachments, its format and its cost.
I'm on Zeffy
- Payments export by form and date range, either one row per payment or itemised with tickets and answers to your custom questions.
- Zeffy also offers a read-only API covering payments, contacts and campaigns.
- Their help pages I read don't cover a contacts export or Gift Aid declarations. I'd ask for both, with each declaration's date and wording.
Your subscription set against a build
I've started you at 3,000 supporters, a typical size for a charity with one fundraiser. Vendors count everyone on file, organisations and archived records included, so use that figure, then compare over three to five years.
£208 a month list price
What a subscription can't give you
- Restricted and designated funds kept the way your trustees report them, so the year-end figures need no rework.
- No band to jump when a big appeal or a data import adds thousands of supporters.
- Every Gift Aid declaration, consent change and gift in a database the charity owns, ready for HMRC or a supporter's request.
- New gift types, such as a lottery or a payroll giving scheme, added when you start them.
The build is the middle of your estimate (£4,000), paid up front. The first month's hosting is free, so the plan starts in month two, and one plan covers every charity. Subscription prices are published list prices (the table below says how each vendor treats VAT) and leave out set-up fees and price rises.
What donor management software costs
Published prices from each vendor's pricing page, checked Oct 2026. VAT is shown as each vendor states it.
| Product | Price | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Donorfy | Professional £254 a month for up to 5,000 constituents, from £71 for 500. Starter is £40 for 500 or £95 for 1,000 and stops there. | Unlimited users on every plan. Archived records count toward the band. Xero, pledges, membership and legacies start on Professional. |
| Beacon | Standard £165 a month for up to 5,000 contacts, plus £42.50 for the Fundraising element that holds Gift Aid and donation forms. | 10 users on Standard, read-only users free. Annual billing saves 10%. Implementation is by a partner and priced separately. |
| Raiser's Edge NXT | Quote-based. | Blackbaud's ledger, Financial Edge NXT, is a separate product. |
| Zeffy | Free. Zeffy covers card fees and asks donors for an optional tip at checkout. | Records Gift Aid declarations; its pages don't explain how claims reach HMRC. |
When off-the-shelf is enough
A charity with under 2,000 supporters, simple Gift Aid and one fundraiser is better off on Donorfy or Beacon’s entry plans, which cost less over five years than any build. A subscription also makes more sense if:
- your income is mostly online gifts and event tickets, and Zeffy’s free plan covers them;
- you already run Blackbaud’s finance software and want Raiser’s Edge alongside it;
- someone on your staff or board can run CiviCRM.
A build starts to earn its keep when restricted funds are rebuilt in a spreadsheet each month, when gifts land in three or four systems, or past 20,000 supporters, where per-band pricing climbs.
Open-source software you could run instead
You could also host free software and change it as you like. CiviCRM comes closest to a charity CRM; both projects below were checked Oct 2026.
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Good for: Contacts, contributions, recurring gifts, events, memberships and mailings, with Gift Aid declarations on each contact.
Missing for you: Sending claims to HMRC needs a second extension. Someone has to host it, upgrade it and look after the extensions.
- EspoCRM AGPL-3.0
Good for: A clean general CRM that's easy to extend with your own record types.
Missing for you: No gifts, Gift Aid or funds out of the box, so all three would be custom.
If open source suits you better, I can install CiviCRM, host it, wire it to GoCardless and Xero, and move your supporters into it.
Your plan, ready for your trustees
What you ticked, split into a first release and phase two, each with a price range. Email it to yourself, take it to the next trustee meeting, or send it to me.
First release
The first month after kickoff
- Supporter records and consent
- Gifts and regular giving
- Gift Aid declarations and claims
- Income reports
Phase two
About a month, after the first release is in use
Nothing picked yet
- First release estimate
- £3,500–£4,500
- Phase two estimate
- None picked
- After launch
- Cruise, £199/mo
Estimates, not quotes: First Gear ends with a fixed price for the first release.
How the estimate works
Each phase starts at £1,500 for what every system needs: logins, hosting, backups and your data imported. Each feature and connection adds £250 to £1,000 depending on its size, and the range is 15% either side of the total. The break-even uses the middle of both phases.
A month of income, before and after
Illustrative, for a charity with one fundraiser and a part-time finance officer.
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | The spring appeal goes out. Replies are keyed in from paper, and the online gifts sit in the payment provider. | Online and posted gifts land on the appeal with their source code, and the total updates as they arrive. |
| Week 2 | A trustee asks how much the roof fund holds. Finance pieces it together from the CRM and Xero. | The roof fund’s balance shows restricted income in, spending out, and what’s left. |
| Week 3 | The Gift Aid claim is built in a spreadsheet from a CRM export, then checked line by line. | Eligible gifts are flagged as they arrive, and the claim schedule is ready to attach. |
| Month end | Stripe and GoCardless payouts are matched to the bank by hand. | Payouts match automatically and only the exceptions need a person. |
The rules your system has to follow
- Gift Aid declarations. A declaration must give the donor’s name and home address, name the charity, identify the gifts and confirm they’re Gift Aid donations (HMRC chapter 3, 3.6.2). Records need “an audit trail linking each donation to an identifiable donor” with a valid declaration (3.27.1), and a charitable company keeps them for six years after the accounting period ends (3.30.2).
- Gift Aid claims. Claims are due within four years of the end of the tax year or accounting period they cover, and late ones aren’t paid (HMRC chapter 6, 6.5.1). Each schedule spreadsheet holds up to 1,000 lines.
- Emailing supporters. Since 5 February 2026, PECR regulation 22(3A) lets a charity email people whose details it collected while they showed interest in, or supported, its charitable purposes, without separate consent. They must be offered a simple, free way to refuse when the details are collected and in every message after.
- Special category data. A faith charity’s records can reveal religious belief, and a hospice’s can hold health details. UK GDPR Article 9 prohibits processing either without a condition; one condition, 9(2)(d), covers a not-for-profit body with a religious or philosophical aim, for its members and people in regular contact.
- Requests for data. When a supporter requests their personal data, they should receive it within one month, and once they object to direct marketing, it stops (Article 21).
The system keeps the records and runs the checks. Your trustees, your data protection lead and your independent examiner or auditor decide whether the charity complies.
Is my data safe?
Fundraisers see supporters and gifts, finance sees postings and payouts, and notes marked sensitive open only for named staff. Whoever opens or edits a supporter is recorded with the time, and that trail answers a supporter’s data request too. Card and bank details stay with Stripe, PayPal or GoCardless. Supporter data is encrypted at rest, stays in the UK or EU, and gets a nightly backup.
Will fundraisers use it?
A fundraiser spends most of the day on three screens: the supporter, the gift entry form and the appeal. Gift entry is built for a pile of post, with the keyboard and no mouse. During First Gear your fundraiser keys a real morning’s post into the prototype; any field that sends them reaching for the mouse is redesigned on the spot.
Other ways to solve it
| Option | Cost | Best for | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charity CRM | A monthly fee by supporter band, plus paid elements on some products | Charities with standard giving and one set of funds | Restricted funds and odd gift types end up in spreadsheets, and the fee rises with each band |
| Custom build | £495 prototype, then a fixed build price; afterwards a £79+ monthly plan or self-hosting | Complex fund accounting, gifts arriving through several systems, or a large file | You pay before seeing any saving, and each new area of fundraising is another phase |
| Open source (CiviCRM) | Nothing for the software; a server, upgrades and support cost money | Charities with technical help who want to own their system | Extensions need watching through upgrades, and the interface takes training |
| Free giving platform | £0, funded by donor tips | Small charities taking online gifts and selling tickets | Check how pledges, legacies and Gift Aid claims would be handled before relying on it |
| Spreadsheet | Free | A new charity with a few dozen donors | No audit trail for Gift Aid, and consent is easy to lose |
Four guarantees, in writing.
They're written into the terms you accept when you pay.
Every build also comes with a 30-day fix guarantee. If something I built doesn't work as the plan describes, I fix it free.
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See it first
You click through a working prototype before you commit to the build, and you keep it either way.
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Fixed price
You pay the price in the build plan. New ideas go into a later phase with its own fixed price. Nothing is billed by the hour.
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On time
If I miss the go-live date in your build plan because of a delay on my side, you get 3 months of Cruise free (£597). If your data, feedback or sign-off is late, the date moves by the same number of days.
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Yours to keep
Code, data and accounts are in your name from day one. Export your data or cancel a plan whenever you like, and ask for a full handover pack.
You'll talk to me
I've built software for over ten years and started ByteGears in 2020. The person on your kickoff call is the person who writes the code. Recent work includes quoting automation for a renewable-energy installer and a cask whisky auction platform with ID and anti-money-laundering checks.
Questions about a donor management build
How much does donor management software cost a UK charity?
At 3,000 supporters the published prices I found run from nothing (Zeffy, which asks donors for a tip) to about £250 a month before VAT, and Raiser's Edge NXT is quoted. Step 3 has the detail. A build here usually lands between £2k and £10k at a fixed price, then a monthly plan from £79 or your own server.
Can the system claim Gift Aid from HMRC?
Yes. Each declaration is stored with its wording, date and how it was given, and every gift it covers is flagged as eligible. At claim time the system writes HMRC's schedule spreadsheet, up to 1,000 lines each, ready to attach in Charities Online. Sending claims straight from the system is a connection you can add in step 2.
Is this charity compliance software?
It keeps the records the rules ask for: the Gift Aid audit trail, consent by channel, and a full copy of a supporter's data when they ask for it. Your trustees stay responsible for compliance, and I don't certify it. The section on rules below links to each source.
Will our Direct Debit donors have to sign up again?
Not if the mandates sit in a GoCardless account in your charity's name: the new system connects to that same account and collections carry on. If your current CRM holds them in its own account, I'd ask it how mandates transfer, and plan the move between two collection dates.
Who owns the system and the data?
Your charity owns both: the code, the database and every declaration in it. You can host it yourself, move it to another developer, or keep me on a plan.
What happens once it's live?
Anything that breaks in the first 30 days I fix free, and hosting costs nothing for the first month. Then you pick Idle at £79 a month, Cruise at £199 or Overdrive at £449, or run it yourself. The build is paid half up front and half at launch, with the £495 for First Gear taken off the first half.
Let's get the gears turning.
Send me your plan. If First Gear is the right start, I'll reply with a payment link that holds your slot. If an off-the-shelf product would serve you better, I'll name it.