Talk to us about your nonprofit software project.
Tell us your organisation type, the platform you've outgrown, and the operational or fundraising problem you need to solve. We'll tell you what we'd build and how.
Custom software for established nonprofits, foundations, and NGOs who need donor management, fundraising, grant tracking, and program delivery tools built around their specific mission and organisational structure -- not adapted from a platform designed for the average charity.
Off-the-shelf nonprofit platforms cover common workflows for small to mid-size organisations. When your donor relationship complexity, multi-chapter structure, grant compliance requirements, or case management needs go beyond what those platforms handle, we build the system around your organisation.
Donor management with relationship tracking, giving history, and major gift pipeline management
Online fundraising platforms with campaign pages, peer-to-peer fundraising, and recurring donation management
Grant management software covering applications, tracking, reporting, and compliance documentation
Volunteer coordination, beneficiary case management, and integrated nonprofit operations tools
RaftLabs builds custom software for nonprofits, NGOs, and foundations -- donor management systems, online fundraising and campaign platforms, grant management software, volunteer coordination tools, beneficiary case management, and integrated nonprofit operations platforms. We serve established nonprofits that have outgrown Salesforce Nonprofit, Bloomerang, or DonorPerfect, multi-chapter nonprofit networks, foundations managing grant programmes, and social service organisations with complex case management requirements. Most projects deliver in 12 to 16 weeks at a fixed, agreed cost.
Nonprofit platforms like Salesforce Nonprofit, Bloomerang, and DonorPerfect solve real problems for organisations in the early and middle stages of growth. The limits become visible when an organisation grows large enough, or complex enough, that the platform's data model no longer fits the work. A multi-chapter organisation needs consolidated donor data across chapters without losing chapter-level autonomy. A foundation managing a grant programme needs a workflow that tracks applications, due diligence, awards, and compliance reporting in one system -- not pieced together from a CRM, a spreadsheet, and a shared drive.
We build the software that fits the organisation rather than the organisation fitting the software. We have shipped 100+ products across complex, multi-stakeholder environments. Nonprofits are one of our core verticals -- we understand the compliance requirements, the multi-entity structures, and the donor relationship dynamics that define large nonprofit operations.
Maintaining accurate relationship records when a donor is simultaneously a board member, a corporate match participant, and a planned giving prospect costs staff hours and produces a fragmented picture that major gift officers cannot use effectively. Consolidating that into one donor record with a full relationship view lets fundraisers have informed conversations and reduces the time spent reconciling records before major donor meetings.
Managing grant reporting deadlines, restricted fund expenditure, and grantee submissions across disconnected tools creates gaps in the compliance audit trail. Regulators and auditors expect a single, traceable record. Centralising the full grant lifecycle -- application through final report -- in one system closes those gaps and reduces the risk of missing a reporting deadline because it was tracked in someone's personal calendar.
Third-party fundraising platforms charge a commission on top of payment processing fees. For a nonprofit raising $500k through peer-to-peer campaigns annually, that is $25,000 to $40,000 per year that leaves the mission. A custom fundraising platform with direct Stripe integration removes the platform layer and returns that margin to the organisation, typically recovering the build cost in the first or second campaign cycle.
Manual volunteer scheduling at scale produces no-shows, double-bookings, and coordinators spending more time managing the process than the volunteers. Automated shift management with self-service sign-up, confirmation triggers, and reminder communications reduces coordinator overhead and produces reliable attendance data for grant reporting purposes.
Donor CRM built around the full relationship rather than the transaction. Individual and household donor records with complete giving history, communication log, event attendance, volunteer activity, and major gift pipeline status in one view. Relationship mapping for complex donors -- the same individual may be a major donor, a board member, and a corporate match programme participant, and the system needs to reflect all of those relationships simultaneously. Prospect research integration and wealth screening to support major gift identification. Donor segmentation for annual fund strategy -- lapsed donors, mid-level donors approaching major gift threshold, recurring donors by programme. Planned giving records for bequest expectancies and deferred gift tracking. LYBUNT and SYBUNT reporting for retention analysis. Data hygiene tools for deduplication, address validation, and deceased donor management at the scale that larger organisations require.
Online fundraising platform with campaign-specific donation pages, peer-to-peer fundraising, event registration, and recurring giving management -- all under your brand rather than a third-party platform's. Donation page configuration with campaign-specific messaging, suggested amounts, fund designation options, and tribute gift capability. Peer-to-peer fundraising with supporter pages, team fundraising, progress tracking, and automated thank-you communications. Recurring donation management with flexible frequency options, payment method updating, and lapsed recurring donor re-engagement workflows. Matching gift integration to identify and process employer gift matching programmes. Campaign analytics dashboard with real-time totals, donor acquisition cost, average gift size, and channel attribution for digital campaigns. Auction and gala event management for organisations running annual events as major fundraising vehicles.
Grant management platform covering the full grant lifecycle -- prospecting, application, award, compliance, and reporting -- for both grant-seeking nonprofits and grant-making foundations. For grant-seeking organisations: grant calendar with deadlines, letter of inquiry tracking, application submission records, award notices, and grant period compliance deadlines in one system rather than managed from a shared folder. For grant-making foundations: online application portal for grant applicants, internal review and scoring workflow, award letter generation, grantee reporting requirements tracked through the grant period, and multi-year grant payment scheduling. Compliance documentation management with report templates, submission tracking, and overdue report alerts. Budget tracking for restricted grants with expenditure posted against each grant budget and variance reporting for programme and finance staff.
Volunteer management platform for organisations running large or complex volunteer programmes -- shift scheduling across multiple sites and programmes, volunteer recruitment and onboarding, hours tracking, and communication tools. Volunteer database with skills, availability, background check status, training completions, and programme history recorded per volunteer. Shift scheduling with capacity management, volunteer self-sign-up within configured parameters, and coordinator-managed assignment for specialised roles. Automated communications -- shift reminders, confirmation requests, cancellation notifications, and thank-you messages -- triggered by schedule events rather than sent manually. Hours logging with volunteer portal access for self-reporting, or coordinator entry for volunteers without digital access. Recognition and milestone tracking for organisations that acknowledge volunteer tenure and contribution with formal recognition programmes. Volunteer group management for corporate volunteer days and organised volunteer teams.
Case management platform for social service organisations tracking service delivery to beneficiaries -- intake, assessment, service plan, referrals, and outcome measurement in one system built around your programme model rather than a generic social care template. Beneficiary intake with demographic data, presenting need, eligibility assessment, and consent documentation. Service plan management with goals, assigned services, frequency, and responsible worker recorded per case. Referral tracking to partner organisations with referral outcome follow-up and closed-loop reporting. Outcome measurement with standardised assessment tools administered at intake, intervals, and case closure, with aggregate outcome reporting for funders and board. Multi-programme case management for organisations delivering several distinct programme types to the same beneficiary population, with appropriate data sharing between programmes and confidentiality controls where different programmes have separate data governance requirements.
Integrated operations platform for larger nonprofits who need fund accounting, HR, payroll, and programme management connected rather than running as separate systems. Fund accounting with restricted and unrestricted fund management, grant budget tracking, functional expense allocation (programme, management, fundraising) for Form 990 reporting, and audit trail for restricted fund expenditure. HR and payroll with employee records, time and attendance for programmatic cost allocation, benefit administration, and payroll processing integrated with the chart of accounts. Board portal with meeting documents, board committee management, conflict of interest disclosures, and resolution recording. Compliance calendar with regulatory filing deadlines, grant reporting due dates, and board meeting schedules. Reporting for external stakeholders -- Form 990 preparation support, funder impact reports, and annual report data -- drawn from the operational system rather than assembled manually.
We map your organisational structure -- chapters, programme types, donor segments, and grant portfolios -- against your current tools to find exactly where the data model breaks down. This session produces a requirements document your leadership and programme teams can review before a line of code is written.
We design the data model around your specific entity structure: multi-chapter relationships, restricted fund accounting boundaries, and the access control rules that separate fundraising staff from caseworker data. The architecture is reviewed with your IT and compliance leads before build starts.
Development runs in two-week sprints with working software demonstrated at each review. Donor management, case management, and fundraising modules are built and tested independently before integration, so your team can give feedback on real functionality rather than mockups.
Go-live is staged: staff training, a parallel-run period where both old and new systems are active, then full cutover once your team is confident. Post-launch support covers bug fixes, minor configuration changes, and the documentation your team needs to manage the system independently.
Frequently asked questions
Salesforce Nonprofit, Bloomerang, and DonorPerfect serve the majority of nonprofits well. Custom software is the right choice when your organisational structure, programme complexity, or donor relationship model diverges from what those platforms were built for. A multi-chapter national organisation where each chapter needs autonomy but leadership needs consolidated data cannot be effectively managed in a single-entity CRM. A foundation with a grant-making programme needs workflow that the standard nonprofit CRM wasn't designed to support. A social service organisation where case management, volunteer management, and donor management all need to connect to each other needs integration that standard platforms don't provide natively. If you're spending more time working around the platform than working in it, that's the signal that custom makes sense.
Yes. Connecting fundraising and programme delivery is one of the most valuable things a custom system can do for a nonprofit -- when a major donor asks what impact their gift has achieved, the answer should come from the programme record rather than from a report assembled manually for the meeting. We build systems where the donor record connects to the programme it funds, and the programme record connects to the outcome data that demonstrates impact. The data model and access control design for combining fundraising and programme data requires careful planning during discovery -- different staff have access to different data sets, and the system needs to enforce those boundaries while still enabling the connections that make impact reporting possible.
Beneficiary data in social service organisations is subject to strict confidentiality obligations -- HIPAA in the US for health-related services, GDPR in the UK and EU, and specific confidentiality requirements for services to vulnerable populations including domestic violence survivors, substance misuse clients, and children. We design the access control architecture around these requirements from the start -- role-based access so caseworkers see only their assigned cases, programme managers see aggregate data without individual identifying information, and finance staff see budget data without case content. Consent management is built into the intake workflow. Data retention policies are enforced by the system rather than left to manual compliance. If your programme operates under specific regulatory confidentiality requirements, we review them during discovery and design the data architecture to meet them.
A donor management system with online fundraising integration and basic reporting typically runs $35,000 to $65,000. A grant management platform for a grant-seeking or grant-making organisation typically runs $40,000 to $75,000. A case management platform for a social service programme typically runs $45,000 to $85,000 depending on the complexity of the programme model and outcome measurement framework. A full integrated platform covering donor management, fundraising, grant management, volunteer coordination, and programme delivery typically runs $120,000 to $250,000. We price every project at a fixed cost agreed before development starts.
Donor CRM, giving history, major gift pipeline, prospect research, and LYBUNT reporting
Campaign pages, peer-to-peer fundraising, recurring giving, matching gifts, and event fundraising
Grant calendar, application tracking, award management, compliance reporting, and grantee portal
Shift scheduling, volunteer database, hours tracking, automated communications, and recognition programmes
Intake, service plans, referrals, outcome measurement, and multi-programme case management
Fund accounting, HR, payroll, board portal, compliance calendar, and Form 990 reporting support
What clients say
Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.

RaftLabs has been an exceptional partner. From the start, they became more than just a service provider, they embraced our vision with their expertise and dedication. We are proud of the result.
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Tell us your organisation type, the platform you've outgrown, and the operational or fundraising problem you need to solve. We'll tell you what we'd build and how.