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 organizational structure, not adapted from a platform designed for the average charity.
Off-the-shelf nonprofit platforms cover common workflows for small to mid-size organizations. 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 organization.
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
What you can count on
Retention
3+ years
Average client relationship across active accounts
First milestone
Week 1
A straight read on what to keep and what to rebuild
Pricing
Fixed price
Scope and cost agreed before work starts
Team
No handoffs
The senior engineers who scope the build also ship it
Managing major donor relationships, corporate partnerships, and foundation grants across three separate systems with no single view of a donor's full relationship with your organization?
Volunteer coordinators scheduling shifts in spreadsheets and chasing confirmations by email because your current system can't handle the scale or complexity of your volunteer program?
Short answer
RaftLabs handles nonprofit software development for established nonprofits, NGOs, and foundations that have outgrown Salesforce Nonprofit, Bloomerang, or DonorPerfect. We build donor management, online fundraising, grant management, volunteer coordination, and beneficiary case management systems. Most builds launch a first working version in 12 to 16 weeks at a fixed, agreed cost, then grow from there.
Trusted by
01
Shipping production software
Since 2015
02
Clutch rating
4.9/5
03
Cost, agreed upfront
Fixed
04
To a first working version
12-16 wks
When your mission has outgrown the platform you started with
Nonprofit platforms like Salesforce Nonprofit, Bloomerang, and DonorPerfect solve real problems for organizations in the early and middle stages of growth. The limits show up when an organization grows large enough, or complex enough, that the platform's data model no longer fits the work.
A multi-chapter organization needs consolidated donor data across chapters without losing chapter-level autonomy. A foundation managing a grant program 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 organization rather than making the organization fit the software. We have been shipping production software since 2015 across complex, multi-stakeholder environments, including civic engagement and membership community platforms that share a nonprofit's structural problems: many entities, restricted data, and people who each see a different slice of the same record. We understand the compliance requirements, the multi-entity structures, and the donor relationship dynamics that define large nonprofit operations.
Problems we solve in nonprofit
01
Problem
Major donors tracked across three systems with no single view of the relationship
Solution
When a donor is simultaneously a board member, a corporate match participant, and a planned giving prospect, maintaining accurate relationship records costs staff hours and produces a fragmented picture that major gift officers can't 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.
02
Problem
Grant compliance documentation assembled from a CRM, a shared drive, and a spreadsheet
Solution
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. The BBB Wise Giving Alliance Standards for Charity Accountability ask a charity to spend at least 65% of its total expenses on program activities (BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Standard 8). Every staff hour lost to reconciling records across a CRM, a shared drive, and a spreadsheet eats into that program ratio, the number donors and watchdogs scrutinize. Centralizing the full grant lifecycle, from application through final report, in one system closes compliance gaps and protects that ratio. It also removes the risk of missing a reporting deadline because it was tracked in someone's personal calendar.
03
Problem
Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns paying 5-8% platform fees on every donation processed
Solution
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's $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 organization, typically recovering the build cost in the first or second campaign cycle.
04
Problem
Volunteer coordinators scheduling 200+ people per month in spreadsheets and chasing confirmations by email
Solution
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.
What we build
01
Donor management and CRM
Donor CRM built around the full relationship rather than the transaction. Individual and household donor records hold complete giving history, communication log, event attendance, volunteer activity, and major gift pipeline status in one view. The system handles relationship mapping for complex donors: the same individual may be a major donor, a board member, and a corporate match program participant, and all of those relationships need to be visible simultaneously. Prospect research integration and wealth screening support major gift identification. Donor segmentation covers annual fund strategy, lapsed donors, mid-level donors approaching major gift threshold, and recurring donors by program. Planned giving records track bequest expectancies and deferred gifts. LYBUNT and SYBUNT reporting support retention analysis. Data hygiene tools handle deduplication, address validation, and deceased donor management at the scale larger organizations require.
02
Online fundraising and campaign platforms
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 pages include campaign-specific messaging, suggested amounts, fund designation options, and tribute gift capability. Peer-to-peer fundraising gives supporters their own pages, team fundraising, progress tracking, and automated thank-you communications. Recurring donation management covers flexible frequency options, payment method updating, and lapsed recurring donor re-engagement workflows. Matching gift integration identifies and processes employer gift matching programs. A campaign analytics dashboard shows real-time totals, donor acquisition cost, average gift size, and channel attribution for digital campaigns. Because donation pages capture cardholder data, we build payment flows that keep you in the lightest PCI-DSS scope. Card details are tokenized through Stripe so raw card numbers never touch your servers, which keeps most nonprofits eligible for the shortest self-assessment (PCI-DSS SAQ A). Auction and gala event management covers organizations running annual events as major fundraising vehicles.
03
Grant management software
Grant management platform covering the full grant lifecycle, from prospecting and application through award, compliance, and reporting. It serves both grant-seeking nonprofits and grant-making foundations. For grant-seeking organizations: a grant calendar with deadlines, letter of inquiry tracking, application submission records, award notices, and grant period compliance deadlines in one system rather than a shared folder. For grant-making foundations: an 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 includes report templates, submission tracking, and overdue report alerts. Budget tracking for restricted grants posts expenditure against each grant budget and produces variance reporting for program and finance staff.
04
Volunteer management
Volunteer management platform for organizations running large or complex volunteer programs. Covers shift scheduling across multiple sites and programs, volunteer recruitment and onboarding, hours tracking, and communication tools. Each volunteer profile records skills, availability, background check status, training completions, and program history. Shift scheduling handles capacity management, volunteer self-sign-up within configured parameters, and coordinator-managed assignment for specialized roles. Automated communications, including shift reminders, confirmation requests, cancellation notifications, and thank-you messages, trigger from schedule events rather than being sent manually. Hours logging supports volunteer portal self-reporting and coordinator entry for volunteers without digital access. Recognition and milestone tracking acknowledges volunteer tenure and contribution through formal recognition programs. Volunteer group management covers corporate volunteer days and organized volunteer teams.
05
Beneficiary case management
Case management platform for social service organizations tracking service delivery to beneficiaries. Covers intake, assessment, service plan, referrals, and outcome measurement in one system built around your program model rather than a generic social care template. Beneficiary intake captures demographic data, presenting need, eligibility assessment, and consent documentation. Service plan management records goals, assigned services, frequency, and responsible worker per case. Referral tracking to partner organizations includes referral outcome follow-up and closed-loop reporting. Outcome measurement administers standardized assessment tools at intake, intervals, and case closure, with aggregate outcome reporting for funders and board. Multi-programme case management handles organizations delivering several distinct program types to the same beneficiary population, with appropriate data sharing between programs and confidentiality controls where different programs have separate data governance requirements.
06
Nonprofit operations and finance
Integrated operations platform for larger nonprofits who need fund accounting, HR, payroll, and program management connected rather than running as separate systems. Fund accounting covers restricted and unrestricted fund management, grant budget tracking, functional expense allocation for Form 990 reporting, and an audit trail for restricted fund expenditure. HR and payroll includes employee records, time and attendance for programmatic cost allocation, benefit administration, and payroll processing integrated with the chart of accounts. A board portal handles meeting documents, board committee management, conflict of interest disclosures, and resolution recording. A compliance calendar tracks regulatory filing deadlines, grant reporting due dates, and board meeting schedules. External stakeholder reporting draws Form 990 preparation support, funder impact reports, and annual report data from the operational system rather than assembling them manually.
How we work with nonprofit clients
01
Discovery
We map your organizational structure, chapters, program 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 program teams can review before a line of code is written.
02
Architecture
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. Your IT and compliance leads review the architecture before build starts.
03
Build
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.
04
Launch and support
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 organizational structure, program complexity, or donor relationship model diverges from what those platforms were built for. A multi-chapter national organization where each chapter needs autonomy but leadership needs consolidated data can't be effectively managed in a single-entity CRM. A foundation with a grant-making program needs workflow that the standard nonprofit CRM wasn't designed to support. A social service organization 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 program 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 program record rather than a report assembled manually for the meeting. We build systems where the donor record connects to the program it funds, and the program record connects to the outcome data that demonstrates impact. The data model and access control design for combining fundraising and program 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 organizations 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 means caseworkers see only their assigned cases, program 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 program 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 organization typically runs $40,000 to $75,000. A case management platform for a social service program typically runs $45,000 to $85,000 depending on the complexity of the program model and outcome measurement framework. A full integrated platform covering donor management, fundraising, grant management, volunteer coordination, and program delivery typically runs $120,000 to $250,000. We price every project at a fixed cost agreed before development starts.
Tell us your organization 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.
Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
