Donations are the lifeblood of any nonprofit. Even if you have other funding sources, money from donors often makes up a significant chunk of a nonprofit’s budget. Managing these donors - and their donations - is an important part of running a successful nonprofit. 

Donor management software like Kindful is one way that nonprofits can automate tasks, run reports, track donations, and more. Kindful is a Bloomerang product that has a lot of fans for its ease of use and integrations with popular software - but it has some downsides as well. Going through a list of Kindful pros and cons will help you make an informed decision about whether or not it is a good fit for your organization. 

Inclind works with nonprofits throughout the United States. We are a full-service website design and development firm, working with nonprofits to design, build, redesign, support, and maintain their websites. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your nonprofit create and manage a highly effective website, reach out to talk to a member of our team. 

What Is Kindful? 

Kindful is a donor management software program for nonprofit organizations. It is essentially a customer relationship management (CRM) software that has been modified for use by nonprofits. With Kindful, nonprofit organizations can track their relationships with donors, organize and manage data, and fundraise more effectively. It maintains helpful information about donors, such as pledge amounts, contact info, and social media connections. 

Kindful offers five tools: donor management, volunteer management, online fundraising, emailing marketing, and reporting and analytics. With this cloud-based software, nonprofits can manage online donations, build donor databases, and generate insight into donors and donations. 

With this software, nonprofits can build unlimited numbers of interactive online donation pages. Each of these pages can be customized for different types of campaigns. For example, if you run a pet rescue, you can build a donation page for medical expenses for a dog, a separate donation page for renovations to your shelter space, and a general donation page for operating funds. 

Kindful has a number of other useful features, such as recurring donation management and one-click integration with social media platforms and email providers. It can also synchronize with third-party payment processors such as Stripe and PayPal. This software also works well with various other software, such as Eventbrite, QuickBooks, and Shopify. 

Benefits of Kindful Software 

Kindful software is incredibly powerful. It is a centralized system that can be used to organize a range of information, which can be gathered from a number of different sources. With Kindful, it is relatively easy to track and compare donor activity. An unlimited number of users for a nonprofit can have accounts so that all staff can access the information. 

Native Integrations With The App Library 

Users generally like integrating Kindful with software, such as Mailchimp, for email. This ensures nonprofits can synchronize their email marketing campaigns with their donor management software for a more seamless experience. 

Easy-To-Use Interface 

Nonprofits who use Kindful often report that it is intuitive and easy to use. This means that employees can start using Kindful with minimal training and that it is easy to navigate through various data. 

Excellent Software Onboarding Program 

Kindful offers a robust onboarding process, helping users set up initial reports and integrations. This can be particularly helpful for nonprofits that are transitioning from another software program that may not be used to how Kindful works - or who may need help migrating their data. 

Time-Saving Automation 

Like other CRM software for nonprofits, Kindful can help to reduce the workload for nonprofit staff. For example, instead of having to input each new contact manually, the data can be uploaded with a few clicks or by integrating the software with an email provider. It is an all-in-one solution so that nonprofits don’t have to pay for multiple different types of software to get the same result. 

Additional Benefits 

According to users, some of the top benefits of Kindful include: Great donor and donation management Easy to connect information about donors The ability to communicate with donors Ease of running fundraising campaigns A dashboard that offers an overview of year-to-date data The ability to customize almost every aspect of the software 

Drawbacks of Kindful Software 

High Starting Price 

One of the biggest drawbacks of Kindful is its price. At the lowest level, it costs $119 per month. That gives you access to 10 mg of file attachment storage, 1,000 records or contacts, and up to 5,000 monthly emails. If you want phone support, that will be an extra $35 per month. If you have significantly more contacts - such as 50,000 people - then it will cost $699 per month, with an optional $100 a month for phone support. 

For smaller nonprofit organizations, this could be out of the budget. This is especially true if they lack consistent income to pay the monthly fee or are just starting in the nonprofit world. 

Phone Support Gated As An Add-On 

Making phone support an additional expense is also problematic, as reviewers consistently state that they have problems getting a response from customer support. If you run into a problem with the software, then you may have trouble getting help…unless you pay an extra $35 to $100 per month to be able to call Kindful. 

Less Than Stellar Reporting 

Some users also found that the reporting function was weak. The reports can be confusing to navigate, and it can be hard to ensure that you are getting the information that you actually need from Kindful. 

Additional Disadvantages 

Some other common disadvantages of Kindful include: 

• Difficulty in accessing accounts for donors 
• Cumbersome event tracking 
• Poor training system for new users 
• Challenges in setting up custom email campaigns 
• Integrations may create duplicate users 
• Difficulty with uploading data 
• Thank you letters are PDF and cannot be edited 

Should You Use Kindful? 

Many nonprofits use and love Kindful. However, it isn’t necessarily the right choice for every nonprofit organization. While it has great features, it can be expensive - and there isn’t a free trial for you to see if it works for you. Talking to your website development company about the product - and how it can be integrated into your website - can be incredibly helpful. 

We Can Integrate Kindful & More Into Your Nonprofit Website 

Inclind has deep experience working with nonprofits throughout the United States as one of the country’s leading nonprofit website developers. We know fundraising and managing donor relations are hugely important to our clients, so we make it as easy as possible. We can help you customize your site to maximize donations with features like “donate now” buttons, and we can even help you select and integrate a CRM like Kindful with your website. 

We're available to talk if you’d like to learn more about our web services for nonprofits. You can fill out our online contact form or hit the live chat button to talk to one of our experts about your website.