Established · $1M - $5M raised / yr
The $1M-$5M fundraising stack
- Annual revenue
- $1M - $5M
- Staff size
- 3-8 development staff
- Line items
- 5
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The stack, line by line
| Category | Tool | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Donor CRM + donation processing | DonorDock Best for: Everything in one easy to use software package including donation processing, CRM, email and text, grants, plentiful integrations (like Quickbooks), and moves management. Great value for all the features included. One plan carries the whole front office: system of record for a team, unlimited contacts, email marketing built in, and giving pages with a 2% platform fee. Neither a growing file nor a new module re-prices the contract. | $6,000/yr ($500/mo, billed annually) |
| Forms & other operations | Jotform Best for: Program applications, volunteer intake, and every form that outgrows email Event registration, volunteer intake, program applications and every form that takes a payment. Bronze to Gold with the 50% nonprofit discount. | ~$204-$594/yr (nonprofit discount) |
| Grant research | Instrumentl Best for: Shops managing 10+ grant applications that want matching and deadline tracking in one place Grant research at program scale: a shared pipeline for up to three seats, with ten or more live applications. | ~$3,588/yr (Discover, $299/mo) |
| Events & auctions | Greater Giving Best for: Auction-led galas that want hardware, check-in and bidding handled as one package The signature event is now a real revenue line. Package pricing covers bidding, check-in and event-night support. | ~$3,000-$8,000 |
| Prospect research & wealth screening | Kindsight (formerly iWave) Best for: Shops that want repeatable wealth screening and prospect scoring at scale At this size (especially on the upper end) in-house donor prospecting is a best practice that saves you money on consultants long term. The screening platform pays for itself when your team works the list monthly instead of buying it screen by screen. | ~$4,000-$6,000 + credits on larger runs |
| Total | ~$16,800-$24,200/yr |
At $1M-$5M the stack becomes infrastructure. Multiple people live in the CRM, grants run as a program rather than a scramble, and major-gift research moves in-house. Budget roughly $16,800 to $24,200 a year depending on tiers and the event package, comfortably under the $30,342 mean our benchmark of 100 fundraisers reports at this size.
Why these picks
Donor CRM + donation processing: DonorDock ($500/mo, billed annually). One line covers both jobs at this size. The database is the system of record for three to eight people, and the thing that breaks here is not capability, it is habit. DonorDock keeps driving the daily follow-up list while the file grows, and its single plan means neither adding 20,000 lapsed names nor turning on another module re-prices your contract. Email marketing is built in, and its giving pages carry a 2% platform fee on top of card processing: at $150,000 of online giving that is $3,000 a year, so weigh it against the percentage platform you are leaving. Take the demo with your real workflows: gift entry, soft credits, and the board report you run quarterly, and remember onboarding is a separate $3,800 one-time line. If retention analytics is the thing your team asks for most, Bloomerang is the serious alternative and prices by record count; if you want the giving side cheaper and flat, 4aGoodCause Growing at $2,988/yr takes no percentage at all and brings its own simpler CRM.
Grant research: Instrumentl Discover ($299/mo). Grants are a program now: several staff in the pipeline, ten or more live applications, deadlines that overlap. Instrumentl’s shared pipeline is what keeps a team-scale calendar from slipping, and the matching keeps the top of the funnel full while everyone is busy writing.
Prospect research: Kindsight, formerly iWave (~$4,000-$6,000/yr, plus credits on larger prospecting runs). This is the size where screening moves in-house, especially on the upper end of the band. A consultant-run screen is a fine on-ramp, but each engagement runs $4,000-$5,000 and produces a list that starts aging the day it lands. Kindsight puts the same capacity and inclination data on your team’s desk year-round for about the price of one screen, which is what makes in-house prospecting the best practice that saves consultant fees long term. The condition still applies: somebody has to work the list monthly. If major gifts are not yet a standing part of someone’s week, start with the project instead; see the note below the ledger.
Events: Greater Giving (~$3,000-$8,000, quoted). A signature auction at this size is a production, and Greater Giving sells it as one: mobile bidding, check-in, payment hardware and event-night support in a single package with one vendor accountable. Get the quote early in your event cycle and get the hardware and support terms in writing next to the software price.
Forms and operations: Jotform (~$204-$594/yr with the nonprofit discount). Event registration, volunteer intake, program applications, and any form that needs to take a payment, with submissions landing in one place. Size the tier to your submission volume; the 50% nonprofit discount applies from Bronze through Gold.
When you’ve outgrown this stack
Move up to the Institutional stack when screening needs to run continuously with a full-time researcher attached, when the CRM needs real permissions and membership structure, or when the gala program outgrows a single event vendor. That is the point where enterprise systems stop being overkill.
Go deeper
- Every Bonterra product name, and what it used to be called
- Federal vs foundation grants: which your shop should chase
- The grant reporting calendar that keeps renewals
- What a prospect research consultant does that software can't
- Running a screening bake-off: the test-file method
- When to buy wealth screening (and when it's a waste)
- How to read a 990 to find your next funder
- When a funder's stated priorities don't match their 990 giving history