Beacon vs DonorForge

Beacon is a CRM built especially for charities, combining fundraising, memberships, events, and case management. Fundraising tools include branded donation forms, grants, major gifts, legacies, recurring payments, and Gift Aid. Organizations can create branded membership and event ticketing forms and track attendance. For service work, Beacon tracks enquiries, ongoing use, and activities over time. Workflow automation and AI tools support data filtering, email drafting, and database logic.

Listed integrations include Mailchimp, Dotdigital, Sendgrid, Xero, JustGiving, Stripe, GoCardless, PayPal, and Zapier. Beacon also provides a documented RESTful API for custom integrations and Beacon-powered features. The service has web, iOS, Android, and API platform listings. Plans start at £37/mo, with annual billing also listed for Starter, Standard, and Premium; Ultimate pricing is custom. Beacon says its infrastructure and customer data are hosted in the UK and that it holds ISO 27001:2022 and Cyber Essentials Plus certifications. All plans include in-app chat and email support. Implementation is not included in plan pricing and is handled by certified Implementation Partners. Beacon was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Shoreditch, London.

DonorForge is a nonprofit CRM for managing donor relationships, gifts, campaigns, fundraising operations and bookkeeping. It handles one-time, recurring and pledged gifts, with recurring-card updates, retries for failed charges, installments and reminders. Campaign tools include team fundraising, ticketing, seating reservations and walk-up checkout for events. Bookkeeping features include bank reconciliation through Plaid, profit-and-loss and cash-flow views, and board-ready reports. Listed integrations include Stripe for payments, QuickBooks for financial-data exports and Zapier for connecting to 6,000+ apps. Organizations can connect their own Stripe, Sola or Banquest payment account; DonorForge says it adds no platform fee beyond processing. It offers donor-record imports and says records remain exportable. Data is encrypted at rest with AES-256 and in transit with TLS, and card tokenization is handled by a PCI Service Provider Level 1 vendor. DonorForge says it lacks its own SOC 2 attestation, ISO 27001 certification and HIPAA Business Associate Agreement. A free trial lasts 14 days. Free plans include Starter at free for 1 users and 2 campaigns, and Pro at free for 5 users and 10 campaigns. Paid plans start at $295/mo; Enterprise pricing is custom. Support is by email, with priority response on paid plans.