Beacon vs PWI Charity CRM

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.

PWI Charity CRM is a web-based contact system for nonprofits managing supporters, prospective donors, leads, fundraising, and outreach. Profiles can store several emails, addresses, phone numbers, custom fields, giving history, communication preferences, and engagement levels. The CRM records gifts from online donations, crowdfunding, GroupGive, manual entry, and other channels. It also records non-cash contributions such as goods, services, property, and vehicles with fair-market values. Tags and segments organize contacts for targeted communication and donor analysis. Users can generate and send tax-deductible receipts, produce donor reports, import contacts from spreadsheets or other CRMs, and export data for mail merges or reporting. Listed capabilities include campaign management, recurring donations, automated receipts, donor segmentation, donation keywords, and standard reporting. The free plan costs nothing, requires no credit card, and is described as free forever. Paid pricing is listed from $25 a month. PWI says it uses reasonable confidentiality measures but cannot guarantee complete security. Terms grant PWI and PWI Foundation a perpetual, transferable, sublicensable worldwide license to submitted CRM content for related marketing and promotional activities, while nonprofits retain ownership.