By industry: Nonprofits and charities
Operations automation for nonprofits and charities.
Donations recorded and thanked the same day, grants that do not miss a deadline, volunteers who know where to be, and funder reports that do not take a fortnight of spreadsheets.
- First workflow live
- Donation to donor record, usually inside the first sprint
- Usually owned by
- Chief executives and directors
- Built on
- Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, HubSpot
- Judged on
- Time to thank and Donation reconciliation
In short
Nonprofit automation means donations that write to the donor record and trigger a thank-you, grant applications and deadlines tracked in one place, volunteer sign-up and scheduling without the email chain, and programme and funder reports built from live data. SBD builds this around your donation platform and CRM, in accounts your organisation owns.
Who this is for
Who brings us in, in nonprofits and charities.
- Chief executives and directors
- Heads of fundraising and development
- Operations and finance managers
- Programme and volunteer coordinators
Is this you?
If three of these sound like your week, this page is about your business.
- Donations are reconciled into the CRM by hand
- Thank-you letters go out in weekly batches
- Grant deadlines are tracked in a spreadsheet or an inbox
- Volunteer rotas are organised by email
- Each funder report takes weeks of copying numbers
What it costs today
Where nonprofits and charities loses the hours.
Donations sit in three places
Online gifts, bank transfers, events and direct debits arrive through different tools, and someone reconciles them into the donor record by hand.
Thank-yous go out late
Acknowledgements, receipts and tax declarations wait for a weekly batch, so supporters hear nothing for days after they give.
Grant deadlines live in someone's head
Applications, reporting dates and conditions are tracked in a spreadsheet or an inbox, and a missed report puts the next payment at risk.
Volunteer rotas run on email
Sign-ups, availability, checks and shift reminders are chased one message at a time, and gaps appear the night before.
Funder and trustee reports take a fortnight
Programme numbers, finance figures and stories are pulled from different tools and pasted into a document every quarter.
No single view of the work
Fundraising, media coverage and project data each sit in their own tool, so nobody can see reach, income and outcomes side by side.
By company size
Nonprofits and charities at 10 people, and at 1,000.
- 1 to 10
The director runs fundraising, finance and reporting, mostly in the evenings.
- 11 to 50
A fundraising lead, a programme team and a spreadsheet for each, with donations reconciled by hand.
- 51 to 200
Several programmes and funders, each with its own reporting format, and a data person who is always busy.
- 201 to 1,000
Regional teams, many funding streams, and trustees asking for one view nobody can produce quickly.
What we build
What we build for nonprofits and charities teams.
- 01
Donations into the donor record
Gifts from your donation platform, bank feed and events matched to the right supporter, deduplicated, and coded to the right fund or campaign.
- 02
Same-day thank-yous and receipts
Acknowledgements sent by email or post the day a gift lands, with receipts and tax declarations recorded against the supporter.
- 03
Grant pipeline and deadline tracker
Every application, award, condition and reporting date in one board, with reminders to the owner well before anything is due.
- 04
Volunteer sign-up and scheduling
A sign-up form that writes to the volunteer record, shifts offered by availability, reminders before each shift, and hours logged for reporting.
- 05
Funder and trustee report packs
Programme outputs, income and spend pulled from live data into a report draft, so staff edit the narrative rather than rebuild the numbers.
- 06
One view across your tools
One view across fundraising, coverage and programme tools: income, reach and outcomes consolidated into a single dashboard the leadership team and trustees can read.
The workflows
The nonprofits and charities workflows, and what sets each one off.
- 01 Donation to donor record
When a gift is received online, by bank or at an event
ThenMatched to the supporter, coded to fund and campaign, thank-you sent
- 02 Grant deadline reminders
When a report or application date approaches
ThenOwner reminded at set intervals, data pack prepared, status updated
- 03 Volunteer onboarding
When a volunteer signs up
ThenRecord created, checks requested, welcome sent, first shift offered
- 04 Shift reminders and gaps
When a shift is two days away
ThenReminders sent, unfilled shifts offered to available volunteers
- 05 Quarterly funder report
When a reporting period closes
ThenOutputs, income and spend pulled into the funder template for review
The numbers we move
How a nonprofits and charities build is judged.
Every build has a number written into the blueprint. These are the ones nonprofits and charities builds are measured by, and how we measure them.
| Metric | Before | After | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to thank | Days or a weekly batch | Same day | Time from gift received to acknowledgement sent |
| Donation reconciliation | Hours each week | Exceptions only | Gifts matched to supporters by hand, per week |
| Missed grant deadlines | Found too late | None, with reminders ahead | Reports or applications submitted after the due date |
| Report preparation time | A fortnight per quarter | Days, numbers prefilled | Staff hours to produce a funder or trustee report |
Documents and records
The paperwork that generates itself.
Names and tax rules differ by country. We build for the ones you file under, whether that is VAT, sales tax or GST.
Systems we connect in nonprofits and charities
What is usually already there, and what we add.
Anything with an API or a database we can read works the same way. Each tool links to its page in the integrations directory.
- Your donation platform
- Your donor CRM
-
Google Workspace -
Microsoft 365 -
HubSpot -
Airtable -
Stripe - QuickBooks
-
Xero -
Supabase -
n8n
Proof
Proof from builds like this.
- Customer story
Multi-user production dashboard
A dashboard that pulled scattered operational data into one live view for several users. We have not built for a charity; the pattern is the same one behind a trustee and funder dashboard.
Read the story - Customer story
Internal operations tool replacing SmartSuite
An internal tool that replaced a sprawl of tables with one shared system of record, the same move as bringing grants, volunteers and programmes into one place.
Read the story
The offer
The supporter operations starter
Thirty days to donations that record and thank themselves, grants on one board, and the first report pack built from live data.
- Week 1 to 2audit of donations, grants, volunteers and reporting with hours measured
- Week 3blueprint, first build chosen by payback, usually donation processing and thank-yous
- Week 4 ondonor record sync, grant tracker, volunteer scheduling, report packs
- Accounts in your organisation's name, training for staff, sixty days of hypercare
What this does not do
So the scope is clear before the call.
- Fundraising strategy or campaign creative. We build the operations behind them.
- Replacing your CRM or accounting system. We build around them.
Terms, defined
Nonprofits and charities terms, in plain English.
- Donor record
- The single entry for a supporter that holds their gifts, consents, communications and relationship history.
- Restricted fund
- Money given for a specific purpose, which must be tracked and reported separately from general income.
- Funder report
- The periodic return a grant maker requires, usually outputs, outcomes and spend against the agreed budget.
Questions
What people ask about nonprofits and charities automation.
Do you work with our donation platform and CRM?
We connect to tools with an API or a supported export, and build around them. Your CRM stays the donor record. Where a tool has no API, we work from scheduled exports.
How do you handle supporter data?
Everything runs in accounts your organisation owns, with access by role and an audit log. We work to your data protection policy and consent records, and sign a data processing agreement with you.
We are a small team on a tight budget. Is this realistic?
Start with the audit and one build chosen by payback, usually donation processing or thank-yous. Many of the tools have nonprofit pricing, and care plans start at $50 a month.
Can you help with funder reporting formats?
Yes. We map each funder's template to your data once, so the numbers fill themselves each period and staff write the narrative.
Will AI write our grant applications?
It can draft from your past applications and programme data, but a person writes and signs off every submission. The value is in the tracking and the data, not in generated prose.
Reading
- Strategy
We tried AI and nothing stuck
The sentence we hear on most first calls. It is almost never about the AI. The four reasons tools get abandoned in small companies, how to tell which one you have, and the one change that makes the next attempt stick.
- Operations
Who noticed when the workflow stopped?
Most automation failures are silent. The run shows green, the trigger is armed, and nothing happens for six weeks. How silent failure works in Zapier and n8n, what it costs, and the four checks we put on every build.
Related
- Function
Finance and accounting
Close faster, chase less, and see the numbers without waiting for month end.
- Function
Marketing
Send the right message because something happened, keep every list honest, and see which spend turned into revenue.
- Function
Leadership
The numbers you run the company on, pulled from the systems that hold them, every morning, with a note on what changed.
By industry: Manufacturing, Distribution and logistics, Consulting and agencies, Service and e-commerce, Healthcare, Real estate, SaaS, Professional services, Retail and wholesale, Construction and trades, Lending, insurance and financial services, Education and training, Hospitality and travel
Nonprofits and charities
Talk to us about the supporter operations starter.
Bring the one nonprofits and charities workflow your team still runs by hand. You leave the call with a yes or no on fit and the first thing we would build.
Book the call