System ‘structure’ describes the nature of the underlying system or platform, and whether it’s provided directly or by third parties. There are five groups, and the difference affects cost, adaptability and how dependent you are on a vendor.
- Proprietary nonprofit systems: built and sold specifically for the sector, under a single vendor’s licence. Usually the fastest and cheapest way to get a specific feature, but harder to reshape later, since the platform is purpose-built.
- Platform or general CRM: a general-purpose business platform, not built for the nonprofit sector but used by nonprofits as-is, ranging from smaller CRMs to Salesforce and Dynamics 365. Typically more flexible, but nonprofit-specific features have to be configured, bought or built separately. Salesforce includes Nonprofit Cloud natively.
- Platform or general CRM – app or partner: a nonprofit-specific product built on top of a platform like Salesforce or Dynamics 365 by someone other than the platform vendor. Combines the platform’s flexibility with ready-built nonprofit features.
- Open-source base system: a full CRM whose code is open and modifiable, whether built for the sector, like CiviCRM, or for general business, like Dolibarr. The licence is free, but hosting, implementation and maintenance still cost money.
- Open-source base system – app or partner: an implementation delivered on top of an open-source system by a third party, most often a hosting and delivery partner for a particular country. Someone else takes on the work of configuration, hosting or support.