Organisation & background
Zoho CRM originated with AdventNet, founded in 1996 in New Jersey and Chennai and renamed Zoho Corporation in 2009. It is bootstrapped, headquartered in Chennai with a US headquarters in Austin, and has grown into a large, established company.
Functionality
Zoho CRM is one application in Zoho One, a bundle of more than 50 Zoho business applications, including accounting, email marketing, HR, projects, events and analytics, under one subscription. Nonprofits use it for donor and contact records, set up through configuration: custom modules and fields, Canvas page layouts, and Deluge scripting for custom functions. A companion product, Zoho Creator, lets organisations build simple no-code apps, often used for volunteer coordination, expense tracking or programme-specific beneficiary records. Donations and receipting are handled through this configuration or connected apps rather than a dedicated fundraising module.
Localised features
Donation receipts are handled in the companion Zoho Books product rather than in Zoho CRM, configurable for local tax requirements, including an India-specific workflow for 80G tax-exemption receipts.
Implementation model
You can set it up yourself, or use one of Zoho’s third-party implementation partners. A one-time nonprofit discount is available, administered through TechSoup.
Hosting
Cloud-hosted by the vendor only, on Zoho’s own cloud infrastructure.
Links
Last full research
August 2026