Organisation & background
HubSpot was founded in June 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, and has been public on the NYSE since 2014. It has a large nonprofit customer base, though nonprofits remain a small slice of its overall business.
Functionality
HubSpot is a general-purpose business platform (not built for nonprofits specifically) that some charities repurpose as their CRM, mainly for its marketing and communications strength rather than fundraising depth. Its core ‘Smart CRM’ can be relabelled to fit nonprofit language (Deals become Donations, Contacts become Constituents), and organisations on its top Enterprise tier can create new record types of their own. Beyond the CRM, HubSpot bundles marketing automation, a customer-service helpdesk, a website builder and, via its Commerce Hub, Stripe-based recurring billing that some nonprofits use for regular giving or membership renewals. It has no fundraising-specific functionality of its own, working instead through connected apps.
Localised features
Donation receipting and tax compliance are handled through custom objects and workflows, or by pairing HubSpot with a fundraising platform such as Fundraise Up, Donorbox or GoFundMe Pro.
Implementation model
Self-service or through a partner; nonprofit-focused partners include Axon Garside, HubGem and Compuco in the UK, and CauseMic and Lake One in the US and Canada.
Hosting
Cloud-hosted by the vendor (HubSpot’s own multi-tenant hosting).
Last full research
August 2026