Nonprofit Databases

There are many inexpensive donor databases available for nonprofits. Some are free and many cost less than $500. Some donor databases, like The Raiser's Edge cost $1000's of dollars. But, based upon our investigation and the analysis of TechSoup, we recommend Metrix. It is a free open source product with good functionality and the ability to be customized for your needs.

Metrix is a robust contact management system for non-profits, designed to help your organization track funders, clients, events, and much more. The Fund for the City of New York created Metrix after 20 years of developing database applications for nonprofits. They identified a set of common information management needs of small to mid-sized organizations, and designed a system with the potential to streamline operations and save nonprofits thousands of dollars in software and support costs.

Metrix is community software. As such, it is distributed free of cost and and follows an open-source development model, so organizations are able to customize the application to meet their needs.

Metrix can be installed as a standalone system with the client, database and server files residing on a single computer. It can also be shared via a network with the database and server files residing on a central computer that is accessible to all users, and with the clients installed on multiple desktops.

At the core, Metrix provides:

If you are located in the New York City Metro area, Lenox Web will install Metrix and provide training to your staff.

If Metrix or one of the other inexpensive donor databases, reviewed by TechSoup, do not fit your needs, we can provide you with a custom donor database at a very reasonable cost.