The right supporter database for a small UK charity depends on budget, Gift Aid needs, and how many tools you want to stitch together.
- Zeffy is the only free option that handles fundraising, ticketing, memberships, auctions, and supporter records in one place, with Gift Aid support, at £0 across every tier.
- Beacon is the paid standout for fundraising depth: rated #1 in Fundraising Magazine's UK CRM survey six years running, with native Gift Aid claim submission.
- Donorfy offers a free tier up to 500 supporters and broad integrations with JustGiving, GoCardless, and Mailchimp.
- Before committing, confirm three things: the all-in £ cost at your supporter count, whether Gift Aid declarations are captured natively, and the platform's UK GDPR posture.
Picking a supporter database is one of the higher-stakes software decisions a small UK charity makes. Once you train your team and migrate your records, switching again is painful, so the choice has to hold up for a few years.
This guide is written for the trustee, volunteer treasurer, or Head of Fundraising who is also the fundraiser, working with under 5,000 supporters and a budget closer to £0 than £100 per month. We compared the 8 most common supporter databases on the criteria that actually matter for that profile: real annual £ cost, setup without IT support, whether the donation form auto-writes to the supporter record, how pricing scales as you grow, and built-in Gift Aid handling.
For UK charities, the stakes are higher than for most. Your supporter database must handle Gift Aid claim submission to HMRC (25p reclaimed per £1 donated by a UK taxpayer), UK GDPR-compliant supporter data handling under the Information Commissioner's Office framework, and, for many charities, integration with Direct Debit via GoCardless, which underpins around 31% of all UK charity donations. Get the wrong tool and you are managing Gift Aid declarations on a spreadsheet while paying per-ticket fees that eat your fete profit.
In this article:
Quick reference: top picks at a glance
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| Zeffy | Free all-in-one for charities under £500k income | £0 (every tier) | Native |
| Beacon CRM | Fundraising depth for growing charities | From £33.50/month | Native |
| Donorfy | Cheaper-entry CRM with broad integrations | Free up to 500; ~£50/month above | Native |
| Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud | Enterprise CRM if you have implementation capacity | 10 free licences (Power of Us) | Manual |
| ChurchSuite | Church-specific administration | Subscription by size | Native |
| Membermojo | Simple membership admin for clubs and associations | Free up to 50 members; £30 to £550/year | None |
| Access Charity CRM | Mid-to-large charities wanting a single supplier | Custom-quoted | Native |
| Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT | Universities, hospital foundations, heritage orgs | Custom-quoted (typically £10k+/year) | Native |
The 8 best supporter databases for small UK charities in 2026
1. Zeffy, best free supporter database for small UK charities
G2: 4.9/5. Pricing: £0 (no subscription, no platform fees, no transaction fees)
Zeffy's free supporter management is the only supporter database that is actually free at every tier. Over 100,000 charities globally have used Zeffy to raise more than £2 billion, keeping 100% of what they raise. Fundraising forms, ticketing, peer-to-peer, auctions, and supporter records all share one record system in one login, so there is no double data entry between a payment processor and a CRM.
Why it works for small UK charities: Zeffy handles Gift Aid natively, capturing the declaration details your charity needs to submit claims to HMRC via Charities Online. Every donation auto-updates the supporter record with no manual reconciliation.
Small charity fit: The strongest match for 1 to 3 person or volunteer-run teams on a budget under £100 per month. £0 at every supporter-count tier means the cost never becomes a reason to switch.
Top features:
- Auto contact updates: every donation or ticket purchase writes back to the supporter record
- Segmentation, tagging, and notes on every supporter profile
- Pre-filled donation forms that auto-update supporter records (no double data entry)
- Send segmented emails from the same dashboard instead of paying for a separate email platform
- Gift Aid declaration capture and donation acknowledgement emails on every gift
- Full suite of campaigns: donations, ticketing, peer-to-peer, auctions, raffles, e-commerce, memberships
Pros: Truly £0 at 500, 1,000, 2,500 and 5,000 supporters; charity-native; Gift Aid and supporter management built in.
Caveats: No wealth screening, no enterprise moves-management, no volunteer-hours tracking module. If your stewardship workflow centres on those, Beacon or Access Charity CRM is a closer fit.
How Zeffy's free model works for UK charities
Zeffy is 100% free for charities. The platform is sustained by optional voluntary contributions from supporters at the point of donation. On average, 2 out of 3 supporters leave a voluntary contribution, which covers all costs and reinvests in the platform. Supporters are never required to contribute; if they do not, the charity still keeps 100% of the money raised.
UK supporters are typically more transparency-sensitive about platform costs than those in other markets. Zeffy's model aligns with that: the voluntary contribution option is presented clearly, the charity's cost is genuinely zero, and there is no suggested-tip prompt that inflates the donation total without the charity's knowledge.
2. Beacon CRM, best UK paid CRM for fundraising depth
G2: 4.6/5. Pricing: from £33.50/month, scaling by active supporter count
Beacon is the strongest paid pick when fundraising depth matters more than budget. UK-built and rated #1 in Fundraising Magazine's UK CRM survey six years running, it offers native Gift Aid claim submission via Charities Online, a modern interface, and fast onboarding. Beacon thinks in donors and campaigns from the start, which makes it the natural upgrade path when a charity's stewardship has grown beyond what a free tool can handle.
Small charity fit: Not ideal for teams under 3 staff or on a budget under £50 per month. Worth it when your supporter stewardship has grown complex enough to need engagement timelines and dedicated Gift Aid reporting.
Top features: Native Gift Aid submission via Charities Online, engagement timeline, visual donor journeys, campaign dashboards, segmentation and reporting.
Pros: Best-in-class UK fundraising CRM; intuitive dashboard; native Gift Aid; fast setup.
Caveats: Limited beyond fundraising (no case management, grant management, or service-delivery modules). If you need those, Access Charity CRM or a specialist tool is a better fit. Pricing escalates by supporter count.
3. Donorfy, cheaper-entry UK CRM with broad integrations
Pricing: free tier up to 500 constituents; from approximately £50/month above that
Donorfy is UK-built (now owned by The Access Group) and offers a genuine free tier up to 500 supporters. Above that, pricing scales by constituent count. The real strength is the integration ecosystem: JustGiving, Enthuse, Mailchimp, GoCardless, and Stripe all connect natively, which matters if your charity already runs giving through those channels.
Small charity fit: A viable option for charities already embedded in the JustGiving or GoCardless ecosystem. For charities starting from scratch, the free tier is a useful on-ramp but the broader feature surface is less polished than Beacon.
Top features: Native Gift Aid, JustGiving and Enthuse integrations, GoCardless Direct Debit support, Stripe card processing, Mailchimp sync.
Pros: Free tier up to 500 supporters; broad integrations; UK-built; cheaper starting point than Beacon.
Caveats: Reporting is more basic than Beacon; often paired with a separate service-delivery tool for charities that do more than fundraising.
4. Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud (Power of Us), enterprise CRM if you have the capacity
Pricing: 10 free licences via the Power of Us programme; paid tiers above that
Salesforce's Power of Us programme grants 10 free Salesforce licences to eligible nonprofits, which sounds compelling. The honest take, consistent with NCVO and Charity Digital's guidance, is that most small UK charities under-use it badly. Salesforce is an enterprise sales and marketing CRM repurposed for charities; without a technical implementation lead, most organisations end up with a very expensive spreadsheet.
Small charity fit: Only right for charities with a dedicated CRM administrator or an IT team. If you are a 1 to 3 person team, the implementation overhead will cost more in volunteer hours than a paid specialist CRM.
Top features: Full enterprise CRM capabilities, workflow automation, reporting, Power of Us ecosystem.
Pros: 10 free licences; enormous ecosystem; scales to any complexity.
Caveats: Implementation measured in weeks or months; requires technical capacity; Gift Aid is manual without a third-party connector; NCVO and Charity Digital both flag under-use as the dominant pattern for small charities.
5. ChurchSuite, the default for UK church administration
Pricing: subscription-based, tiered by church size
ChurchSuite is the dominant platform for UK church administration: membership, rotas, donations, Gift Aid, children's check-in, and communications in one place. It is irreplaceable if you are a UK church. It is the wrong tool for any other charity vertical.
Small charity fit: Perfect for UK churches of any size. Not relevant outside that vertical.
Top features: Membership management, rotas and team scheduling, donation recording and Gift Aid, children's and youth modules, communications.
Pros: Genuinely purpose-built for UK churches; native Gift Aid; strong community and support.
Caveats: No applicability outside the church vertical; subscription cost scales with church size.
6. Membermojo, simplest membership tool for clubs and associations
Pricing: free up to 50 members; £30 to £550 per year by member count; no transaction fees
Membermojo is the simplest membership management tool in class for small clubs, U3A groups, sports clubs, village halls, and small charitable associations. The interface is spreadsheet-adjacent; it is not a CRM and it is not designed for fundraising. If your primary need is to track who has renewed, collect subscriptions, and send membership communications, Membermojo does that job at the lowest possible cost.
Small charity fit: Ideal for membership-led organisations running a single annual renewal cycle. Not a fit for charities that need donation forms, Gift Aid claim submission, or event ticketing.
Top features: Membership directory and renewal tracking, subscription collection, member communications, online payments.
Pros: Genuinely affordable; no transaction fees; easy setup; free up to 50 members.
Caveats: Not a CRM; no donation forms; no Gift Aid claim submission; limited segmentation and reporting.
7. Access Charity CRM (formerly ThankQ), for mid-to-large UK fundraising organisations
Pricing: custom-quoted
Access Charity CRM is built for mid-to-large UK fundraising organisations that want a single supplier across bookkeeping, HR, payroll, and supporter management via the Access Charity Suite. The integration across the Access product family is the main reason to choose it over Beacon or Donorfy.
Small charity fit: Not a match for 1 to 3 person teams or charities under £500k income. Implementation and licensing costs put it firmly in the mid-to-large tier.
Top features: Supporter database, Gift Aid submission, campaign management, integration with Access bookkeeping and HR products.
Pros: Single-supplier consolidation for larger charities; native Gift Aid; Access Charity Suite integration.
Caveats: More legacy than Beacon or Donorfy; custom pricing requires a sales conversation; overkill for any small charity.
8. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, for universities, hospital foundations and heritage organisations
G2: 3.9/5. Pricing: custom-quoted, typically £10,000 or more per year
Raiser's Edge NXT is enterprise-tier software used by UK universities, hospital foundations, cathedrals, and heritage organisations with complex donor portfolios and dedicated development teams. It is not designed for a 1 to 3 person charity. Blackbaud also owns JustGiving in the UK.
Small charity fit: Not a match. Custom contracts, implementation measured in months, and a price point above £10,000 per year make this the wrong choice for any charity under £500k income without dedicated database staff.
Top features: Deep portfolio management, major gifts and planned giving workflows, secure reporting, tailored annual reports, mature supporter portals.
Pros: Comprehensive for complex fundraising portfolios; established in UK higher education and healthcare.
Caveats: Lowest G2 score on this list (3.9/5); custom contracts; implementation timeline measured in months; overkill for smaller organisations.
Pricing comparison: what you actually pay at 500, 1,000 and 2,500 supporters
Most platforms charge a subscription, a platform fee, or both. Zeffy eliminates those costs entirely.
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| Zeffy | £0 | £0 | £0 | Native |
| Beacon CRM | From £33.50/month | From £33.50/month (verify on Beacon's pricing page) | Scales by supporter count | Native |
| Donorfy | Free tier | ~£50/month | Scales by constituent count | Native |
| Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud | Free (10 licences, Power of Us) | Free (10 licences) | Free (10 licences, within cap) | Manual |
| ChurchSuite | Subscription by church size | Subscription by church size | Subscription by church size | Native |
| Membermojo | Free up to 50; £30 to £550/year | £30 to £550/year | £30 to £550/year | None |
| Access Charity CRM | Custom-quoted | Custom-quoted | Custom-quoted | Native |
| Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT | Custom-quoted (typically £10k+/year) | Custom-quoted (typically £10k+/year) | Custom-quoted (typically £10k+/year) | Native |
Verify current pricing directly on each vendor's UK pricing page before committing. Fees in this sector change frequently and a stale figure in your budget spreadsheet is a real risk.
How to choose the right supporter database
Use these five criteria, the same ones we used to evaluate every tool above, to narrow your shortlist. They are framed for the most common small UK charity profile: a 1 to 3 person or volunteer-run team, a supporter list under 5,000, and a budget under £100 per month.
- 1. Check the all-in £ cost at your supporter count. Add up subscription plus platform fee plus payment processing. Many tools quote the subscription only; the all-in cost at 1,000 supporters is usually two to three times the headline number. For teams operating under £100 per month, only Zeffy, Donorfy's free tier (up to 500), and Salesforce's Power of Us licences clear that bar, and only Zeffy includes built-in donation forms and Gift Aid handling at every tier.
- 2. Confirm Gift Aid claim submission is native. Any UK supporter database worth using must capture a valid Gift Aid declaration (donor's full name, home address, charity name, confirmation of UK taxpayer status), store it for at least 6 years after the last donation covered, and submit claims via HMRC Charities Online or export in the correct format. If a tool treats Gift Aid as an afterthought, the admin overhead lands on your team.
- 3. Verify the UK GDPR posture up front. Ask any vendor about lawful basis handling (consent versus legitimate interest), consent capture at the point of donation, and data residency. The Information Commissioner's Office requires a documented lawful basis for processing supporter personal data. The Code of Fundraising Practice (section 2.1.5) requires explicit consent or an appropriate legitimate-interest basis before sharing supporter data with third parties. UK charities consistently ask this question before adopting a new platform; if a vendor cannot answer it clearly, that is a warning sign.
- 4. Unify fundraising and supporter records. If your donation form is on one platform and your supporter list is on another, you will spend hours reconciling them every month. Pick a tool where donations auto-write to the supporter record. For lists under 5,000, Zeffy's unified system handles this out of the box. Many charities currently run JustGiving plus Ticket Tailor plus a Mailchimp list plus a spreadsheet; consolidating to a single platform recovers meaningful time each week.
- 5. Set up without a database manager. If the sales cycle requires a demo and a contract, your real go-live is weeks away. Form-first tools (Zeffy, Donorfy) publish same-day and require no technical configuration. Salesforce, Access Charity CRM, and Blackbaud all require onboarding time that small teams rarely have.
How UK charities are consolidating the stack
The pain point the brief hears most often from small UK charities is not "which CRM has the best reports", it is "we are running four tools, paying for at least two of them, and still doing manual reconciliation at month end."
A typical small UK charity running paid events, an autumn appeal, and a membership renewal cycle currently stitches together a ticketing platform (paying per-ticket fees that eat the fete margin), a donation platform, an email tool, and a spreadsheet for supporter records. When per-ticket fees on a £10 community-fete ticket approach £1 or more, the event barely breaks even. When the "free" donation platform starts charging at the next tier, the treasurer is scrambling mid-year.
The GDPR question comes before the feature question. UK charities, particularly smaller ones and community groups, ask "Are you GDPR compliant?" before they ask about pricing or Gift Aid. Any platform that cannot clearly answer that question will not get past the first conversation.
Consolidating to a single platform that handles fundraising, ticketing, Gift Aid, supporter records, and email in one login removes the reconciliation overhead and the multi-tool subscription cost. For charities under £500k income, that consolidation platform should cost nothing, because every pound saved on platform fees is a pound to the cause.
The bottom line for small charities
Start free, upgrade when complexity demands it. For charities under 5,000 supporters on a budget closer to £0 than £100 per month, Zeffy is the supporter database that grows with you without charging per record. If and when your stewardship workflow grows into wealth screening or complex engagement timelines, Beacon CRM is the honest UK next step. If you are a UK university, hospital foundation, or heritage organisation, Raiser's Edge NXT is your tier.
For everyone else: do not pay £1,500 or more per year for software your team will not fully use this year.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a supporter database and a CRM?
In the UK charity sector, the terms are often used interchangeably. A supporter database stores the basic record of who has given, when, and how much. A CRM (customer relationship management system, adapted for charities) does that and more: it tracks communication history, segments supporters by behaviour, automates thank-you emails, and integrates with fundraising forms and payment processors. Most modern tools, including Zeffy, Beacon, and Donorfy, offer CRM-level functionality alongside the core supporter record.
Does Zeffy handle Gift Aid for UK charities?
Yes. Zeffy captures Gift Aid declaration details as part of the donation process, stores the declaration data, and produces the records your charity needs to submit claims to HMRC via Charities Online. Gift Aid is the central UK donation tax mechanism: your charity reclaims 25p per £1 donated by a UK taxpayer, at no extra cost to the supporter. Zeffy handles this natively and at no charge.
What should I look for in a supporter database if I am not a registered charity?
If your organisation is a community interest company (CIC), unincorporated association, or community group not yet registered with the Charity Commission, you cannot claim Gift Aid. That changes the database shortlist: Gift Aid handling is less critical, and the focus shifts to cost, ease of use, and UK GDPR compliance. Zeffy, Membermojo (for membership-led groups), and Donorfy's free tier are all usable without registered charity status. Note that HMRC recognition for Gift Aid is a separate application from Charity Commission registration; some newly registered charities take months to receive it.
How does UK GDPR affect how I store supporter data?
UK GDPR (the retained EU GDPR, plus the Data Protection Act 2018) requires your charity to have a documented lawful basis for processing each supporter's personal data. For most charities, that means either consent (the supporter actively opted in) or legitimate interest (you have a genuine, proportionate reason to hold the data). The Code of Fundraising Practice adds a further rule: you need explicit consent or an appropriate legitimate-interest basis before sharing supporter data with third parties. Ask any supporter database vendor how they handle lawful basis capture and data residency before signing up.
How much should a small UK charity budget for a supporter database?
For a charity with a supporter list under 2,500 and a team of 1 to 3 people, the all-in cost (subscription plus platform fee plus payment processing) should ideally be under £100 per month. Zeffy hits £0 at every tier. Beacon starts at £33.50 per month. Donorfy is free up to 500 supporters, then scales. Salesforce Power of Us offers 10 free licences, though implementation costs often exceed the licence saving for small charities. Before committing, verify the price at your actual supporter count, not just the headline entry tier.
Can I migrate from an existing supporter database to a new one?
Yes, and most modern platforms make it straightforward for lists under 5,000 supporters. You will need a CSV export from your existing tool and to map your existing fields (name, email, donation history, Gift Aid declaration records) to the new system. The critical data to migrate intact is Gift Aid declaration history: HMRC requires charities to keep declarations for at least 6 years after the last donation covered, so those records must travel with you. Platforms like Zeffy allow you to import a supporter list directly; Beacon and Donorfy both offer onboarding support for migrations.
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