Updated May 2024

After unprecedented charitable giving in 2020, most nonprofits continued to see donor giving increasing in 2021, and it's holding steady a few years later. This increase in donors has heightened the need for accountability and transparency around fund management and highlighted the need for nonprofits to use the latest technology to ensure they are keeping up with donor expectations.

Technology like donor-centric CRMs, more sophisticated email and text marketing campaigns, and video technology is becoming commonplace, and newer, advanced options like APIs (Applications Programming Interfaces) are starting to pop up in larger nonprofits.

However, API technology isn't limited to just large organizations. We've rounded up the top 10 API options that any nonprofit can take advantage of to help enhance performance, tracking, accountability, and transparency.

App vs. API

Making an app for your nonprofit is very different than using an API. If you’re looking for more help and guidance on this topic or you’re a nonprofit looking to expand your digital presence, developing an app can be a game changer. For step-by-step instructions, you can follow this guide on how to make an app without needing any coding experience.

Now, let’s take a look at the APIs:

SignUp Genius API

Non-profits can use the SignUp Genius API to allow their web visitors to create or sign into their accounts, create and organize activities, and send reminders to organizations such as schools, charities, non-profits, and volunteer groups.

This API supports OAuth authentication and JSON data. The SignUp Genius API allows non-profits to access sign-up forms for free. They can use these forms when organizing volunteers and events. 

FunFund API

Crowdfunding campaigns are great for funding special, one-off projects that aren't likely to be repeated each year and creative ways to get donors from a broad geographical area engaged in your work.

The FunFund API allows non-profits to add crowdfunding campaigns to their websites and other web services. Users can then choose the campaign of their choice and make a donation.

Pledgeling Webhooks API

The Pledgeling Webhooks API is one of the best APIs for capturing notifications from donations. This means that non-profits can be notified whenever someone makes a donation to one of their campaigns.

In addition to the notification, non-profits can also get information about every donation made, the donors, and any other messages or special requirements about the donation made. 

Spare API

Spare API is one of the best APIs for non-profits that want to build a website for fundraising. You can also use this API to add a portal in your application that allows users to make donations to people living below $2 a day.

This API beats most APIs in this list because it manages all donations and ensures that every cent reaches its rightful recipient. In addition, you can use different management tools and platforms to set up and manage the API to match your requirements.

FrontStream Charitable Donations API

The FrontStream Charitable Donations API plays an important role when it comes to the processing of donations made to non-profits. It also retrieves the donors' information, such as their phone numbers, region, address, city, organization, government ID, and zip code, among others.

This API sends its responses in the form of JSON and XML, meaning that it beats many APIs that accept either JSON or XML. (Most APIs accept JSON).

Virgin Money Giving Fundraisers API

Sometimes, a non-profit might want to get access to fundraisers' information for their own use. Doing this manually can be time-consuming. Fortunately, using the Virgin Money Giving Fundraisers API, non-profits can access this information from a database known as Money Giving. It is common with UK non-profits.

The returned information includes information such as the fundraiser name, cover image, web pages, and profile, among others. You can also get addresses and country codes. 

CharityEngine API

The CharityEngine API is a complete software application that works like a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application. This application works effectively when managing fundraising activities.

Some of the services non-profits can use in this API include billing and online fundraising. It also comes with access to cash and credit card payments, authorizations, social media, messages, emails, activities, addresses, contacts, and audiences, among others.

Candid News API

As a non-profit, you might find yourself in a situation where you would like access to information about other non-profits in a certain part of the world. This might be difficult information to get.

Fortunately, the Candid News API allows non-profits to access actionable and real-time news about the social sector, philanthropy, and other non-profits. 

This information is collected and curated from more than 60,000 sources across the world.

Tremendous API

If a non-profit wants to develop a website that allows web visitors to send rewards and other incentives to them, then the Tremendous API is the best bet for them. This API allows web visitors to send rewards and incentives from hundreds of vendors worldwide.

The available rewards include prepaid Mastercard and Visa cards, charitable donations, money, and retail gift cards. The API also allows non-profits to manage their members, invoices, funding sources, campaigns, products, and rewards, among others, as well as protect donor and client data.

DVI Give API

Non-profits can use the DVI Give API to facilitate charities in different places. Through the API, users can search for different charities and access all information about the charities.

They can then make donations to charities. When a user donates, the API provides them with everything that they need including a tax receipt.

There are hundreds of other APIs that non-profits can use to streamline and enhance their operations. Which ones would you add to the list?

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