What software do NGOs use to manage donors and volunteers?
In Romania, most associations and foundations start in Excel, with one file for donors and another for volunteers. The useful question is not which tool is better, but at what point Excel becomes a risk.
Short answer
- Most small Romanian NGOs keep donors and volunteers in separate Excel files.
- Excel is enough as long as you have no recurring donations and no volunteers under contract.
- A dedicated tool becomes necessary from the first volunteer under contract, because the hours record is required by law.
- The fine for failing to keep the volunteer record is between 10,000 and 20,000 lei.
- An NGO management tool does not replace the accountant and does not keep the books.
Excel or a dedicated tool
The difference is not in features, but in what happens when nobody is looking at the file.
What changes between an Excel file and a dedicated NGO management tool
| Criterion | Excel or Google Sheets | Dedicated tool |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Zero | A monthly subscription |
| One person, one record | The same person appears in three files | A single profile, with the full history |
| A stopped recurring donation | Spotted by hand, usually late | Flagged in the month it happens |
| Receipts | Numbered by hand, with duplicate risk | Numbered automatically, in sequence |
| Volunteering hours | Reconstructed at year end, from memory | Logged as the work happens |
| Who changed an amount | Cannot be established | A history entry for every change |
| How personal data travels | The file is emailed and leaves the organisation | Account access, with per-user permissions |
Practical examples
- An association with 20 donors, no recurring donations and no volunteers under contract does perfectly well in Excel.
- For a recurring donor giving 30 lei a month, one unnoticed stopped payment costs 360 lei in a year.
- If 10 such donations stop, the annual loss reaches 3,600 lei, with nobody noticing.
- A coordinator reconstructing in January the hours of 60 volunteers for their certificates works from memory, not from records.
- The minimum 10,000 lei fine for the volunteer record exceeds the yearly cost of any management tool.
Common mistakes
- Separate files are kept for donors, volunteers and members, and the same person appears three times, with different data.
- The donor file circulates by email between volunteers, so personal data leaves the organisation uncontrolled.
- A commercial sales CRM is bought, which has no membership fees, no form 230, no volunteering contracts and no funder reports.
- An NGO tool is expected to replace the accountant and the bookkeeping.
- Choosing a tool is postponed until the first funder audit, when the data has to be reconstructed retroactively.
How 4ong helps
- One donor record: one-off donations, recurring donations, membership fees, form 230 and sponsorships, in a single profile.
- Recurring donations are tracked, and interruptions are flagged in the month they occur.
- Fundraising campaigns have a target and a progress figure, and sponsorship contracts are kept with their signing date.
- The volunteer register includes the hours timesheet and the issuing of volunteering certificates.
- Projects have a budget by expense line, and funder reports are generated from the same data.
- 4ong does not keep the books: the journal, the trial balance and the financial statements stay with the accountant, and the ecosystem has 4conta.ro for that.
- Data is hosted in the European Union, in line with GDPR, with account access and per-user permissions.