CharityTracker

 Purpose

CharityTracker by Simon Solutions helps nonprofits and churches securely share with each other how they’re helping their clientele. As a secure web-based platform, CharityTracker is a great way to collaborate with others to track distribution of resources, practice accountability in charity, and understand the context of a client’s situation when he or she comes to you for help.

 Pricing Overview (subject to change)

 Perspective

CharityTracker was developed in response to the outpouring of relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There was a felt need for a way to track the distribution of resources in order to protect limited resources and foster accountability.

CharityTracker operates from the perspective that knowledge empowers— the more knowledge that can be provided to a nonprofit or church staff member or volunteer about how a client has been served, the better service they in turn are able to provide.

 Best For

 Evidence That It Works

Simon Solutions, the company that owns and operates CharityTracker, has been refining the CharityTracker software since its advent in 2005. It has been utilized in over 2,000 cities across America. CharityTracker has a 4.5 rating from over 1,000 reviews, according to online software reviewer Capterra.

 Cost and Resources

Each agency that joins can add as many users as they’d like; however, each agency pays per user they add. Pricing per user depends on the plan your agency chooses:

• Basic package: $20/month/user
• Plus package: $40/month/user
• Pro package: $60/month/user

You can view details about what each plan offers here. A 2-week no-obligation free trial can be started here.

There are also bulk discounts available if your agency plans to have 3 or more users. The pricing is based on how many simultaneous users your agency needs.

You can find more information about CharityTracker’s bulk pricing options in this document.

CharityTracker requires a computer that can connect to the internet.

Because of the potentially sensitive nature of the information that is shared on CharityTracker, it is vital that each agency train anyone who will have log-in access. CharityTracker houses training videos on their website and provides a demo website in which to learn.

Training typically takes 1-2 hours to complete and while not “required,” untrained users can create significant problems, such as by duplicating cases rather than maintaining one record per client.

 How to order:

While CharityTracker is not owned or operated by True Charity, we are authorized consultants and would love to help you. Contact us here to get started.

 What We Love

CharityTracker provides contextual information that can empower a nonprofit or church to know when it’s time to give relief, offer partnership, or withhold service. It smooths collaboration and communication efforts between nonprofits and churches in a community.

We also appreciate that the software is intuitive to navigate and includes lots of nice “bonus” features, such as a place to add notes, alerts, and relationships on a person’s case and a bulletin feature so you can easily broadcast relevant messages to all other agencies connected on the local CharityTracker network.

CharityTracker includes a reports feature so you can check the forms of assistance your agency gave in a certain timeframe, which is a great way to measure trends in your agency’s giving and to update donors.

The CharityTracker Plus and Pro plans also include a goal-setting and case management feature, a great development tool for nonprofits and churches to utilize.

We also appreciate that Simon Solutions, the owners and operators of CharityTracker, are easy to reach and give great customer support.

 Considerations

While CharityTracker has value as an internal tracking and communication tool, it really shines when there are multiple agencies who are bought in and using it. Therefore, it’s hard to experience the full impact of the software unless you get multiple key players in your community to join and use the software.

There are some features like the outcomes tab (available in the Plus and Pro plans) that are still relatively new and clunky.

Agents who are not properly trained can inadvertently make the tool less helpful to others; for example, it’s easy to create duplicate cases if one has not been trained to search by name, date of birth, and social security number before creating a new case on CharityTracker.

Links Reviewed 6/24/24