Every few months, someone publishes an article about the essential technology stack for nonprofits. These articles invariably recommend a dozen expensive platforms that would cost more than most small Australian charities spend on rent.

Let me offer something more useful. Here’s what a small charity — say, under $2 million in revenue with fewer than 20 staff — actually needs, and what you can safely ignore.

The essentials

Email and collaboration. Google Workspace for Nonprofits (free for qualifying organisations up to certain limits) or Microsoft 365 for Nonprofits (heavily discounted). Either works fine. Pick whichever your team is more comfortable with and don’t look back.

The free tier of Google Workspace for Nonprofits gives you Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive, and Meet. That’s your email, word processing, spreadsheets, file storage, and video conferencing sorted with zero cost.

Accounting software. Xero is the standard in Australia for good reason. It handles GST, BAS reporting, and bank feeds natively. The nonprofit pricing is reasonable. MYOB is the alternative if you prefer it, though I find Xero more intuitive.

Don’t try to manage your finances in spreadsheets. The risk of errors is too high, and the time spent reconciling manually is time you could spend on mission delivery.

A website. You need one, and it doesn’t need to be complicated. A simple WordPress site, a Squarespace site, or even a well-maintained page on a platform like GiveNow is sufficient for most small charities. What matters is that it clearly explains who you are, what you do, and how people can donate or get involved.

Don’t spend $20,000 on a custom website redesign. Spend $2,000 on a clean template and good content.

Donor management. This is where decisions get harder. For a small charity with a few hundred donors, you might be fine with a well-structured spreadsheet (I know, I just told you not to use spreadsheets for accounting — donor management is different). Google Sheets with a consistent structure for contact details, giving history, and communication preferences can work.

If you’ve outgrown spreadsheets, look at Infoodle (affordable, ANZ-based), Little Green Light (purpose-built for small nonprofits), or HubSpot’s free CRM (powerful but requires some setup).

The nice-to-haves

Project management. Trello (free) or Asana (free for small teams) can help if your team is managing multiple programs and juggling deadlines. But for a team of five, a shared Google Sheet or even a physical whiteboard might do the job.

Social media management. If you’re active on multiple social platforms, a tool like Buffer (free plan available) can save time by letting you schedule posts across platforms. But if you’re only on one or two platforms, just post directly.

Survey and feedback tools. Google Forms is free and handles most basic survey needs. If you need something more sophisticated, SurveyMonkey’s nonprofit pricing is reasonable.

Online donation platform. GiveNow is free for Australian charities. GoFundMe Charity is another option. If you want a branded donation page on your own website, Raisely is an Australian platform with nonprofit-friendly pricing.

What you probably don’t need

An enterprise CRM. Salesforce is incredible. It’s also incredibly complex. If you have fewer than 1,000 donors and no dedicated IT person, Salesforce will create more problems than it solves. I’ve seen small charities implement Salesforce, struggle with it for two years, and then go back to spreadsheets.

Marketing automation. Mailchimp’s free plan is fine for sending newsletters. You don’t need a $500/month marketing automation platform unless you’re running sophisticated multi-channel campaigns, and most small charities aren’t.

Custom-built software. Unless you have a genuinely unique operational need that no existing product addresses, don’t build custom software. It’s expensive to develop, expensive to maintain, and creates dependency on whoever built it.

The latest AI tools. I know everyone’s excited about AI, and there are genuinely useful applications. But a small charity’s priority should be getting the basics right before investing in AI. Some organisations are now working with groups like AI consultants in Sydney to identify where AI can add value, which makes sense for larger nonprofits — but if you’re a team of ten, get your CRM sorted first.

Integration matters more than features

The biggest technology mistake small charities make isn’t choosing the wrong tools. It’s choosing tools that don’t talk to each other. If your donor data lives in one system, your email marketing lives in another, and your financial data lives in a third, you’ll spend hours manually transferring data between them.

When evaluating any new tool, the first question should be: does it integrate with what we already use? A slightly less powerful tool that syncs with your existing systems is almost always better than a powerful tool that requires manual data entry.

The technology audit

If you’re not sure where to start, do a simple technology audit. List every tool your organisation currently uses. For each one, note: what it costs, who uses it, what it does, and whether it integrates with your other tools.

You’ll probably find some redundancy (two tools doing the same thing), some gaps (important functions with no tool support), and some opportunities to simplify.

The goal isn’t to have the most technology. It’s to have the right technology, used well, integrated properly, and affordable. For most small Australian charities, that’s a surprisingly short list.