Meet AssoConnect, a French startup that is building a software-as-a-service application to give you all the tools you need to manage your nonprofit organization (association in French).
The company just raised a $7.7 million (€7 million) funding round with XAnge and ISAI leading the round. Various business angels, such as Nicolas Macquin, Rodolphe Carle, Michaël Benabou, Thibaud Elzière and Phil Tesler are also participating in today’s funding round.
Many nonprofit organizations use tools and services that aren’t really designed for this type of organization. Some manage members in an Excel spreadsheet, waste a ton of time with accounting tasks and leave money on the table by making it hard to accept donations and memberships.
AssoConnect combines multiple services in its web interface. First, it lets you centralize information about your members in a single database. It acts as a light CRM, and you can create multiple groups of members depending on what they do in the organization.
Second, AssoConnect handles memberships and donations directly. You can create a form that interacts directly with your database to help new users join your organization. You also can create a donation module that can automatically generate tax forms. And you can create an online store if you’re selling goods.
If you don’t have a website already, you can use AssoConnect’s template-based website builder. You also can create events and email your members from AssoConnect using Mailgun.
Finally, the startup tries to generate accurate accounting reports based on donations, membership fees, ticket sales, etc. That’s why it makes sense to centralize everything through AssoConnect.
The service offers a free tier for organizations with 30 members or fewer. But you’ll have to pay a monthly subscription fee if you have higher needs. It’s a tough sell, given that nonprofit organizations usually don’t have a ton of money to spend on tools and services.
But the company has managed to convince 10,000 French organizations to switch to AssoConnect so far. Up next, AssoConnect wants to hire 80 people in 2020 and launch its service in the U.S.