The Steward™ platform · DRM
Know every donor. Just ask Stewie.
A donor relationship manager — DRM, not a sales CRM wearing a nonprofit badge — and the one small organizations can actually afford. Accounts, contacts and gift pipeline, acknowledgments, statements and IRS-ready receipts, newsletters and reporting in one place, run by Stewie™: a built-in AI Chief of Staff who answers any donor question in seconds and does the follow-up work you used to hand to a data analyst.
Stewie™ AI Chief of Staff · included
StewardReach™ donor growth · built inLive for two organizations13,000+ donor accounts under managementQuickBooks & Zeffy (nonprofits)Your own cloud account
The breakout feature · Stewie™, Chief of Staff
The DRM you talk to.Every other donor database is a filing cabinet with a search box. No donor CRM ships this at any price. StewardConnect ships with Stewie™ — a purpose-built AI Chief of Staff that commands the whole platform in plain English. It knows your entire giving history, answers any donor question in seconds, spots the relationships that are slipping, drafts the outreach, and sends a morning briefing of what needs attention before you’ve had coffee. Major CRMs costing three times as much don’t ship anything like him.
Easy asks and hard ones, same sentence: “who should I call today?” — or “import this and merge the duplicates.”
“Who gave last December but not this year?” “What came in by ACH last month?” Stewie queries your real records and answers with the numbers — no report to build, no filter to learn.
Lapsing relationships, first-time givers who deserve a call, an unusual month — surfaced as Smart Insights and in a daily briefing, every morning, unprompted.
“Tag everyone who gave over $500 this quarter and email them.” Stewie tags, segments, emails and toggles automations from the chat — and shows you exactly what will happen. Nothing runs without a yes. “Send everyone their giving statement” is one sentence in January, not a month of mail merge.
Appeal letters, prayer updates, major-donor notes, newsletter copy — ministry-hearted outreach drafted from your own data, then finished in Canva through the Creative Studio.
Compared · where StewardConnect wins
The established donor platforms are good databases. None of them ships an assistant that reads your live records, answers in plain English, and does the follow-up with a preview first — none of them will run inside your own cloud account, and none of them go live in days — onboarding elsewhere runs four weeks to a month and a half, coordinated across five departments and teams. Here it is one person, set up with you. And when January comes, every donor’s giving statement goes out together, on one automation — not weeks of manual sends to thousands of donors.
Scroll sideways — 8 platforms compared, Levitate last →
 StewardConnect™DRM | Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud | Bloomerang | DonorPerfect | Neon CRM | Little Green Light | Blackbaud RE NXT | Levitate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI that answers questions from your live donor data | Stewie™, on every plan | Agentforce — a paid add-on | Prospect AI & a writing assistant | “Practivated” practice conversations (Plus/Pro) | — | — | Not listed | AI writes emails; it is not a donor database |
| AI that does the work — tag, segment, email, toggle automations — with a preview first | Yes — nothing runs without a yes | Build it yourself in Agentforce | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Morning briefing of who needs a call | Every day, unprompted | — | — | — | — | — | — | Reminders to keep in touch |
| Automation switchboard — the touches that build trust, each one a single toggle | Built in — flip it once, it runs itselfInstant thank-you + IRS receipt, new-account welcome, first-gift anniversary, lapsing re-engagement, monthly update, year-end statements — ready-made, on every plan, no builder and no consultant. | Build it yourselfFlow Builder, usually with a consultant | Email sequences | Add-on modules | Workflows on higher tiers | Mail merges, run by hand | Configurable, with services | Keep-in-touch cadences |
| Voice capture — speak a note, get a filed documentStewardScribe™, part of the same platform | Hold a button, talk, let goSeconds later it’s cleaned up and filed as a finished document in your own Google Drive — from the parking lot, before the details fade. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Outcomes & grant-ready reportingStewardPulse™, part of the same platform | One intake → a funder-ready report, one clickDonor platforms track gifts; grants are won on outcomes. The same family of tools reports both. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Runs in your cloud account; option to own it outright | Yes — your Cloudflare account, or a one-time license | Vendor-hosted | Vendor-hosted | Vendor-hosted | Vendor-hosted | Vendor-hosted | Vendor-hosted | Vendor-hosted |
| How you pay | One flat plan, unlimited users, Stewie included | Per user, per month; AI is extra | Priced by record count | Tiered; QuickBooks on higher tiers | Priced by revenue | Priced by constituent count | Enterprise contract | Per user, per month |
| QuickBooks & ZeffyZeffy is for nonprofits only | Both, included | Via AppExchange | Integrations | QuickBooks on Plus/Pro | Integrations | Integrations | Integrations | — |
| Donor growth — a share link in every newsletter and a branded sign-up page that feeds new names straight into your donor listStewardReach™, part of the same platform | Built in — your supporters bring the next supporterSign-up page in your colors, automatic welcome, tagged by source, bot-protected, one-click unsubscribe. | — | Sign-up forms | Online forms | Forms on higher tiers | — | Forms, with services | Sign-up forms |
| Creative Studio — AI-drafted letters and newsletters, designed in Canva | Included | — | Writing assistant | — | — | — | — | AI-drafted emails |
| When the office loses internet, power, or a person | Nothing changesNothing is installed on any computer. Receipts, automations, backups and the morning briefing run themselves on Cloudflare’s global edge; you pick up on a phone. It does not depend on one building or one person to keep running. | Cloud-hosted; work resumes when you can log back in | Cloud-hosted; work resumes when you can log back in | Cloud-hosted; work resumes when you can log back in | Cloud-hosted; work resumes when you can log back in | Cloud-hosted; work resumes when you can log back in | Cloud-hosted; work resumes when you can log back in | Cloud-hosted; work resumes when you can log back in |
| Year-start giving statements — every donor, all at once | One automation, one morningEvery donor’s annual giving statement is generated from their real gift history and sent together at the start of the year — email or print — with the IRS language already on it. Not weeks of manual sends to thousands of donors. | Build a batch in Marketing Cloud or a partner app | Batch letters, mail merge, sent by you | Batch letters, mail merge, sent by you | Batch letters, mail merge, sent by you | Batch letters, mail merge, sent by you | Batch receipts and letters, sent by you | — |
| Who answers when you call | The person who built itNo ticket queue, no tier two, no offshore chat. The builder is the support line — and knows your setup by name. | Ticketed support; partners for the rest | Support team, by tier | Support team, by tier | Support team, by tier | Small support team | Enterprise support contract | Support team |
| Onboarding | Days — one person sets it up with youYour list imported, your brand applied, one training call. No implementation team, no committee. | Months with an implementation partnerseveral departments and vendor teams | Typically four to six weeksonboarding package; several teams involved | Typically four to six weeksonboarding package; several teams involved | Typically four to six weeksonboarding package; several teams involved | Self-serveyou do the setup yourself | Months with an implementation partnerseveral departments and vendor teams | Self-serve with an onboarding call |
Competitor details are summarized in good faith from each vendor’s public materials in September 2026; features and packaging change, so confirm before you rely on them. Salesforce, Bloomerang, DonorPerfect, Neon CRM, Little Green Light, Blackbaud and Levitate are trademarks of their respective owners and are not affiliated with Stafford Consulting.
Why it’s different
Stewie is the headline, but he stands on a complete donor relationship manager: records, pipeline, acknowledgments and receipts, reporting, newsletters, creative and integrations — all in one place, all his to command, and live in production for two organizations.
Welcome, birthday, anniversary, lapsed-donor and thank-you flows fire on their own; a gift moving to “won” triggers the acknowledgment without anyone touching it. Live automations flag lapsing donors, thank-you pacing and the significant donors who have gone quiet for 90 days — the platform tells you where to spend the next hour.
Every gift gets a thank-you in your voice, on your letterhead, on schedule. Year-end statements and gift receipts go out branded with your logo. Sequences handle the follow-ups; the email outbox shows exactly what went out and when.
Accounts, contacts, households and designations, with duplicates caught before they multiply. Keep the giving tools you already use — Zeffy, the nonprofit-only no-fee page, imports its donation history automatically — and stay in step with QuickBooks.
Raised, gifts, new donors, recurring, per-giver, lapsing, largest gift, first-time gifts, by channel, by designation — on one screen, for any period.
A newsletter engine with merge fields and a smart calendar, plus appeal letters, prayer updates and social posts drafted from your own data and designed in Canva Professional with your brand. Ministry-quality content in minutes.
Cloudflare Workers and D1 under your own account. Fast everywhere, scales to tens of thousands of records, and the data is yours — not sitting in a vendor’s tenant. The same codebase was stood up as a branded tenant for a second organization in days, not months.
How it works
Import donors and gifts from QuickBooks or a spreadsheet. Duplicates are flagged and merged; households and designations come with them.
Set the thank-you, the receipt and the follow-up sequence once. From then on every gift is answered without anyone remembering to do it.
Open Stewie and ask. Lapsed donors, year-over-year by channel, who to call this week — answered from live records, with the numbers to back it up.
Typical time from a QuickBooks export to a working CRM: one working day.
What’s inside
StewardReach™ — the sign-up page and share link that grow your list.StewieThe Chief of Staff button in the corner. Ask anything; approve anything.
StewardReach™ — the donor-growth engine inside StewardConnect
Your supporters bring you the next supporter.Most donor software helps you manage the donors you already have. StewardReach helps you find the next ones. Every newsletter you send ends with a quiet “share with a friend” link. Every friend who clicks lands on a sign-up page in your ministry’s own colors. Every new name goes straight into your donor list, welcomed automatically and tagged so you always know who came in through a friend. Nothing to export, no second tool, no separate campaign — growth becomes a side effect of the communication you already do.
Powered by StewardReach™ · part of StewardConnect™ · © Stafford Consulting
Who it’s for
One person often runs development, receipts and the newsletter. StewardConnect does the remembering so they can do the relationships.
Everything a Salesforce build would give you, without the consultant, the licenses, or the six-month rollout.
Donors on one continent, the work on another. The second organization on the platform is an international missions nonprofit.
Answers in a sentence, not a dashboard tour. What came in, who is lapsing, what needs a call.
QuickBooks stays the ledger and your giving page stays your giving page. StewardConnect stays the relationship record, and keeps them in step.
One platform, one branded tenant per congregation or ministry, stood up in days — or licensed outright to own.
The acknowledgment goes out whether or not it was a busy week.
Privacy & ownership
The database and the application run under your organization’s account. You hold the keys.
Acknowledgments and newsletters send from your own sending domain, with SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up properly.
No third-party marketing pixels, no data brokers. The donor list is the ministry’s and stays that way.
Weekly automatic backups, receipts and automations that keep going when the office is dark, and a written continuity plan so a successor needs the plan and an afternoon — not anyone’s logins. Every record exports to CSV; if you ever leave, you leave with everything.
Part of the Steward™ family
StewardConnect™ is one of the tools built for ministries and small organizations that keep their own infrastructure — it runs in your accounts, and it talks to the rest of the family.
FAQ
A CRM is built to move a sale through a pipeline. A donor relationship manager is built to keep a relationship alive across years of giving — acknowledgments, receipts, lapsing, the annual letter, the call that should happen this week. StewardConnect is the second kind, with Stewie doing the remembering.
No, and it is not trying to. QuickBooks stays the accounting system of record, and however people give — Stripe, PayPal, Square, your church app, a no-fee page like Zeffy (nonprofits only), or a check in the offering plate — that stays exactly where it is. StewardConnect is the relationship record: who gave, why, how they were thanked, and what to do next. Giving history comes in from whatever you already use and stays in step with the ledger.
It is running in production with more than thirteen thousand donor accounts and server-side pagination, on Cloudflare’s edge. It will not slow down as you grow.
It is an LLM assistant wired to your live donor data. You ask a question in English; it queries the records and answers with the numbers. It can also surface insights unprompted — a lapsing major donor, an unusual month.
Yes. It is a web application with a normal sidebar; if you can use Gmail you can use this. Setup, import and the first automations are done with you, not handed to you.
Far less than a licensed CRM per seat. Pricing depends on setup and the size of the import — the short version is a build fee and a modest monthly amount for hosting and support. Ask.
The donor relationship manager you can actually afford.
StewardFlow™
StewardPulse™
StewardPlanner™
StewardScribe™