Help desk software for nonprofits: bought once, run on a machine you already own
A membership renewal that went astray, a laptop that will not start at the drop-in centre, a volunteer locked out of the rota system, a donor asking why the receipt has not arrived. At most nonprofits these go to whoever is in the office and get answered when someone remembers. QuerySolv turns that into a nonprofit ticketing system with an owner, a clock and a history for every request, on a Windows machine you own, licensed once per installation instead of per seat per month.
- One installation serves IT, facilities, membership and volunteer coordination as separate departments, each with its own mailbox, its own request forms and its own agents.
- Staff, volunteers, members and the people you serve need no account. They e-mail or fill in a form, get a ticket number, and follow the request from any browser.
- Licensed once per installation. The bill does not follow headcount, part-timers or the volunteer who covers Thursdays. The Free edition runs a two-agent desk at no cost and with no expiry.
- Tickets, attachments and e-mail stay on your own server. What the service sends us is short and listed on the security page.
Why per-seat pricing is the wrong shape for a nonprofit
The desk changes with the rota
Under per-agent pricing every volunteer who ever answers a ticket is a monthly line, or they share one login and the history stops saying who did what. A per-installation license carries the agent count you choose, each person has their own account, and nothing is metered month by month.
Money arrives in grants, once
A grant funds a thing. A subscription outlives the grant and becomes next year's problem for a treasurer who did not choose it. A one-time purchase is a line a funder can see the end of.
The data is other people's
Member records, beneficiary names and donor correspondence are in those tickets. On your own server they are covered by your own policy and your own country's law, not by a vendor's terms and a data centre you have never seen.
How a nonprofit help desk is set up in QuerySolv
| The moment | What happens | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| A member e-mails membership@ about a renewal that never arrived | A ticket is created in the Membership department, an acknowledgment goes back with the ticket number, and the reply thread stays on the ticket | The Membership queue; the member's portal view, with no account to create |
| A volunteer in the charity shop reports a broken till on the "something is broken" form | A ticket is created in Facilities with the form's fields and the photo they attached; the facilities lead is assigned | The Facilities queue and the volunteer's e-mail, which carries the ticket number |
| The finance lead asks IT for access to the accounts system | The request lands in IT; the agent answers from the internal knowledge article on who may have what, and the answer is on the record | The ticket history, and the internal article only agents can see |
| A trustee asks what the office actually spends its time on | The Overview and Demand & Forecasting reports for the last 90 days are exported to CSV for the board pack | The reports screen; the topic series on justifying resources with ticket data shows how to present them |
| The volunteer coordinator moves on | Their account is disabled and kept for history; every ticket they handled stays exactly as it was. Tickets are never deleted | The audit trail on every ticket, and a successor who can read what was promised to whom |
The features a small nonprofit actually uses
Forms shaped by each department
A membership query, a room booking, a broken-equipment report, an expenses question. Each department designs its own request forms, and the form's fields arrive on the ticket.
One knowledge base, two audiences
Public articles answer the questions everyone asks ("how do I claim expenses?", "where is the key safe?"). Internal articles hold the procedures only agents see.
Answers in the organisation's voice
Shared predefined replies keep the answer to a common question identical whoever sends it, volunteer or staff. Optional AI drafts, with your own provider, are grounded in your own articles and always reviewed.
Numbers for the board
Seven question-led reports over the last 7, 30 or 90 days, with CSV export and a print layout. What people ask, how long answers take, and which questions deserve an article instead.
The Free edition, or one payment
The Free edition
- Two active agents, with the requester portal, e-mail intake, departments and permissions, predefined replies, reports and the knowledge base. No expiry and no trial clock.
- For a nonprofit with one administrator and one volunteer on the desk, this is the product. See what the Free edition includes.
The Professional edition
- More agents, service levels with countdowns and breach alerts, live chat, social direct messages, Active Directory sign-in, the REST API and webhooks, AI drafting and your own branding on the portal.
- Bought once per installation, with the agent count you choose. Nothing is metered afterwards. The price is on the buy page.
Things to know before you rely on it
- It is not a donor database or a CRM. There are no donor records, pledges or campaigns. It records who asked for what and what was done, and links to the system that holds the rest.
- It is not casework software. A client's case file, outcomes and safeguarding notes are the wrong shape for a help desk ticket, and QuerySolv does not pretend otherwise.
- The server side is Windows only. A retired office PC runs a small desk; requesters need nothing but a browser or an e-mail client. The limits page has the full list.
- Tickets are never deleted and nobody can remove one. That is the audit trail a trustee wants, and it is also a retention fact for your data policy.
Give the office a queue before the next board meeting
Download the installer and point the office mailbox at it. The trial runs for 30 days with every Professional feature and unlimited agents; keep the Free edition afterwards if two agents is all you need.
Download Installer with Free Trial