# thedatabank, gbc

> thedatabank, gbc is a Saint Paul software company that has spent nearly three decades building cloud CRM, fundraising, advocacy and communications tools for nonprofits and government agencies. Founded in 1998 by Chris Hanson and Mark Paquette, it was among the first to sell database software to nonprofits as a hosted service, and it later reincorporated as a general benefit corporation so its social mission is written into its charter, not just its marketing.

- **Founded:** 1998
- **Headquarters:** Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
- **Founders:** Chris Hanson (CEO & Co-founder), Mark Paquette (CTO & Co-founder)
- **Team size:** About 7-9 employees
- **Products:** dBot AI Assistant, Databank Chatbot for Nonprofits, Databank Essentials, Databank Fundraising, Databank Advocacy
- **Notable:** Founded 1998 as one of the first SaaS CRM platforms built for nonprofits, First company to create integrated advocacy software tied to an online constituent database, Reincorporated as a general benefit corporation on January 2, 2015

## Products & services

- **dBot AI Assistant** — An AI assistant built into the CRM (launched October 2024) that handles content creation for email, social, direct mail and text, does data analysis and pattern recognition, generates images, and supports natural-language and voice search of constituent data.
- **Databank Chatbot for Nonprofits** — A website chatbot trained on an organization's own site content for 24/7 multilingual visitor support and donation-page linking, powered by OpenAI models with a safeguard that the org's data is not used to train those models. Around $20/month.
- **Databank Essentials** — An affordable, AI-powered entry CRM starting at $99/month for up to 10,000 contacts, with a 14-day free trial and no long-term contract - aimed at smaller nonprofits getting off spreadsheets.
- **Databank Fundraising** — Everything in Essentials plus advanced relationship tracking, bundled data entry and a Form Builder for gift processing and donor management.
- **Databank Advocacy** — Everything in Fundraising plus award-winning advocacy tools (powered by The SoftEdge) - legislator form-fill, automatic district append, representative matching and reporting.
- **Multi-Channel Communications** — Email, SMS and direct-mail outreach run from the same database, so supporter messaging draws on live constituent data.
- **Hybrid Custom Software** — Custom-configured databases and constituent portals built around an organization's specific workflows rather than forcing the org into a template.
- **Data Services** — NCOA change-of-address processing, political district append, email verification, duplicate search, plus data migration, clean-up, documentation and staff training.

## Achievements

- Founded 1998 as one of the first SaaS CRM platforms built for nonprofits
- First company to create integrated advocacy software tied to an online constituent database
- Reincorporated as a general benefit corporation on January 2, 2015
- Certified B Corporation and multiple-time B Corp Best For The World award recipient
- Three-time Best Company to Work For honoree
- Made in Minnesota certified and Minnesota Tech Diversity badge holder

## Latest updates

- **2024-10** — Launched dBot, an AI assistant integrated into the nonprofit CRM for content creation, data analysis, image generation and natural-language search.
- **2025-01** — Released the Databank Chatbot for Nonprofits, an OpenAI-powered website chatbot trained on an organization's own content.
- **2026-07** — Marked its milestone with an anniversary celebration promotion pointing toward nearly 30 years in business.

## Links

- Website: https://thedatabank.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/thedatabank
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/thedatabank
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/thedatabank

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/thedatabank-gbc
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-21