Great Technology Resources For Non-profits
There is no doubt that leveraging technology can improve productivity and communication within any organization. But what if you are a charity or non-profit organization trying to stretch every dollar? How do you find the resources to earn and implement an Information Technology strategy on a budget? The good news is that many big businesses have discounted or free offerings for non-profits. Here is a quick guide to some of the best tools you can get for (almost) nothing to help your non-profit grow!
TechSoup: This great station acts as a clearinghouse for donations from major vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe, and many others. Since these large organizations each have separate eligibility policies (some will not donate to organizations which prosthelytize religion, others will not donate to private foundations), it can be difficult to know whether you can purchase advantage of their offerings or not. TechSoup acts as a mediator by registering information about non-profit organizations (they require you to submit your 501(c) certificate and other information about the nature of your operations) and then determining your eligibility for the products you request from their site. For this service they charge a nominal fee, but since it means you can get products such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop for pennies on the dollar, its well worth the small cost. Beyond software, TechSoup also offers hardware and consulting services as well as a wealth of free resources and how-to guides.
Salesforce.com: Thanks to a commitment by its founders, the Salesforce.com foundation commits 1% product, 1% time and 1% equity to making the world a better place. From this commitment comes a program which will allow you to net up to 10 licenses for their hosted CRM (customer relationship management) enterprise class solution for free! What’s better than free? It’s completely customizable and there is an active community of other non-profits who communicate about how they have implemented and modified the offering to meet their acquire needs.
Google Apps: Even if you have been living under a rock for the last 10 years, you’ve probably heard of Google. The 100lb gorilla of search engines has expanded their offerings to include a number of useful tools which they bundled together under the heading “Google Apps”. This suite includes an email application (gmail) which you can employ from your desktop through Microsoft Outlook (which you bought for nearly free from TechSoup!). In addition you can leverage their calendaring platform to share and update your team calendar, as well as their document management solution which lets you store and share documents. A small note of caution (before run out and upload all of your data) – keeping your documents “in the sky” with Google can be great for collaboration, but you still need to backup your data. Make sure you keep local copies of what’s stored on Google docs lest you lose internet access or something gets inadvertently deleted.
Hosted Exchange: Exchange is Microsoft’s flagship communication and collaboration server. It allows for far more robust email and calendaring management than you can get with Google Apps, and if you have more than 1-5 employees, going up a step to hosted Exchange can make a tremendous difference. It does cost more but it will give you great benefits such as a aid team dedicated to your account, native integration with the collaboration features in Microsoft Outlook, etc. Most Exchange hosting providers also offer hosted SharePoint which will allow you to store and share files in a far more robust manner than the simple interface offered by Google Apps. You can even tack on web site hosting and have everything managed in one region. Some providers of Hosted Exchange services include Intermedia, 123Together, and USA.net. Pricing and plans vary but you will be able to talk to a sales representative about what you need, and they can aid you design a package for you. The biggest benefit of a hosted solution is that you don’t have to own, maintain, upgrade or patch a server on your space. So you get all the benefits of enterprise class communications without the headaches and costs of owning the equipment.
Skype: This communication tool allows you to initiate video or audio chats with users around the world and both the application and the calls are free! If you have internet access and a microphone on your computer (most laptops have them built in) you can talk for free with any Skype user around the world. This can be a great arrangement to reduce your phone bills and keep in touch with your team.
Wordpress: Everyone needs a web location but building one can be a costly (and confusing) adventure. Web designers abound and all of them have different philosophies on scripting languages, platforms, and other things you really don’t want or need to know about. If you impartial need a few informational pages to get started, you can go to Wordpress, pick a template, and be up and running for free. Technically this site is for bloggers – people who want to post articles and journal online. However you can choose to turn off the commenting features if you want, and then it works just like a regular web page. You can use drag and fall tools to add pictures and text, or even fancy widgets like RSS feeds if you’re feeling extra tech savvy, but if you objective want the basics you can get a functional, attractive site set up in minutes. The best part is you can set aside your absorb domain name to your Wordpress region so it looks just like a regular web site. You don’t even have to know how to use a registrar – Wordpress will do it all for you. Just prance through a simple process from the dashboard, pay a small fee ($15 at the moment I am writing this) and the domain will be yours!
Foundation Center: This organization provides resources and links to a broad range of services to help foundations and non-profits speed their operations. They have an excellent collection of technology related resources including links to organizations that will help with everything from web design to technology strategy development.
Developing an IT strategy for a non-profit can be challenging. In an ideal world you would have a relationship with a trusted advisor who can help you review your choices and find out what’s moral for your organization. If you have suggestions of tools, send me an email and I’ll be happy to add them to this list!
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Filed under Email Hosting Solutions by on Dec 1st, 2010. 
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