IT Resources for Non-Profits

Before I got involved in doing the management hokey pokey, I was (and still occasionally am) an IT consultant. Over the years I have worked with many organizations in all sorts of industries, and I accumulated a pile of resources specifically for non-profits. It’s tough to build an IT strategy when you want to spend all of your money to support your mission, so many non-profits lack both the resources and the understanding of how to leverage IT within their organizations. Here’s my top 5 list of low cost/free resources for non-profits:

1. TechSoup – A clearinghouse for donations from all of the big software, hardware and service vendors, this site does the legwork to evaluate your organization’s eligibility, and then sends you the product for a nominal administrative fee. For cents on the dollar you get all the software you need to run your non-profit like a real business.

2. Salesforce.com – The Salesforce Foundation commits 1% product, 1% equity and 1% time to making the world a better place. Not bad! What you can get is up to 10 licenses of their enterprise class CRM (customized for non-profits) for free.

3. Google Apps – Not ready for full blown hosted Exchange yet but want email and calendaring? Google Apps is a great place to start. You can share documents, centralize your calendaring and get email on the go – even to your mobile device!

4. – This is not a shameless pitch to be on the Freshly Pressed page – I swear! I truly believe that for a small organization, using WordPress as web hosting is a great way to go. You don’t have to hire a designer, you can edit your content on the fly, and you can use a pre-built template so it all looks professional from day 1. Add the ability to buy your own URL without ever learning what a registrar is and you are in non-profit heaven!

5. Skype: 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 way to reduce your phone bills and keep in touch with your team.

The rest of the article is here – I would love to hear thoughts, comments or additions to the list!