Where Can I Find Discounted Hardware, Software, Web and Consulting Services?
As the number of nonprofits getting online continues to grow, many companies have seized the opportunity to design Web-based tools and services for the nonprofit market. These products are often offered at a discount or for free. Our partner, TechSoup has negotiated and compiled special nonprofit discounts for a wide variety of software, hardware, and other useful technology resources.
E-mail | Internet Access | Mailing Lists | Online Chat | Web Hosting
Web Tools | Program Management
Free tools, such as those below, are great because, well, they're free. But you also get what you pay for, or in this case, what you don't pay for. Free services are usually advertisement-supported, with banner ads selected by the service appearing on your free e-mail and on the top and/or bottom of your free Web page. (Some free services will remove the banner ads for nonprofits.)
Try StargazerNET.net's Emporium for free or discounted computer resources.
Most free e-mail accounts are Web-based, meaning that you must have some access to the Internet in order to access your e-mail. Be sure to check out their privacy policies and understand what they do or don't do with your e-mail address. The services listed share most of the following features: address books, calendars, e-mail filtering, junkmail blocking, auto-responders, personalized newsclipping services. Advertising usually appears at the bottom of sent messages. Use caution when setting up a free e-mail account for your organization, since there is no guarantee for how long these services will be offered.
These Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide free access to the Internet in exchange for demographic information. While they say that they will not sell or share your name or e-mail address without your permission, they do require you to provide some information for their advertisers. Be sure to read their privacy policies carefully before disclosing any personal information.
- Whenever using free Internet tools it's important to make sure that they serve your needs. If the free tools become so cumbersome that they create more work for your organization, you may want to rethink using them. Read Free ISPs are Not Really Free from Techsoup before you choose free Web hosting or e-mail services.
- If you decide that free service is right for your organization, check out Web Access Without the Monthly Bill, a review of free ISPs from the New York Times.
- NetZero
These services offer both e-mail delivery to a list of e-mail addresses that you specify, as well as a Web-based archive of all messages posted to the list. They also include additional tools such as file-sharing and events calendars.
These tools can be used while connected to the Internet to send instant messages to the computer screen of someone else currently connected to the Internet. This can be a very effective and inexpensive way to communicate quickly with remote colleagues. Caution! The following services are actually free software that you download onto your system. Before downloading any software from the Internet, you should make sure that (a) you have up-to-date virus protection software installed on your computer, and (b) that the downloadable software will not conflict with or otherwise disrupt your computer operating system or local area network.
These services offer both easy-to-use templates for creating a Web site as well as the ability to upload your own pages that you create yourself. Advertisements appear at the top and/or bottom of your free Web pages.
- As your Web site grows, you may want to consider adding a search engine to allow your visitors to find what they are looking for more easily. Adding Search to Your Site, from Webmonkey, lists some of the free search engine options and describes how they work.
- Bobby reports on whether or not your Web site is accessible to people with disabilities and suggests solutions for making it moreso. (Want to know more about Web accessibility? Check out the Web Accessibility Initiative guidelines.
- Add interactivity to your site through tools including polls, guestbooks, forums and surveys from Freetools.com.
- LinkPopularity.com reports on how many Web sites link to your own.
- In addition to housing a library of free fonts and images, Media Builder allows you to make instant buttons and animated banners for your Web site.
- The Privacy Policy Statement Generator from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will generate a privacy policy statement based on questions you answer about your organization.
- Incorporating a discussion forum into your organization's Web site can be a wonderful way to engage your members and supporters. Check out this list of free forums: Remotely Hosted Applications: Bulletin Boards.
- Before investing in any forum software or service, see the Online Community Report's 30 Features to Consider When Choosing Forum Software.
- Zoomerang allows you to create and administer e-mail surveys for free. You customize the surveys online and the results are tabulated on Zoomerang's Web site.
- TechRock's Ebase is a free information and communications management system designed just for nonprofits -- a database to organize membership and donation information, combined with a communications tool to run e-mail campaigns, merging personalized information into bulk e-mail.
- TeamOn is a suite of free Web-based communication tools including e-mail, group calendars and intranet.
- Innovation Network's Point K Learning Center offers collaborative tools and resources for assessment, planning, and program improvement. Thousands of nonprofits, funders, and consultants worldwide use Point K for program planning, evaluation, and capacity building.
- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's GIS mapping software, Community 2020 is free to HUD grantees; $250-$300 to others.
- PolicyMaker is a Windows program for policy advocacy and political analysis. PolicyMaker Lite is downloadable for free; full version is $89.
- Calculators Online Center, a site maintained by the University of California, Irvine, is a collection of over 10,000 online calculators that can help you figure out almost anything including how to calculate your office space needs.
|
 |
 |
General Nonprofit Resources
|
 |
|