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Technology Help in a Down Economy

Posted by Scott Stadum.


From Flickr user prasan.naik With the current state of the economy it's easy to understand the need for nonprofits to scale back expenses. Often an organization's website is the first casualty. Through deliberate cuts or neglect, websites often take a real beating.

Unfortunately many don't realize that this doesn't have to be the case. There are many great tools and services, as well as nonprofits, that can help organizations keep their sites running smoothly.

I'm reminded of a post that I wrote for a nonprofit that I volunteer with, outlining the mostly free resources we used to get the organization up and running. There are many great tools with little or no cost to our organization; from Wordpress to Skype to Google Apps, we're able to keep our site and the nonprofit humming along.

Grassroots.org, a New York City-based nonprofit, provides free web and technology tools to over 2,000 nonprofits. Included in their services are SEO consultation, web hosting, web building, graphic design, and website design.

Through Techsoup.org, your nonprofit may qualify for free software to assist with your operations. VerticalResponse, a tool for sending out mass mailings, and SalesForce are both free to nonprofits, but with certain limitations.

Of course you can use Idealist to find technical volunteers and DesignismConnects, a partner of ours, is useful for finding creative types to help with your needs.

There are a multitude of services and nonprofits I've missed here, but you get the idea. Outline your needs, prioritize your expenses and search for the things you might not be able to afford. There's a lot of help for the nonprofit sector online.